Second Grade (6-8)

Welcome to Second Grade!

Your children are developing amazing new skills! Below we cover the areas of physical, personal, social, and cognitive development. This page is designed to help you recognize the new and different behaviors your child, or students, may be exhibiting and what those mean for school life and home life.

Physical Development

  • During the elementary school years, physical development is fairly steady for most children. Children become taller, leaner, and stronger, so they are better able to master sports and games.A particular child can be much larger or smaller than average and still be perfectly healthy, because children at this age are very aware of physical differences but are not the most tactful people.





Second graders relish the challenge of new, more advanced movement patterns.

  • Your child should be able to:
        • Put together two or three locomotor movements to form a patter (skip, skip, gallop, gallop, jump, jump, repeat)
        • Develop their own movement pattern using the locomotor movements
        • Perform non-locomotor movements in a variety of situations (twisting, spinning, turning, balancing, weight transfer)

Recess at this age helps reset the brain for the remainder of the day. It affords a time to rest, play, imagine, think, move, and socialize. Students are more attentive and better able to perform cognitively.



Personal Development

Second graders have propensity to worry. They can worry about nightmares, the dark, their clothes, their homework, or their stomach aches. They hate making mistakes, not finishing tasks, and especially losing.

Second graders are...

  • Talkative and enjoy explaining their thoughts
  • Enjoy socializing and working in groups
  • Physically active
  • Highly social, energetic, and competitive



Social Development

In second grade children begin to explore new personalities and narrow down their friend groups. They tend to be influenced by their peers and they start to gain awareness of how others perceive them. Secrets become a big thing in school between friends which can cause drama between friend groups. Children will also have a lot of sudden outbursts where they are find one minute and upset the next.

Milestones

  • Insecurity
  • Mood Swings
  • Enjoy collaboration
  • Influenced by peers
  • Can step foot in "other peoples shoes"
  • Aware of others perceptions of them
  • Share secrets

Implications for School

  • Enjoy being on teams or clubs
  • Narrowing down friend group
  • Friendships easily changed
  • Trying new personas

Implications for Home

Transitioning between school and home environments can be taxing for young children. They expend extensive mental and emotional energy at school, and arrive home drained. This can cause second graders to be emotional and have sudden outbursts. They may break down seemingly out of nowhere, and have sudden outbursts after school as well.

To handle these outbursts as a parent here is a helpful link!

Cognitive Development

When children reach second grade, their cognitive development grows in leaps and bounds. Second grade cognitive development is characterized especially by improved problem-solving skills, the ability to plan ahead, and a rapidly expanding vocabulary. They understand of the use of symbols, such as numbers and letters, and the concept of time. Teachers and parents can adopt specific strategies to support second graders as they continue to grow.

Cognitive Milestones

Second graders experience:

  • understanding cause and effect
  • increased problem-solving skills
  • ability to plan ahead
  • expanding vocabulary
  • looking for the reasons behind occurrences
  • easily motivated
  • enjoy being challenged
  • understand cultural tools and symbols (ie. numbers, shapes, letters)
  • knowledge of abstract concepts (ie. time)
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Implications for School

Tips for teachers:

  • encourage creative writing and narrative
  • expound on complex math concepts (ie. multiplication, division)
  • give open-ended assignments
  • expect high-quality finished products
  • encourage collaboration
  • emphasize the importance of process as well as product

How Parents Can Help

During this stage, children are hungry for independence and a deeper understanding of the world. They become frustrated by their limitations and often become argumentative. Parents can support their children and their teachers by helping them understand how to resolve conflict with problem solving. Visit this site for a helpful video!

Sources