In Grade 2, multilingual learners in ELD/ESL classes continue to build their skills as readers, writers, speakers, and listeners while exploring meaningful topics from science and social studies. ESL class does not replace classroom instruction—rather, it supports and strengthens language development so students can participate fully and confidently in all subjects. Grade 2 unit topics include: Communities and Their Helpers; Animal Adaptations; and The Importance of Water.
Our Multilingual (ML) teachers implement an ESL Curriculum using National Geographic Reach Higher resources to provide rich stories, visuals, and informational texts, and they design lessons with the WIDA Standards Framework, which guides how students grow in social and academic English across listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Students will explain what a community is and why it is important.
Students will describe important places in a community, such as hospitals, schools, and parks.
Students will talk and write about different jobs people do to help the community.
Students will compare communities to see how people live, work, and learn in different places.
Students will use social studies and community words in their speaking and writing.
How can I explain what a community is and why it matters?
How can I describe important places in my community?
How can I talk about the jobs people do to help others?
How are communities the same and different around the world?
How can I use new words to share what I know about communities?
What does the word “community” mean to you?
Can you name some important places in our community and explain why they are important?
What jobs do people in a community do to help others?
How is our community the same as or different from another community you learned about?
What new words did you learn in class to describe communities?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about communities and helping others.
Pause and Ask: What did the people in this story do to help their community? What places or jobs are important in this story? How is this community the same or different from ours?
Community Walk and Talk
Take a walk in your neighborhood or look at a picture of your town.
Point out important places (school, library, fire station, store, park) and community helpers (cook, doctor, teacher, nurse, firefighter)
Have your child name them in your home language or English, and talk about how each place and person helps the community.
Compare Communities
Talk about another place you have lived, visited, or seen in books or videos.
Ask: How is that community the same as ours? How is it different?
Students will explain what an adaptation is and why animals need them to survive.
Students will describe how physical features (like wings, fur, or teeth) and behaviors (like migration or hibernation) help animals meet their needs.
Students will compare and contrast how different animals use adaptations in their habitats.
Students will identify key details in texts and diagrams to support their ideas about survival.
Students will use scientific vocabulary to share explanations about animals and their environments.
How can I explain what an adaptation is?
How can I describe how animals’ body parts and behaviors help them survive?
How can I compare how different animals use adaptations in their habitats?
How can I find and use details from texts and diagrams to support my ideas?
Why are adaptations important for animals in the natural world?
What does the word “adaptation” mean?
Can you describe an animal and one of its adaptations?
How does this adaptation help the animal find food, water, or shelter?
How are two animals the same and different in their adaptations?
What new science words did you learn to describe animals and their survival?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about animals and adaptations.
Ask: What adaptations helped the animal survive? How were the animals in the text the same or different from each other?
Compare and Contrast
Choose two animals (like a bird and a fish).
Make a quick chart of, or talk about their adaptations: How do they move? How do they eat? How do they stay safe?
Use words like both, same, different, but.
Habitat Match
Look at pictures of habitats (forest, desert, ocean, Arctic).
Ask: Which animals live here? How do their adaptations help them survive?
Students will explain why water is important for all living things.
Students will describe where water comes from and how people around the world get it.
Students will understand the water cycle and how nature recycles water.
Students will compare how stories, experiments, and informational texts explain water.
Students will use speaking and writing to share their own explanations and stories about the importance of water.
Where does water come from?
How do people in different places get the water they need?
How can I explain how the water cycle works?
How do authors use stories, science, and facts to help us understand water?
Why is clean, healthy water important for communities around the world?
Why is water important for people, animals, and plants?
Where does the water we use at home come from?
How do people in other countries get water?
What happens in the water cycle?
What new words did you learn to talk about water and the environment?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about water.
Ask: How do people or animals get water in the text?; Why is water important for life and communities?
Water Use Journal
Keep track of how your family uses water in one day (drinking, cooking, washing, plants).
Have your child draw or list these uses in your home language or English.
Community Connection
Visit a local river, pond, or even a water fountain.
Talk about how water supports life in your community.