Second Grade Learning Basket Activities

Second grade is a time for exploration and skill-building, and learning baskets offer our family the perfect balance between structured lessons and child-led freedom. I love learning baskets because they make it easy to take school materials with us wherever we go, and they give my kids a specific place to keep everything they need organized and ready. They also allow my kids the freedom to choose some of their own learning materials each week, while still practicing important things like reading, math, and being creative. In this post, I’m excited to share some of the learning basket activities and materials that are working best for our second grader this school year.

Learning Basket Essentials

Some materials stay in our learning baskets all year long. These include things like workbooks, art supplies, notebooks, and math or reading tools we use often. Keeping these basics in our learning baskets makes it easy for my kids to grab what they need.

Clipboard Folio

With five pocket folders, one for each day of the week, this clipboard folio helps us easily organize and plan out the week’s work. A blank notebook in the back serves as a handy scratchpad for math problems. The clipboard itself lets her complete worksheets or writing assignments wherever we are, giving her the flexibility to learn on the go.

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Daily Planner for Kids

I also keep a daily planner in my daughter’s learning basket to help her track her progress and see what she’s accomplished each day. I love this planner for its features: a daily to-do list to keep her organized, a space to spark creativity, and sections for reflecting on what she’s grateful for and noting acts of kindness. I think it’s a wonderful tool for building good habits and staying motivated.

Kraft Notebooks

We’re always able to find a use for these simple Kraft notebooks. My kids are currently using 3 each: one for their science notebook, one for a nature journal, and another for a personal spelling dictionary.

Composition Journal

My kids use these composition journals for most of their language arts activities, including their daily grammar exercises, Folk Tale Tuesday, Making Words spelling activities, written narrations, and more.

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Pencil Case

We also keep a pencil case inside our learning baskets. It’s stocked with essentials like scissors, mini highlighters, an eraser, and a variety of pencils and pens, so everything is ready and within reach for any activity.

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Colored Pencils

In the past, we kept our colored pencils in jars and used them as needed. This year, I decided to include a pack of Prismacolor pencils in each of my kids’ baskets. I love the slim metal storage case, which keeps everything organized and protected, and the pencils themselves are great.

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Reading-Literature: Second Reader

Each of my children reads a new piece of prose or poetry from a reader every day. My second grader is currently enjoying Free & Treadwell’s Second Reader. She either reads the selection aloud, followed by a discussion, or reads it independently and then provides a narration.

Aesop in Cursive: A Copywork Book for Kids

Once a week, my daughter will read aloud one of these fables, provide a narration, and then complete the copywork exercise.

Math Activities

Target Number: Money Math

My daughter uses these task cards to quickly review how to add up multiple coins to reach a certain target number. Each card features coins that can be added in multiple ways to reach the number. You can read more about this activity and some others we’ve implemented to teach money math in our blog post Teaching Children to Count Money: Fun Activities for Kids.

Dozens of Dice

For this activity, my daughter rolls between 15-25 dice. She forms equal groups and calculates the total number of dots for each group. For example, she may have four 4’s, three 5’s, and six 2’s. It’s a quick way to practice multiplication facts up to 6.

Infinity Street

Our second grade daughter is currently working on several different place value activities, including identifying different place value positions, rounding, estimating, and ordering. We’re using these Infinity Street task cards that go along with our Africa unit study to practice a lot of these concepts.

Super Genius: Multiplication

We’ve big fans of the Super Genius games published by Blue Orange. They’re essentially “Spot It” games for reading and math. My second grader is currently using Super Genius: Multiplication to practice her multiplication facts.

Telling Time: Clip Cards

Telling time is one of the math concepts we work on more in second grade. My child is able to use these simple self-correcting clip cards to practice telling time to the minute.

Language Arts & Literacy

Making Words

We have a different Making Words lesson each week, typically on Monday and/or Wednesday. On the other days of the week, I encourage my children to make as many words as they can from each week’s set of letters. They’ll set a 5-minute timer and race to build words.

It’s a fun way to review spelling patterns, practice phonics skills, and build vocabulary. By using the same set of letters throughout the week, my children get several opportunities to reinforce what they’ve learned and discover new word combinations.

You can read more about how we implement “Making Words” into our homeschool routine, plus grab a couple free lessons in this blog post, Making Words: A Montessori Spelling Activity.

SpellChecked

Since we don’t use an actual spelling curriculum, I try to find a variety of games that incorporate spelling work. I like the SpellChecked card game because it allows children to practice word recognition and spelling semi-independently, while providing immediate feedback when selecting the correct spelling from multiple options.

This is our go-to game to take with us when we take our morning walk around the neighborhood. It has different levels, making it a great resource for multi-age learners.

Creative Arts and Projects

DJECO Scratch Cards

I stumbled upon these DJECO scratch cards over the summer. I thought they’d make a great independent activity, and I wasn’t wrong. Both my girls love them! Yes, they do make a bit of a mess but nothing a tray won’t mitigate. We love these trays from IKEA. They work well for arts and craft activities, as well as science experiments.

Wonder Knitter

My second grader expressed an interest in learning to knit this school year. We’ve acquired a couple different looms over the past couple years to aid in this endeavor. The Wonder Knitter is a great little tool to make really fun garlands, using either the 3-pin or 6-pin attachment. It’s currently paired with a beautiful rainbow wool yarn we purchased from Bellaluna Toys.

Featured Products

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Super Genius

SpellChecked

Mathological Liar

DJECO Scratch Art

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Wonder Knitter

Looking for more inspiration on how to incorporate learning baskets into your homeschool? Explore our other posts to see how we use them to foster creativity, independence, and a love for learning.