Grade 2 Science: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 2 science in the New Brunswick Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Literacies and Communications: Communicative Practices. Examine how language learning is beneficial.
- Literacies and Communications: Multimodal Literacies. Refer to environmental print in multiple languages.
- Literacies and Communications: Literate Identities. Demonstrate being a reader, writer, and communicator in multiple languages.
- Well-Being: Emotional Health and Positive Identities. Explore activities that foster enjoyment and well-being.
- Well-Being: Belonging and Interconnectedness. Define and express needs, wants, and choices.
- Well-Being: Physical Health and Active Participation. Analyze personal safety and healthy practices.
- Play and Playfulness: Imagination and Creativity. Practise using flexible and fluid thinking in new and familiar situations.
- Play and Playfulness: Exploration and Problem Solving. Negotiate, compromise, and work together.
- Play and Playfulness: Play and Inquiry. Engage in activities that introduce elements of risk, novelty, and the unknown.
- Diversity and Social Responsibility: Inclusiveness and Equity. Honour differences and uniqueness.
- Diversity and Social Responsibility: Democratic Practices. Act as responsible and responsive community members.
- Diversity and Social Responsibility: Sustainable Futures. Recognize patterns in nature.
Easy ways to practise science at home
- Try a kitchen experiment, such as what dissolves in water and what floats or sinks.
- Keep a simple weather or moon log for a month.
- Ask “What do you think will happen?” and then test it.
- Visit a park, beach or creek and look for living things and their habitats.
What each unit covers
Life Cycles
Life cycles of butterflies, frogs and BC salmon, and how babies compare with their parents.
Animal Adaptations
Body features (fur, quills, beaks, camouflage) and behaviours (hibernating, migrating, storing food) that help animals survive, and which features change as animals grow.
Water World
The water cycle, where our water comes from, and simple ways to save water and keep rivers clean.
Solids & Liquids
Sorting solids and liquids, describing melting, freezing and boiling, and changes that can or can't be undone.
Push & Pull
Pushes and pulls, magnets, gravity, and how surfaces slow things down.
Simple Machines
The six simple machines (lever, inclined plane, wedge, pulley, wheel and axle, screw), where we see them every day, and how they make a job take less effort.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Working below
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Meeting
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Excelling
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the New Brunswick report card guide.
Common questions
Try a kitchen experiment, such as what dissolves in water and what floats or sinks. Keep a simple weather or moon log for a month. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
The New Brunswick Curriculum Grade 2 science units include life cycles, animal adaptations, water world, solids & liquids, push & pull, simple machines.
Free printable Grade 2 science practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.