Second grade math

Second grade widens place value to 1,200 under TEKS, which is a Texas quirk worth knowing since Common Core stops at 1,000. Regrouping is the year's real work: adding and subtracting three-digit numbers and understanding what the traded ten actually is. Multiplication shows up only as equal groups and arrays, not as facts to memorize. Money, time to the minute, and measurement in both customary and metric units all land this year. Our rooms cover place value, column arithmetic, early multiplication, money, and time. They do not cover metric measurement or bar graph interpretation in depth.

• K
• 1st
• 2nd
• 3rd
• 4th
• 5th

What to aim for this year

By the end of second grade, a child working at grade level can usually do these.

• Composes and decomposes numbers up to 1,200 as thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones
• Uses standard, word, and expanded form for numbers up to 1,200
• Compares and orders whole numbers up to 1,200 using the greater than, less than, and equal symbols
• Recalls basic addition and subtraction facts within 20 quickly and accurately
• Adds and subtracts two-digit and three-digit numbers within 1,000, with regrouping
• Explains what regrouping actually does, not only how to write it
• Determines the value of a collection of coins up to one dollar
• Reads and writes time to the nearest minute on analog and digital clocks and uses a.m. and p.m.
• Partitions objects into equal parts and names them as halves, fourths, and eighths
• Measures length with customary and metric units and selects a sensible tool
• Models and describes multiplication and division situations with arrays and equal groups
• Draws conclusions from bar graphs and pictographs

Free, and legal to use

Every one of these costs nothing. The license tag says what you may actually do with it, which is not the same question as whether it is free to read.

• MEP Primary, Year 3 (CIMT) Free Free to use

  Complete lesson plans and practice books. The problem-solving and mental arithmetic sequences are notably strong here, and it pushes reasoning harder than most American second grade material. Year 3 sits near U.S. second grade by age. Place by content, not by the year number.

  License: Free to download, copyright retained by the originators through CIMT, non-profit-making purposes only. Use with your own family is fine.

• Illustrative Mathematics K-5 Math, Grade 2 Free CC BY

  Free through Kendall Hunt, with careful sequencing on place value and on what regrouping means rather than how to write it. The teacher notes are detailed and worth reading before you teach.

  License: CC BY 4.0. Openly licensed for adaptation with attribution.

• Simply Good and Beautiful Math 2 (The Good and the Beautiful) Free Free to use

  120 parent-led lessons as a free PDF, gently paced with games woven in. Math Box manipulatives are separate, with make-your-own instructions posted. General Christian worldview throughout.

  License: Free to download and use, copyright retained by the publisher. Not open for adaptation.

• Khan Academy, 2nd grade math Free CC BY-NC-SA Not confirmed

  Skill-by-skill practice with hints, useful for shoring up regrouping specifically. Weak as a spine, good as a repair tool when one procedure will not stick.

  License: Free to use. Terms of Service state CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 for Licensed Educational Content; video licensing has reportedly changed. Check before adapting.

• Ray's New Primary Arithmetic (Joseph Ray) Free Public domain

  A nineteenth-century arithmetic built almost entirely on oral mental problems. Old-fashioned language and no pictures, and the mental arithmetic drill is excellent. Scans are on the Internet Archive; search the title rather than trusting any single link, since individual scan URLs move.

  License: Public domain. Published in the 1800s, so you may copy, print, adapt, and share it without restriction.

Paid programs, honestly

Nothing here is required. These are the programs families most often ask about, with the real drawback of each one named rather than skipped.

• Math-U-See Beta Paid Roughly $130 to $145 for a Level Up Set with the block kit already owned, or about $220 for a complete set including blocks.

  Good at: Multi-digit addition and subtraction with regrouping, taught with blocks so the child can watch the ten being traded. For a child who never quite understood carrying, this usually fixes it. Systematic review pages at the end of each lesson bring earlier material back.

  Drawback: Another single-topic year. Geometry, measurement, time, money, and data get very little attention, all of which second grade standards ask for, so you will supplement those strands yourself.

  Suits: A child stuck on regrouping who needs to see it happen physically before the algorithm means anything.

• Math Mammoth Grade 2 (Light Blue Series) Paid About $40 for the grade as a download, often discounted, and cheaper again in a multi-grade bundle. Grades K-4 together run about $133 on sale.

  Good at: Mastery-based, with conceptual explanations written directly to the child, and inexpensive as a download. Close to open-and-go once you have printed it.

  Drawback: Black-and-white and worksheet-dense, which some children find joyless. Pages can be long, and the parent is expected to read the teaching notes rather than skip to the problems.

  Suits: A budget-conscious family with a printer and a child who does not need color to stay engaged.

• Dimensions Math 2 (Singapore Math Inc.) Paid $14.50 per book, about $58 for student books, more with guides. Verified August 2026.

  Good at: Strong mental math strategies and the beginning of bar model thinking, which pays off in third and fourth grade word problems.

  Drawback: Needs the Home Instructor's Guide, and the practice volume is light enough that many families add a drill supplement. The approach is unfamiliar to most parents, so you will be learning alongside him.

  Suits: A parent thinking two years ahead who wants bar models in place before word problems get hard.

• Saxon Math 2 Paid Roughly $150 to $235 for the home study kit depending on retailer, discounted steeply from a list price near $390. Manipulatives sold separately, about $75.

  Good at: Relentless cumulative review means little is ever fully forgotten, and the daily meeting builds calendar, money, and time practice in without extra effort.

  Drawback: Long, dull scripted lessons and thin conceptual work. The incremental approach can leave a child fluent in procedures he cannot explain.

  Suits: A household that wants structure handed to it and a child who is soothed rather than bored by routine.

• Beast Academy Level 2 Paid About $100 per year online, verified at $99.99. A full printed level runs roughly $120 to $130 for the eight guide and practice books.

  Good at: Real problem-solving and puzzle work at a level most second grade material never attempts. The comics carry the teaching, so children read them willingly.

  Drawback: A genuine jump in difficulty from Level 1, and it assumes reasonably fluent reading. It teaches almost no fact fluency, so you must run drill separately or he will stall in third grade.

  Suits: A strong reader who finds ordinary math pages boring and needs the challenge to stay interested.

Prices are approximate and change often. Check with the publisher before you buy. We describe and link to these programs; none of their material is hosted here.

What a week looks like

1. Four days of new work at about 30 minutes, one review day.
2. Two minutes of fact drill first, every single day, no exceptions.
3. Three days on place value and regrouping, one on money, time, or measurement.
4. One day a week, do the arithmetic with real coins and a real ruler instead of on paper.
5. Have him explain one regrouping problem out loud to you each week. If he cannot, he does not have it yet.

Practice it here, free

These rooms on this site cover part of the year's work. No sign-up, and they work offline.

• place — Numbers to 1,200 in hundreds, tens, and ones
• column — Adding and subtracting within 1,000 with regrouping
• times — Equal groups and arrays as a first look at multiplication
• money — Counting coin collections up to a dollar
• clock — Time to the nearest minute, a.m. and p.m.

The rest of second grade