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
• Describes flat shapes by counting how many sides and how many vertices they have
• Tells which attributes decide what a shape is and which ones do not matter at all
• Names polygons with five, six, and eight sides by counting the sides first
• Describes three-dimensional solids by their faces, edges, and vertices
• Builds larger shapes out of smaller shapes and breaks a shape apart into smaller ones
• Splits a rectangle into equal rows and columns of same-size squares and counts them
• Draws a word problem as one bar split into parts so the missing piece is easy to see
• Decides whether a problem is asking for the whole amount or for one of the parts
• Finds an unknown starting amount with larger numbers by undoing the change in the story
• Solves compare problems where the smaller of the two amounts is the unknown
• Reads the whole problem instead of trusting a single word like more or left
• Tells apart a problem that builds equal groups from one that shares an amount out
• Locates the position of a given whole number on an open number line
• Names the whole number that matches a specific point marked on a number line
• Reads the scale of a number line, checking whether the marks count by ones, fives, or tens
• Shows a whole number as a distance from any point on a number line, not only from zero
• Subtracts by counting up on an open number line from the smaller number to the larger one
• Measures a group of objects with a ruler and shows all the lengths on a line plot
• Keeps a count with tally marks and turns the tallies into a frequency table
• Answers put-together, take-apart and compare questions using a bar graph
• Collects his own data by asking every person the same survey question and recording each answer
• Figures out how money saved a little at a time adds up to a larger amount (TEKS 2.11A financial literacy)
• Treats saving as the alternative to spending, since a dollar can only do one of them (TEKS 2.11B financial literacy)
• Tells a deposit from a withdrawal (TEKS 2.11C financial literacy)
• Gives examples of borrowing and tells responsible borrowing from careless borrowing (TEKS 2.11D financial literacy)
• Weighs what lending money costs and what it gains before saying yes (TEKS 2.11E financial literacy)
• Tells producers from consumers and works out what a simple item cost to make (TEKS 2.11F financial literacy)

Teach it here

These rooms teach it on this site. No sign-up, nothing to buy, and they work with the internet switched off. Start here. Everything below is a fallback for when you want more than the app gives you.

• box — Solid shapes he can turn over in his head: naming a sphere, cylinder, cone and cube, matching each to a real thing in the house, sorting by what rolls and what stacks, counting faces, edges and corners, telling a prism from a pyramid, and picking the flat net that folds up into it.
• build — Sticks and corners on a pegboard: naming a shape by how many sides it has, cutting one shape into two, putting smaller shapes together to make a bigger one, the four-sided family, folding a shape in half, and checking a corner against a square one.
• zipline — The number line: reading its scale, naming the number at a marked point, distance between two points, subtracting by counting up, rounding, estimation, zooming in to hundredths, and whole numbers, fractions and decimals as places on one line.
• plot — Sorting a pile into a table and then making the dot plot of it, reading answers back off the dots, halves on a line plot, stem-and-leaf, and a first scatterplot.
• story — Word problems as a story he builds himself, so the sum comes out of the situation instead of arriving already written down.
• place — Numbers to 1,200 in hundreds, tens, and ones, and matching a number across standard, word, and expanded form
• 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.
• bar — Bar models: putting a story's numbers on the whole bar or on a piece, compare problems where the smaller amount is the mystery, stories whose key word points the wrong way, and telling equal groups from sharing out.
• wallet — Counting a pile of bills and coins and writing the amount with a dollar sign and a decimal point, telling producers from consumers, and adding up what a simple thing cost to make.

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.

If you want more, free

A fallback, not the plan. Every one of these costs nothing, and the license tag says what you may actually DO with it, which is a different question from 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.

And the 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.

The rest of second grade