Second grade science

Second grade adds the Moon, sound, and changes in materials that you can and cannot undo. Severe weather matters more here than in most states, since a Gulf Coast family gets real thunderstorm and hurricane practice whether they planned a unit or not.

• K
• 1st
• 2nd
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• 5th

What to aim for this year

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

• Record measurements and observations in a table over several days, then say what the numbers show.
• Describe the Sun as a star, and explain that the Moon looks bright because it reflects sunlight.
• Observe the Moon over a month and describe how its shape appears to change.
• Show that sound comes from something vibrating, and change a sound's pitch or loudness on purpose.
• Argue with evidence that some changes caused by heating or cooling can be undone and some cannot.
• Change a material's physical properties by cutting, folding, sanding or melting, and describe what changed.
• Describe the stages of a life cycle that includes metamorphosis, and put images of the stages in order.
• Explain what a habitat provides and match an animal to one.
• Name the severe weather this region actually gets and state what a family does when it is forecast.
• Build something small to solve a stated problem, test it, then change one thing to make it work better.

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.

• NASA Space Place Free See terms

  The Sun-as-a-star and Moon-reflects-light explanations are the two space ideas this grade needs, and NASA writes both at a level a seven year old can hear once and repeat back. There are printable Moon phase activities, which pair well with a month of looking out the window at bedtime.

  License: NASA content is generally not protected by copyright, so copy, print and adapt freely. Excluded: images hosted under permission from outside photographers. Do not put the NASA insignia on anything you sell and do not imply endorsement.

• UCAR Center for Science Education Free Openly licensed Not confirmed

  Weather and atmosphere teaching material from the university consortium behind the national atmospheric research center. Games, simulations and classroom activities on storms, clouds and the atmosphere, stronger than most elementary weather sources. Use it to build the severe weather work that a Texas second grader should have anyway.

  License: Check the license. The site is free to read and carries a UCAR copyright notice, and terms vary item by item with some material originating from partner organizations. Do not assume it is openly licensed just because it is free to read.

• Smithsonian Open Access Free Public domain Not confirmed

  Butterfly, moth, frog and insect specimen images at high resolution, free to print and cut apart. Genuinely useful for metamorphosis, where a child needs the stages side by side on a table rather than one after another on a screen.

  License: Smithsonian releases designated Open Access items under CC0, a public domain dedication with no attribution required and commercial use allowed. It covers only items flagged Open Access; other Smithsonian material stays restricted. Confirm on the individual item record. I could not load the terms page the day I checked.

• Handbook of Nature-Study, Anna Botsford Comstock (1911) Free Public domain

  The insect chapters are the reason to reach for this book in second grade. Comstock walks you through finding a caterpillar, keeping it, and watching what happens, which is the metamorphosis standard done with a real animal instead of a diagram.

  License: Public domain in the United States. Text and illustrations are free for any use, including commercial. Full text confirmed on Project Gutenberg.

• Exploratorium Science Snacks Free Creative Commons Not confirmed

  The sound and vibration builds are the most useful part of this collection for second grade, and several are the string-and-cup, tuned-glasses kind of thing the design work asks for. Search their site for Science Snacks.

  License: Check the license. A Creative Commons notice with NonCommercial and ShareAlike terms has appeared on Snack pages, but I could not confirm the current version. Read the notice on the specific page, and remember a ShareAlike term follows anything you build from it.

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.

• Mystery Science Paid $199 list, $179 when checked in August 2026, membership running through June 30, 2027. There is also a free trial running to that same date, so you can sample it properly before paying.

  Good at: The sound and energy units are among the stronger parts of the library, and the design challenges at the end of a unit are real build tasks rather than worksheets. That matches what second grade is asking for.

  Drawback: The lesson order does not follow any one state's sequence, so you will hunt through the library to line it up with Texas rather than working front to back. Doing that hunting is most of the planning the subscription was supposed to remove.

  Suits: A family that will cherry-pick units against a standards list rather than following the library in order.

• Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, Volume I (Grades K-2), Bernard J. Nebel Paid Commonly $30 to $40 paperback, less as an ebook. Not confirmed with the publisher.

  Good at: This is the last year Volume I covers, and the physical science thread on matter and energy is the part that pays off later. A child who works through it enters third grade with a mental model of solids, liquids and gases rather than three memorized words.

  Drawback: Sound gets lighter treatment here than second grade needs, so plan to add your own vibration work. There are no tests or answer keys either. The book gives you discussion prompts to check understanding, but you have to run them yourself and judge the answers, which is a real ask for a parent who wanted a score.

  Suits: A parent already using Volume I who wants to finish the sequence properly.

• Elemental Science, Earth Science and Astronomy for the Grammar Stage Paid Guides in this line run about $22.50 as an ebook, with print components roughly $20 to $24 each and an optional kit around $55. Outside reference books are extra. Confirm the specific title's price, since I verified the biology set rather than this one.

  Good at: Covers the Sun, the Moon, weather and earth materials on a printed weekly schedule, which is exactly the half of second grade that life-science-heavy programs skip. Secular, and cheap as an ebook.

  Drawback: Like the rest of the line it routes you to specific outside encyclopedias you have to source separately, and those editions get replaced. Buying a guide used and then finding the required book list has changed is a common way to lose an afternoon.

  Suits: A secular family whose science year is already heavy on plants and animals.

• Apologia, Exploring Creation with Astronomy Paid Build-your-own sets listed at $94.00 and on sale at $70.50 in August 2026. Sitewide discounts are frequent.

  Good at: Read-aloud narrative on the solar system with notebooking journals at two writing levels, and it is genuinely pleasant to read with a child on the couch. Families report finishing it, which matters more than any feature list.

  Drawback: Christian and creation-based by design, so it is not a fit for a secular household. It also spends a full year on astronomy, which is a small slice of the second grade list, leaving sound, matter and life science uncovered unless you add them.

  Suits: A Christian family that wants a year of couch reading and will patch the rest of the standards elsewhere.

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. Monday. Look at the Moon at bedtime and draw it. One minute. Do this every night all month and the phases teach themselves.
2. Tuesday. One sound build. Rubber bands over a box, water in glasses, a string between two cups. Change one thing and describe what happened to the sound.
3. Wednesday. Read one NASA Space Place page on the Sun or the Moon and have your child tell it back to you in their own words.
4. Thursday. Put something in the freezer and something in a warm pan. Ask which change can be undone and which cannot, and make your child give a reason.
5. Friday. Go find an insect or a caterpillar outside using the Comstock chapters, and start a jar if you find one worth keeping.

Practice it here, free

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

• know — Day and night, which is the Sun and Moon work in a simpler form. The five senses and plants topics are review by now.
• listen — Listening and audio discrimination. Honest caveat: this is an attention game, not a sound unit, so it warms up the ear without teaching vibration.
• measure — Measuring and writing the number down, which is what the observation table needs all year.
• graph — Turning a table of numbers into a chart. Pairs directly with a month of Moon observations.
• units — Choosing a sensible unit. Math content that keeps science records honest.

The rest of second grade