
Second Grade
Second grade is when reading stops being the lesson and becomes the tool. The workbooks on this shelf are the floor: math, reading, writing, spelling, science, social studies. The series are the ceiling, and the ceiling is where the year is won. A second grader who reads forty Boxcar Children and Magic Tree House books has done more than second grade.
How to use it: twenty minutes of math, twenty of reading and writing, science or social studies twice a week. Then a chapter book, read alone, told back to you at lunch. That telling back is narration, and it is the whole of second-grade language arts if you let it be.
The whole year in one place: The Whole Year: 2nd Grade.
Shop our Second Grade products below
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Baby Animals
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Reptiles and Amphibians
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Why: Questions and Answers about the World for Curious Kids
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of the Ocean
Albert Einstein: A Curious Mind
- Physics & Energy
- Biography / Memoir
Why it works: Albert Einstein: A Curious Mind uses the milestones of Einstein's life to show how a child who kept questioning accepted ideas became a physicist whose thinking changed later science and technology. The beginning-reader biography makes curiosity, persistence, and scientific change understandable through one person's story instead of attempting a miniature physics textbook.
Jane Goodall: A Champion of Chimpanzees
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Biography / Memoir
Why it works: Jane Goodall: A Champion of Chimpanzees follows a pioneering scientist into the rain forest, where close, patient study of wild chimpanzees changes what people know about their behavior. The biography's milestones are discoveries made through field observation and the conservation work that followed.
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Space
Wild Animal Babies! (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
Why it works: Chris and Martin activate their Creature Power Suits to creep, crawl, and cuddle through encounters with many kinds of animal babies. The playful visits make growth, dependence, protection, and early behavior the reason for each new stop in the Wild Kratts adventure.
Yucky Worms: Read and Wonder
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Story / Adventure
Why it works: A child who calls worms yucky follows Grandma into the garden and discovers what earthworms do beneath the soil. Their conversation and close-up underground scenes turn disgust into questions about worm bodies, movement, feeding, tunnels, and the garden ecosystem.
Wild Reptiles: Snakes, Crocodiles, Lizards, and Turtles (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
Why it works: The Kratt brothers creep, crawl, and slither with snakes, crocodiles, lizards, and turtles through their Creature Power adventure. Comparing these reptiles makes scales, body form, temperature-dependent behavior, feeding, and defense the abilities that carry each encounter.
5 Wild Creature Adventures! (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Story / Adventure
Why it works: Five Wild Creature Adventures turns visits with young, predatory, reptile, insect, and marine animals into fast Wild Kratts missions. Each mission depends on noticing how a creature grows, behaves, or fits its habitat, so zoology arrives as part of the rescue and discovery rather than as a separate lesson.
Wild Dogs and Canines! (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
Why it works: The Kratt brothers search across habitats for wolves, coyotes, foxes, and other wild relatives of domestic dogs. Their creature journey makes shared canid features and different ways of hunting, communicating, traveling, and living socially the purpose of each encounter.
Lion Pride (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
Why it works: Chris and Martin's attempt to protect three playful lion cubs turns life on the African savannah into the problem of a beginning-reader adventure. Real lion traits support the learning hook, while Creature Power is a fictional exaggeration that keeps the animal facts inside the story.
Wild Fliers! (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Physics & Energy
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
Why it works: The Wild Kratts take off among birds, bats, and other creatures that fly. Their moving creature adventure makes wing shape, lift, thrust, body mass, and different flight behaviors into comparisons young readers can follow from animal to animal.
Wild Predators (Wild Kratts)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Nature Narrative / Field Discovery
Why it works: Creature Power Suits take the Kratt brothers hunting alongside sharks, lions, crocodiles, and other predators. The chase frame makes senses, attack strategies, prey responses, and ecological roles part of the action while keeping the animals' real abilities at the center.

