Grade 2 Math Curriculum in North America: What Children Learn

Grade 2 is when the numbers get bigger and the strategies get trickier. Children work with three-digit numbers, start learning real money and time, and begin the regrouping that shows up in paper-and- pencil addition and subtraction. Here is a parent's view of the Grade 2 year in Canadian and US classrooms.

Place value to 1000

• Understanding three-digit numbers as hundreds, tens, and ones.
• Reading and writing numbers to 1000.
• Counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 100s.
• Comparing and ordering three-digit numbers.

Addition and subtraction within 100 and 1000

• Fluent addition and subtraction within 100.
• Adding and subtracting within 1000 using place value and properties of operations.
• Regrouping (carrying and borrowing) with multi-digit numbers.
• Multi-step word problems.

Time and money

• Telling time to the nearest five minutes.
• Counting money: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies, toonies (or their US equivalents).
• Solving word problems involving money.

Measurement

• Measuring length in centimetres and metres (or inches and feet in US curriculum).
• Estimating and comparing measurements.
• Solving simple word problems involving length.

Data and geometry

• Reading and creating bar graphs and pictographs.
• Recognizing and drawing shapes with specified attributes.
• Partitioning rectangles into rows and columns (precursor to area).

What to focus on at home

Regrouping is often the first real stumbling block. If your child can add and subtract within 20 fluently but falls apart when borrowing across a zero, that is a place to slow down and use base-10 blocks (or physical stand-ins like coins) to make the concept concrete. It is also a great year to start handling real money — counting change is genuinely useful practice.