Grade 2 Textbooks
Mathematics
Title: Math Expressions
Publication: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2009
ISBN #: 978-0-547-05715-6
Applicable NC SCOS Goal for Economics:
Social Studies Competency Goal 6: The learner will analyze how people depend on the
physical environment and use natural resources to meet basic needs.
Social Studies Competency Goal 7: The learner will apply basic economic concepts and
evaluate the use of economic resources within communities.
Assessment Rating: 4-Good
Assessment:
Although the NCOS Competency Goals for math do not address economics directly, economics is a great real world application for the math concepts and skills of number sense, decimals, and data and graphing. Math Expressions is an inquiry based curriculum resource with an emphasis on communication and real world applications. The author’s aim is to balance traditional instructional strategies with the latest research based instructional methods and NCTM recommendations. As a regular part of hands-on activities, exploration, and practice, the lessons use money and coins as manipulatives in base ten activities, counting by 5’s and 10’s, and making change from $5.00. These experiences build familiarity with money, relate number sense to money sense, and tie the math skills to real world concepts. In addition, the curriculum features an ongoing segment called “The Money Routine,” a daily classroom routine which uses visual materials, pennies, nickels, dimes, and dollars and reinforces fundamental money and multi-digit number concepts.
Social Studies
Title: Harcourt Horizons: About My Community
Publication: Harcourt, 2005
ISBN #: 0-15-339616-4
Applicable NC SCOS Goal for Economics:
Social Studies Competency Goal 6: The learner will analyze how people depend on the
physical environment and use natural resources to meet basic needs.
Social Studies Competency Goal 7: The learner will apply basic economic concepts and
evaluate the use of economic resources within communities.
Assessment Rating: 5-Excellent
Assessment:
In addition to a unit on economics, Harcourt Horizons includes economics across the social studies curriculum. A unit called “Living in a Community” includes a lesson on needs and wants. “Looking at the Earth” includes lessons on using natural resources, people and the land, and caring for resources, all of which address both competency goals. Finally, “People at Work” is primarily an economics unit, examining goods and services, producers and consumers, work and income, consumer choice, the history of money, and goods from near and far. Of the six units in the textbook, half contain some economics concepts, with one of the units being devoted entirely to economics goals. In addition, the teacher’s edition index highlights all references to economics concepts, a useful feature that the Houghton Mifflin text lacks. The teacher’s edition contains a list of multimedia resources, organized by levels for independent reading and viewing. The segment on the history of money includes photos and names of currency from around the world. As a teacher, I would find this text a valuable resource for teaching economics.
Title: Social Studies: North Carolina
Publication: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009
ISBN #: 0-618-97345-1
Applicable NC SCOS Goal for Economics:
Social Studies Competency Goal 6: The learner will analyze how people depend on the
physical environment and use natural resources to meet basic needs.
Social Studies Competency Goal 7: The learner will apply basic economic concepts and
evaluate the use of economic resources within communities.
Assessment Rating: 3-Fair
Assessment:
Houghton Mifflin features a single economics unit, “People and Work,” in its 2nd grade North Carolina edition. This unit covers NCSCOS Social Studies Competency Goals 6 and 7, addressing topics of producers and consumers, earning an income, goods and services, and caring for resources. Additionally, one lesson in the unit “People and Places” focuses on natural resources. One advantage of this text is that it contains a wealth of content specific to North Carolina, introducing students to issues of erosion in Wrightsville Beach and conservation in the mountains. A drawback is the overly simplified index, which does not include economics as a subject. Compared to the Harcourt Horizons text, there is less integration of economics topics across the strands and less depth to the concepts covered.
