The most important skill this year is one you’ve never heard of.

• Grades 1–6 report letter grades (A+ to D−), not percentages. R signals achievement below Level 1.
• Level 4 = A− / A / A+ — surpasses the provincial standard, demonstrating knowledge and skills with a high degree of effectiveness.
• Level 3 = B− / B / B+ — the provincial standard, and the target for all students.
• Every grade is a judgement across four categories: Knowledge and Understanding, Thinking, Communication, Application.
• Learning Skills and Work Habits are reported separately as E / G / S / N: Responsibility, Organization, Independent Work, Collaboration, Initiative, Self-Regulation.
• Three reports: a Progress Report in fall, then Term 1 and Term 2 report cards.
• 300 minutes of instruction per day; 20 minutes of Daily Physical Activity.

Unpacked

• Reads and writes numerals and number words to 200
• Understands hundreds, tens, and ones, and can say what each digit in 147 is worth
• Composes and decomposes flexibly: 147 = 100 + 40 + 7 = 100 + 30 + 17 = 140 + 7
• Counts forward and backward within 200 from any starting point, including across hundreds (98, 99, 100, 101)
• Skip counts by 2s, 5s, 10s, 20s, 25s, 50s — the 25s sequence matters later for money and time
• Compares and orders using >, <, = and in words, reasoning from place value
• Estimates a large collection using a reference group (a known 10 or 25) rather than guessing
• Explains even and odd properly: an even number can be split into two equal groups with nothing left over; odd numbers end in 1, 3, 5, 7, 9
• Shares items among 2, 3, 4, or 6 people and names the leftover as a fraction — three cookies shared by two people is one and a half each
• Understands and demonstrates that ½ = 2/4 of the same whole

Unpacked

• Knows addition facts to 20 and the matching subtraction facts from memory — the single most important arithmetic outcome of the year
• Understands multiplication as repeated addition: 4 groups of 3 is 3 + 3 + 3 + 3
• Understands division as equal sharing, and connects it to repeated subtraction
• Sees that multiplication and addition are related, and that division and subtraction are related
• Uses arrays, equal groups, and number lines to model multiplication and division
• Handles groups of a half and a quarter (4 groups of one half make 2)
• Mental strategies to 50: making ten, bridging through ten, doubles and near doubles, compensation, counting on and back by tens
• Adds and subtracts two-digit numbers to 100, including with regrouping, using tools, drawings, and equations
• Solves problems in all structures: join, separate, part-part-whole, compare, and missing-part
• Solves two-step problems
• Estimates first, then computes, and checks whether the answer is reasonable
• Checks subtraction by adding back

Unpacked

• Sorts by two attributes at once — for example, has wheels / doesn’t crossed with is red / isn’t
• Uses a Venn diagram and understands what the overlap means, including the region outside both circles
• Uses a Carroll diagram — a two-by-two grid crossing an attribute with its opposite
• Builds a two-way tally table and reads across and down
• Builds a bar graph with a title, labelled axes, and a scale where one square is one
• Builds a line plot — stacked marks above a number line
• Identifies the mode as the most frequent value, understands a set can have more than one mode or none, and explains what that tells you
• Uses data to argue for something, referring to the graph as evidence

Unpacked

• Names and classifies 2-D shapes precisely: triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, parallelogram, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, circle
• Distinguishes shapes that share a side count by looking at side lengths and angles — a square is a rectangle with equal sides; a rhombus has four equal sides but isn’t a square unless the angles are right
• Counts and draws lines of symmetry — a square has four, a rectangle two, an equilateral triangle three, a circle infinitely many
• Cuts a shape apart and reassembles it into a different shape, and explains that the area didn’t change — a foundational idea for all later area work
• Combines shapes to make new ones (two triangles make a square; six triangles make a hexagon)
• Understands congruent as “same shape and same size,” and tests it by matching
• Reads and draws a map with a title, legend, symbols, and cardinal directions
• Describes a route using distance, direction, and turns

Unpacked

• Understands the inverse relationship — the smaller the unit, the more of them you need. A desk is 6 hand-spans but 30 paperclips long. This is the conceptual heart of measurement and often the hardest idea in Grade 2 mathematics.
• Knows 100 cm = 1 m
• Has benchmarks: a fingernail or a small cube is about 1 cm; a doorway is about 2 m; a big step is about 1 m
• Chooses the sensible unit — centimetres for a pencil, metres for a hallway
• Uses a ruler correctly: lines up the zero, reads at the end of the object, reads the number not the number of marks
• Recognizes that if you start at 3 cm and the object ends at 11 cm, the object is 8 cm, not 11 cm — the “broken ruler” problem, explicitly named in the curriculum
• Draws a line of a specified length
• Estimates before measuring, then checks
• Orders events by how long they take, and matches a sensible unit to a duration
• Reads a calendar: names and orders the days and months, finds a date, counts forward and back, identifies seasons and holidays

Unpacked

• Knows the value of every Canadian coin and bill up to $100
• Counts a mixed set of coins by starting with the largest value and counting on
• Makes 75¢ several different ways, and says which uses the fewest coins
• Makes $35 several different ways using bills and coins
• Understands that many different combinations are worth exactly the same
• Uses ¢ and $ notation correctly

What A2 covers, unpacked

• Digital citizenship — understand that online actions affect real people, and that things posted online can be difficult to remove
• Online safety — keep personal information private; recognise when to stop and tell an adult; understand that not everyone online is who they claim to be
• Forms and conventions — identify different digital and media forms and how each works (a video, an ad, a website, a game, a message)
• Research and information literacy — use a simple digital search with support; begin to ask “who made this, and how would I know if it’s true?”
• Media, audience and production — explain how a text is shaped by who it’s for; notice techniques used to make something appealing
• Innovation and design — use digital tools through a design process to make something for a purpose
• Community and cultural awareness — collaborate using digital tools with awareness of different communities and cultures

Listening

• Listen attentively through a longer read-aloud, lesson, or discussion
• Follow oral instructions of three to four steps without needing them repeated
• Use active listening behaviours appropriate to the context
• Show comprehension by summarising, responding on topic, or asking a question that moves the conversation forward

Speaking

• Speak audibly and clearly to a whole-class audience
• Adjust volume, pace, and formality to the situation and audience
• Contribute relevantly, build on others’ ideas, and disagree respectfully with a reason
• Retell an event or story in sequence with detail — who, where, what happened, and how it ended
• Ask questions that clarify, extend, or probe
• Use subject-specific vocabulary learned in other subjects when speaking
• Give a short prepared oral presentation with a beginning, middle, and end

Non-verbal

• Use gesture, facial expression, posture, and eye contact purposefully to support a message
• Read others’ non-verbal cues and adjust accordingly
• Recognise that non-verbal norms vary across cultures

Using phonics knowledge

• Blend phonemes to read words, including longer and multisyllabic words
• Segment phonemes to spell words, including words with adjacent consonants
• Apply “set for variability” — try one sound for a spelling, notice the result isn’t a real word or doesn’t fit the sentence, and flex to another sound. Reading ea in bread first as /ē/, hearing “breed,” and correcting to /e/. This is a named Grade 2 skill and one of the most important things in the year.
• Read and spell words containing everything taught in Kindergarten and Grade 1, now automatically
• Apply phonics to read the individual syllables of a multisyllabic word

Using orthographic knowledge — the low-frequency spellings

• Use syllable division to read and spell two- and three-syllable words; identify the stressed syllable
• Consolidate all Grade 1 rules: FLSZ (Floss), –ck, –tch, –dge, the I-J-U-V rule
• Apply the three suffixing changes to longer words: doubling, drop the e, change y to i
• Use –s / –es and irregular plurals confidently, including f → ves and o → oes
• Choose between competing spellings by position in the word

Using morphological knowledge

• Identify the base word inside a longer word, and explain how a prefix or suffix changes its meaning
• Prefixes: consolidate un–, re–, in– (not), dis–; add pre–, de–, a– (schwa), co–, uni–, bi–, tri–, mis–
• Suffixes: consolidate –ing, –er / –or, –est, –ly; add –ion, –ure, –ist, –ish, –y, –ness, –less, –able / –ible, –ful
• Explain what a suffix does to a word’s job: –ful and –less make adjectives; –ness and –ion make nouns; –ly makes adverbs
• Build and break apart compound words, including three-part ones
• Possessive apostrophes — the dog’s bowl, Nadia’s coat — and distinguish a possessive from a plural (dogs vs. dog’s)
• Read the three sounds of –ed automatically (/t/, /d/, /ĭd/)

Vocabulary

• Sort, categorise and subcategorise words by meaning, including into three levels (living things → animals → mammals)
• Give a definition that names the category and a distinguishing feature
• Understand and use synonyms, antonyms, and shades of meaning on a scale (whisper / talk / shout / bellow)
• Handle multiple-meaning words and choose the right sense from context (bark, wave, light, bat, ring, spring)
• Recognise and explain simple figurative language — similes and common idioms — and understand that they don’t mean what they literally say
• Use morphology to infer meaning of unfamiliar words
• Use context clues: definition, example, synonym, antonym, general sense of the sentence
• Learn and use Tier 2 academic vocabulary across subjects (compare, describe, predict, classify, observe, explain, estimate, evidence, cause)
• Notice when they don’t understand a word, and use a strategy or ask; use a simple dictionary and glossary with support

Reading fluency

• Read grade-level text aloud with accuracy, an appropriate rate, and prosody
• Group words into meaningful phrases rather than reading one word at a time
• Attend to punctuation while reading — pausing at commas, stopping at full stops, lifting the voice at question marks
• Use expression that reflects meaning, including different voices for different characters
• Self-correct without prompting; reread to repair meaning or improve expression

B3.1 — Syntax and sentence structure

• Identify and construct all four sentence types: declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory
• Compound sentences joined with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, so, or)
• Expand a bare sentence by adding detail — who, what kind, where, when, how
• Vary sentence beginnings and lengths deliberately

B3.2 — Grammar: parts of speech

B3.3 — Capitalization and punctuation

• Capital letter to begin a sentence, and for the pronoun I
• Capitals for proper nouns: people’s names, place names, days of the week, months, holidays, titles of books and songs
• Correct end punctuation matched to sentence type
• Commas to separate items in a list (apples, pears, and plums)
• Apostrophes for possessives
• Quotation marks for direct speech — what a character actually says

C1 — Knowledge about texts

• Forms and genres — recognise, name and describe the purpose of: narrative fiction, information texts, procedural texts, biography, letters and emails, reports, poems and songs, plays and scripts, graphic texts and comics, persuasive texts and advertisements, digital and media texts, and oral storytelling including Indigenous oral traditions
• Text features — locate and use: title, table of contents, headings and subheadings, index, glossary, bold and italic type, captions, labelled diagrams, charts, maps, timelines, sidebars, page numbers
• Text patterns — sequence, description, compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution, question and answer
• Elements of style — rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, repetition, simile, vivid word choice, dialogue, and how illustrations extend meaning
• Story elements — characters (including how they change), setting, plot, problem, climax, resolution, theme or lesson, and point of view

C2 — Comprehension strategies

• Activate prior knowledge and set a purpose
• Predict and revise predictions as evidence accumulates
• Ask questions before, during and after — including questions the text doesn’t answer
• Infer — draw conclusions the author implies but doesn’t state, and cite the evidence that supports the inference
• Visualise, including using sensory detail from the text
• Make connections: text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world
• Monitor comprehension and notice the moment meaning breaks down
• Use fix-up strategies deliberately: reread, read on, slow down, look at a diagram, break the word into syllables, flex the vowel sound, ask
• Determine importance — separate the main idea from interesting detail
• Summarise a text in a few sentences, in their own words, in the right order
• Retell a story with characters, setting, problem, key events and resolution
• Synthesise — put information from more than one part of a text, or more than one text, together

C3 — Critical thinking in literacy

• Distinguish fact from opinion at an age-appropriate level
• Identify the author’s purpose — to inform, entertain, persuade, instruct, or express
• Identify whose point of view a text is told from, and describe how it would differ told by someone else
• Notice whose voice is missing from a text or image
• Recognise age-appropriate stereotypes, bias and unfairness in texts and media
• Notice techniques used to persuade — repetition, exciting words, appealing images
• Form an opinion about a text and support it with evidence from the text
• Compare two texts on the same topic and notice where they agree and differ
• Engage respectfully with texts by First Nations, Métis and Inuit creators, and describe what they learned

D1 — Developing ideas and organizing content

• Identify purpose, audience and form before writing, and explain how each affects choices
• Generate and develop ideas from experience, reading, discussion, observation and research
• Gather information from more than one source, including a simple digital source
• Organise ideas using a plan: a web, a sequence chart, a T-chart, a simple outline
• Group related ideas together — the beginning of paragraphing
• Sequence events, steps or reasons logically

D2 — Creating texts: the ten forms

• Personal narrative and recount
• Fictional narrative with a problem and resolution
• Descriptive piece
• Procedural / how-to text
• Information report on a researched topic
• Persuasive piece with an opinion and at least two reasons
• Letter or email
• Poem
• Simple script or dialogue
• Labelled diagram, chart, or infographic-style piece

Within those texts, the student can

• Write a piece with a clear beginning, developed middle and ending
• Group related sentences together, moving toward paragraphs
• Write complete sentences and vary their length and beginnings
• Use compound sentences with appropriate conjunctions
• Choose precise, vivid words rather than general ones; include detail that shows rather than tells
• Develop a recognisable voice
• Apply Grade 2 grammar and punctuation, including proper-noun capitals, commas and apostrophes
• Apply Grade 2 spelling patterns to unfamiliar words, and spell taught high-frequency words correctly
• Print legibly and fluently, with consistent size, spacing and formation
• Use digital tools to compose, illustrate and format; add diagrams, labels and captions where they help

D3 — Publishing, presenting and reflecting

• Reread and revise with growing independence: add detail, cut what doesn’t belong, reorder, change a weak word
• Edit against a checklist: capitals, end punctuation, commas, apostrophes, spelling of known words, spacing
• Use a peer conference — give a specific compliment and ask one question
• Produce a published piece in print or digital form, with attention to presentation
• Present to a class or group with volume, pace and eye contact
• Reflect on the piece: what worked, what was hard, what they’d do differently, what they want to try next

The three processes, unpacked

• A scientific research process — pose a researchable question, find information from books, images, video, digital sources and people, organise what they found, and share it
• A scientific experimentation process — make a prediction, plan a fair test (beginning to understand that only one thing should change), observe carefully, record data in a chart or table, compare the result to the prediction, and state a conclusion
• An engineering design process — identify a problem and its constraints, plan and sketch, build, test, evaluate against criteria, and redesign
• Safety — handle liquids carefully, never taste or smell an unknown substance directly, wash hands, report spills, carry and use tools correctly, wear eye protection when directed
• Communication — use correct scientific and technical vocabulary; present findings through talk, labelled diagrams, charts, tables and simple digital tools

The six animal groups

• Describe and compare body covering (fur, feathers, scales, shell, moist skin, exoskeleton), number of legs, wings, size, body parts
• Sort and classify animals using a chart, Venn diagram, or branching key
• Recognise that some animals are hard to classify, and say why

Life cycles

• Describe the general life cycle: born or hatched → grow → become adult → reproduce → die
• Butterfly — egg → larva (caterpillar) → pupa (chrysalis) → adult
• Frog — egg → tadpole → tadpole with legs → froglet → adult frog
• Chicken — egg → chick → adult · Mammal — born live → young → adult
• Explain complete metamorphosis (butterfly, beetle — four very different stages) versus incomplete metamorphosis (grasshopper, dragonfly — the young looks like a small adult)
• Describe how offspring resemble and differ from their parents, and that some young look nothing like the adult
• Compare length of life cycle across animals

Structures, behaviour and adaptation

• Structures animals use to move (legs, wings, fins, tail), and different ways animals move
• Structures animals use to eat (beak, teeth, tongue, claws, mouthparts), matched to diet
• Structures and behaviours used to protect themselves: camouflage, shell, quills, speed, warning colours, playing dead, group living, mimicry
• Explain what an adaptation is, and how a specific adaptation helps a specific animal survive where it lives
• Describe how animals meet their basic needs of food, water, air, shelter and space
• Describe how animals respond to seasonal change — migration, hibernation, growing thicker coats, storing food

Properties to describe and test

• Solids — hardness, texture, flexibility, strength; buoyancy (floats or sinks); absorbency; transparency, colour, lustre, magnetism; whether it will dissolve
• Liquids — how it flows and how fast (viscosity); transparent, translucent or opaque; whether things float in it; whether it forms drops or beads; how it always finds a level surface

Investigations the student can carry out and report on

• Float or sink — predict, test, sort, and look for the pattern
• Absorbency — compare materials fairly and rank them
• Viscosity — race liquids down a slope
• Mixing — combine a solid with a liquid and describe what happens: it dissolves, it forms a mixture that can be separated, it floats or sinks, or nothing changes
• Separate a mixture using a sieve, filter, or by settling

States of water and changes of state

• Name the three states of water: solid (ice), liquid (water), gas (water vapour)
• Explain that heating and cooling cause these changes, and that they are reversible
• Give everyday examples of each — a puddle drying, breath on a cold window, an ice cube in a drink, frost on grass

Movement and force

• Describe different ways objects move: straight line, zigzag, curved, round and round (rotation), back and forth, up and down, fast, slow
• Explain that a force is a push or a pull, and that a force is needed to start, stop, speed up, slow down, or change the direction of movement
• Investigate how the size of a force affects how far or fast something moves
• Describe friction as a force that slows things down, and identify surfaces with more and less friction
• Recognise gravity as the pull that brings things down

The six simple machines

• Identify simple machines inside everyday objects, including objects that combine more than one (scissors are two levers with wedge blades; a wheelbarrow is a lever plus a wheel and axle)
• Investigate how moving the fulcrum changes how much effort a lever needs
• Investigate how the steepness of a ramp changes the effort needed
• Design, build and test a device that uses at least one simple machine to solve a stated problem, then improve it
• Use appropriate vocabulary: force, push, pull, load, effort, fulcrum, friction, gravity, rotate, machine

Air

• Explain that air is all around us, is needed by living things, and is a mixture of gases including the oxygen we breathe
• Demonstrate that air takes up space (an inverted cup in water, a balloon)
• Demonstrate that moving air can move things and do work — sails, windmills, flags, leaves, kites
• Demonstrate that air can be compressed — a pumped-up ball or tyre
• Describe how air is used: breathing, inflating, drying, wind power, sound travelling
• Describe wind as moving air, and observe and record wind direction and strength

Water

• Explain that water is needed by all living things and has no substitute
• Identify sources of water in the local environment: lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, wetlands, rain and snow, groundwater, and the tap
• Describe how water reaches a home, and what happens to it afterwards
• Describe how water is used at home, at school and in the community
• Estimate and record household water use

The water cycle

• Explain that the Sun powers the whole cycle
• Explain that water is recycled — the same water has been going round for a very long time
• Draw and label a water cycle diagram
• Connect the water cycle to weather and to the states of water learned in Strand C

What A3 covers

• Traditions and celebrations of other communities, including communities new to Canada
• A range of things families and communities mark: birthdays, naming ceremonies, seasonal and harvest celebrations, religious and cultural holidays, national days, remembrance, weddings, coming-of-age, feasts and food traditions, music and dance traditions, storytelling
• Explain what a heirloom, artefact or keepsake is and why it matters to a family
• Describe family structures and recognise that families take many forms
• Identify how language, food, clothing, music, stories and beliefs are part of heritage
• Recognise that First Nations, Métis and Inuit traditions are living traditions — continuing today, not only in the past — and identify examples of practices, ceremonies and teachings from their region, learned respectfully
• Describe some ways in which Canada is made up of many communities and heritages
• Use a timeline to place events in their family’s or community’s past in order
• Distinguish past, present and future and use time vocabulary (long ago, a generation ago, nowadays)

Locating places on Earth

• Identify and locate the seven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America
• Identify and locate the major oceans: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, Southern
• Locate Canada, Ontario, and their own community on a globe and a world map
• Understand the difference between a globe and a flat map, and why a globe is more accurate
• Use the equator, the North and South Poles, and the idea of hemispheres
• Use the four cardinal directions and the four intermediate directions (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest)
• Use a map legend, symbols, title and compass rose; use simple grid references

Climate and physical features

• Explain that places near the equator are generally hot and places near the poles are generally cold, and connect this to the Sun
• Identify major climate zones at a simple level — hot, temperate, cold, wet, dry
• Identify and describe major physical features: mountains, hills, plains, valleys, deserts, rainforests, forests, grasslands, islands, peninsulas, coasts, lakes, rivers, oceans, ice caps
• Match physical features and climate to the continents where they are found

Ways of life around the world

• Describe how climate and physical features affect what people wear, the shelter they build, the food they grow and eat, the work they do, how they travel, and what they do for recreation
• Compare two or more specific communities — an Arctic community, a rainforest community, a desert community, a mountain community, a large city
• Describe the languages, foods, clothing, celebrations and daily routines of a community they have studied
• Recognise and challenge stereotypes about how people elsewhere live
• Understand that within any country there are many different communities and ways of living
• Describe what global citizenship means at an age-appropriate level: fairness, respect, caring for the planet, recognising that people everywhere matter equally

• Identify and manage emotions — name a wider range of feelings, including mixed feelings, and use a chosen strategy without being prompted
• Recognise sources of stress and cope with challenges — identify what triggers stress for them personally and apply a coping strategy
• Maintain positive motivation and perseverance — set a small goal, keep going after a setback, and recognise improvement over time
• Build relationships and communicate effectively — cooperate, include, resolve conflict with words, apologise meaningfully, read others’ feelings
• Develop self-awareness and sense of identity — describe their own strengths, interests and challenges, and what makes them who they are
• Think critically and creatively — make a decision, weigh a simple consequence, and solve a social problem

Stability

• Hold static balances on different bases and in different shapes, including with a partner
• Maintain dynamic balance while travelling, stopping, turning and changing level
• Transfer weight smoothly; perform simple rolls and safe landings
• Combine a balance with a travelling movement

Locomotion and travelling

• Perform running, hopping, jumping, leaping, skipping, galloping, sliding and dodging with control and coordination
• Combine two or more movements in sequence — run and jump, skip and turn, travel and freeze
• Change direction, level, pathway and speed smoothly and on cue
• Move safely and efficiently through crowded general space

Manipulation

• Send with increasing accuracy and force control: underhand and overhand throw, roll, kick, strike with hand and with a short implement, bounce pass
• Receive with control: catch a ball at different heights, trap with foot, catch a bounced ball, catch while moving
• Retain while moving: dribble with hands, dribble with feet, carry an object while travelling and changing direction
• Send an object to a moving partner and to a target at varying distances
• Combine sending and receiving in a continuous sequence

Movement concepts and strategies

• Body awareness — which parts move and how · Space awareness — personal and general space, directions, levels, pathways, extensions
• Effort — time (fast/slow, accelerating), force (strong/light), flow (smooth/jerky, bound/free) · Relationship — with objects, a partner, a group, in formations, with and against an opponent
• Move into open space to receive; use space to avoid being caught
• Send an object away from an opponent or toward a gap; anticipate where an object or player will go
• Cooperate toward a shared goal and take on different roles in a game; follow, apply and modify rules fairly
• Show sportsmanship in winning and losing; explain a simple tactic and why it worked

1 · Healthy eating

• Explain why eating a variety of foods matters, and identify foods from each part of Canada’s food guide
• Understand that vegetables and fruit should make up about half the plate, alongside whole grains and protein foods, with water as the drink of choice
• Explain why eating at regular times matters — and how skipping meals affects energy, mood and concentration
• Plan a balanced meal and a balanced snack; recognise hunger and fullness cues and respond to them
• Describe how food connects to family, culture and celebration, and that healthy eating looks different across cultures
• Apply food safety and hygiene: handwashing, safe storage, not sharing food or utensils, allergy awareness
• Begin to notice that food packaging is designed to persuade

2 · Personal safety and injury prevention

• Identify potential dangers at home (kitchen, stairs, cleaning products, matches, medicine, hot water), outdoors (roads, water, ice, sun, heat, cold, animals, tools), at school, and online
• Apply safety practices: road and pedestrian safety, bike helmets, water and ice safety, sun protection, fire safety and escape routes, safe use of equipment
• Know their personal information and how and when to call 9-1-1
• Identify trusted adults and supportive services, including Kids Help Phone
• Distinguish caring from hurtful and exploitive behaviour, including bullying, and describe the feelings associated with each
• Understand consent over their own body: they can say no to unwanted touch, and their no should be respected
• Distinguish a surprise from an unsafe secret, and know that unsafe secrets are always told to a trusted adult
• Understand they will never be in trouble for telling
• Describe how to stand up for themselves and others safely, and when to get an adult instead
• Apply online safety: keep personal information private, be kind, tell an adult about anything uncomfortable

3 · Substance use, addictions and related behaviours

• Describe the difference between prescription medicines and non-prescription medicines, give examples of each, and identify the rules for using all medicines properly (D1.3)
• Explain that medicine can help, but only when given by a parent, carer or health professional, and in the right amount
• Know never to take another person’s medicine, and never to taste or touch an unknown substance
• Recognise that many household products are harmful if swallowed, inhaled or touched
• Understand that labels and warning symbols carry safety information, and identify common hazard symbols
• Identify people to tell if they find something unsafe

4 · Human development and sexual health

• Outline the basic stages of human development — infant, child, adolescent, adult — and the bodily changes that go with each (D1.4)
• Identify factors important for healthy growth at every stage: nutritious food, water, sleep, physical activity, hygiene, medical and dental care, safety, learning, and love and connection
• Use correct terminology for body parts, including the anatomical names for genitalia learned in Grade 1, when discussing health, hygiene or safety
• Appreciate how their body works — identify things their body lets them do, and what they can do to keep appreciating it as it grows and changes (D1.5)
• Understand and apply the practices that keep oral health good: brushing, flossing, and going to the dentist regularly for a check-up (D2.4)

5 · Mental health literacy

• Understand that mental health matters as much as physical health, and that both need daily care
• Name a wide range of feelings, including mixed and complicated ones
• Explain that feelings, thoughts and actions are connected, and that a feeling doesn’t have to decide the action
• Recognise that everyone has good days and hard days
• Identify personal strategies that help them feel calm and steady — sleep, activity, time outside, time with people they like, creative activity, talking
• Recognise signs that they or a friend might need help
• Identify trusted adults to talk to, and understand that asking for help is a strength

Grade 2 work includes

• Use line expressively and with variety, including outline, contour and implied line
• Use shape and form: geometric and organic; positive and negative shape; 3-D form in clay and construction
• Use space: foreground, middle ground, background; overlapping; relative size to suggest depth; filling the picture plane
• Use colour knowledgeably: mix primary colours to make secondary colours, mix a tint by adding white, mix colours from a limited palette, identify warm and cool colours, and identify light and dark
• Use texture: real texture in collage, clay and weaving; implied texture through mark-making, hatching and stippling
• Use value: create light and dark, and use it to suggest form
• Apply repetition and rhythm deliberately to create pattern and visual movement in a composition, alongside contrast from Grade 1
• Use a wide range of materials and techniques with control and care: pencil, pen, charcoal, oil and chalk pastel, crayon, tempera and watercolour, sponge, scissors, glue, clay and plasticine, printmaking, collage, weaving, fabric, papier-mâché, and simple digital drawing tools
• Work through the creative process: gather ideas, plan, experiment, make preliminary work, revise, produce and reflect
• Explain how an artist’s choices create a particular feeling or meaning; recognise that symbols and images carry cultural meaning
• Respond respectfully to work by First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists

Grade 2 work includes

• Maintain a steady beat while others perform a different part
• Distinguish and perform beat versus rhythm
• Read, clap and play simple rhythm patterns, including quarter notes, paired eighth notes, half notes and quarter rests
• Understand metre at a simple level — grouping beats in twos and fours, and finding the strong beat
• Sing in tune in unison with reasonable accuracy across a comfortable range, matching pitch
• Identify melodic direction and higher/lower pitch, and use simple pitch notation
• Use dynamics expressively, including getting gradually louder and softer
• Identify timbre — distinguish families of instruments and a wide range of sound sources
• Perform on classroom instruments with correct technique, including untuned percussion and tuned instruments such as xylophones and recorders
• Recognise texture — a single melody sung in unison with a simple accompaniment, or a do / so bordun pattern underneath it (homophony)
• Recognise form — AB, ABA, verse and chorus, call and response, and repeated sections
• Create a short composition or accompaniment with a clear structure
• Use standard and non-standard notation to record and read their own and others’ music

• Sustain a role with consistent voice, posture, gesture and attitude
• Show the relationship between two characters through how they speak and move toward each other
• Establish time and place through action and language, not just narration
• Contribute to building a dramatic situation with a problem and rising tension
• Work from a range of sources: stories, poems, pictures, artefacts, news, personal experience, community traditions
• Use drama conventions: role play, tableau (freeze frame), thought tracking, hot seating, mime, choral speaking, readers’ theatre, puppetry
• Improvise dialogue in role, and stay on topic
• Present a short piece to an audience with clarity and commitment

• Use body deliberately: isolate parts, use different bases, make wide, narrow, curved, angular, symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes
• Use space: levels, pathways, directions and size
• Use time: move on a steady beat, in slow motion, in accelerating and decelerating phrases, and hold stillness
• Use energy: strong/light, smooth/sharp, sustained/percussive, heavy/floating
• Use relationship: mirror, follow the leader, meet and part, over and under, lead and follow, move in unison and in canon with a partner or small group
• Create a dance phrase with a beginning, middle and end based on a stimulus — a story, a poem, a piece of music, a natural event, a community tradition
• Use dance to communicate an idea, feeling or narrative; solve movement problems in more than one way
• Move safely and with body control

1 · Addition and subtraction facts to 20 from memory

2 · Reading long words by breaking them apart

3 · Place value to 200, including regrouping

4 · Multiplication and division understood as groups and sharing

5 · Reading fluency with comprehension

6 · Writing an organised piece independently

7 · Using a ruler correctly

French as a Second Language

What Grade 3 brings

• EQAO — the province-wide assessment in reading, writing and mathematics, in the spring
• Numbers to 1000, and the standard written algorithms for addition and subtraction
• Multiplication and division facts for the 2s, 5s and 10s — recalled, not just understood
• Nine measurement expectations, including perimeter, area, mass, angles and telling the time
• Many-to-one graphs and the mean
• History outside living memory — Communities in Canada, 1780–1850