Our Second Grade Wax Museum

Conducting research, using multiple sources, presenting information orally and biographies are all important second grade concepts identified either by the new Common Core Standards or Ohio's new Social Studies Standards.  To teach these concepts in my classroom, I started by bringing in a wide variety of biographies at roughly a second grade reading level from my local library.  My students had a lot of fun choosing a person to learn more about.

I gave the class a week to read the book and complete a basic biography book report on what they read.  The following week, we went to the computer lab where each student used information from an electronic source to complete a "website review" of 3 new facts they learned about their person (most were able to use the encyclopedia found on Yahoo Kids).  After finishing our initial research, each student used their information to write a brief speech as though they were the person that they studied.  As a culminating activity, we dressed like that person and hosted a "wax museum."  Parents and other students were invited to come "push our buttons" and learn more about the life of a famous person. 

While teaching children this young how to conduct research is challenging, I am very proud of the end result.  The class did a great job and it was some of the best oral reading and writing I have seen my students do all year.  In my second year as a primary grades teacher, I have been surprised at the passion children have for nonfiction.  They were so excited to read to gain new information and their passion for learning has been evident in their work.

Literature Circles for Second Grade

Over the last two weeks, I tried my first literature circles as a second grade teacher.  This can be a daunting task with younger kids, but with some research and pre-planning, I thought that it went pretty well.  One of the keys to its success was that I had kids practice all of the "jobs" beforehand with shorter stories in our reading series before tackling a chapter book in small groups.   With my small class of nine, I allowed the students to choose between two pre-selected Magic Tree House books. These worked great because they are short and were high interest reads.  I divided the tasks of the literature circles into five jobs which rotated on a daily basis.  My adorable models are showing off the necklaces I made to identify who had each job for the day. The jobs I assigned are as follows:

Word Wizard: I chose two words from each daily reading assignment and the Word Wizard had to use the dictionary to define the words.

Summarizer:  It was the job of this student to write a brief summary of the daily reading assignment.

Discussion Director: It was the job of this student to write down at least three interesting questions about the chapter to discuss within the reading group.  I found that at this age level, it was difficult for them to come up with more probing questions beyond, "what was the setting, characters, etc."  Next time, I will provide a list of sample questions to engage the students in deeper thinking.

Story Connector: This student had to think of how that chapter relates to something else they have read or done.  The purpose of this job is to connect what we are reading to other literature or real life experiences.  This was the only worksheet that I made myself and you are free to print it for your own personal use.  All other resources that I use come from copyrighted teaching resources.

Lastly, it was the job of the illustrator to draw a picture of what they think the selection might have looked like.

After the first night, I assigned two chapters per day.  I gave students plenty of time in class to finish their job.  The next day each student shared their work in the order listed above and was assigned a new task.  Before completing a job, the student had to read the daily assignment at least twice.  I had a copy of one of the books on CD and placed my struggling readers in this group. Over time, there is probably a lot of tweaking I will do to improve my literature circles, but the class had a great time with it and I feel it was a successful first attempt.

How to Trap a Leprechaun

 It should come as no surprise that I am a fan of Saint Patrick's Day.  My classroom is notorious for having strange things happen around this time in March. This year my students used their creativity to write expository pieces on how to catch a leprechaun.  They had to use the words first, next, then and last to start each new step.  We then illustrated our projects with the cute leprechaun design I found on another blogger's site.


 I have one "enrichment" period a week and we used this time to set up our own "trap".  Much to my class's amazement the next morning they found the trap was destroyed and the leprechaun had left a messy path around the classroom (he even shaving creamed a desk).  Our tricky leprechaun even left a scavenger hunt of clues leading to a golden snack of donuts and juice.  The clues that the leprechaun leaves are always difficult enough that they require some critical thinking and group problem solving.  While the activity is mostly fun, it is a great way to work on reading comprehension and teamwork.  I have a lot of fun with this activity every year but by far my favorite quote from a student as I was passing out cups for juice was, "this cup smells like leprechaun."  It is truly a joy to work with children at the peak of their imagination.      

Classroom Management for Creative Writing

I recently discovered this pencil on Pinterest and after making my own, it has been a real help in tracking where each of my students are in the writing process.  Even with a very small class, students tend to finish projects at very different speeds.

I usually help my second graders with revisions and often found that kids were coming up to me with a lot of mistakes that they should be able to find after proofreading on their own. The pencil gave me the idea to create a simple checklist that my class can use for each writing assignment. Hanging next to the pencil on the opposite wall, I keep a folder of laminated checklists. Next to the checklists is a container of wet erase markers. The same checklists can be used over and over again with a simple wet wipe. Now, before a student edits or revises with me, they have to show me the completed checklist. My class is still getting used to this new routine but I am hoping that over time, it will reduce the amount of capitalization and punctuation mistakes they bring to me so I can help them improve upon content rather than mechanics. 

 

Expository Writing: How to Build a Snowman

 Last week we practiced expository writing.   Our topic was "How to Build a Snowman".  Prior to formal writing, we did some journaling about the parts of a snowman and what would be needed to make one.  Together, we read the book Snowmen At Night .  Since not all students had built a snowman before, we looked at pictures of real snowmen and listened to the experiences of our classmates with prior expertise. 

I divided the writing into a four step process "First, Next, Then and Finally".  Students had to complete a rough draft using these words as sentence starters.  Before students could publish their work, they had to read their rough draft to me.  While they were reading, I drew a picture of what they were explaining.  They had to look at my picture and identify any missing parts.

Once a student's writing was published, they had to read their own description and "build" a snowman out of paper to match the description they had written.

Our Weekend Adventures With George

The most highly anticipated homework assignment of the year in my classroom is definitely "Our Weekend Adventures With George".  This year's class asked me on the first day of school when it would be their turn to take George home.

For my small class, I start this assignment after Christmas break. George sits in the room the week before, to build interest. On Fridays, a studen'ts name is randomly drawn to take George home for the weekend. He goes home with a bag full of goodies including his own pillow, pajamas and some of his favorite books. Last year, a generous student even added a new Curious George DVD to George's "suitcase". 

Also included in the bag is a class book. At the end of the weekend the "host" is to write a journal entry telling what George did over the weekend. I always have a writing sample for the student who is chosen first. They must add a colored picture or photograph of George to the page. On Monday, they read their entry to the class and share what they did with George. The journal page is taped to the "Our Weekend With George" poster in my room and is added to the class book at the end of the week. On Friday, the previous week's host gets to draw the name of the next lucky student who gets to take George home.

Ideas for Teaching Adjectives

This week the theme of the stories in our reading book is using clues to solve mysteries.  I am tying my creative writing to this idea by teaching a mini unit on writing riddles.  A big part of writing a good riddle is using descriptive language without stating the exact name of an object, hence the tie-in to adjectives.  A great book to read while teaching adjectives is Many Luscious Lollipops by Ruth Heller.  The end of the book is advanced for second grade, but they understand that adjectives describe nouns and verbs and can tell how many.

After reading the book we created a list of as many adjectives as we could think of.  Each student then renamed the book with a new title.  My favorite was "One Beautiful Winged Horse".

The next day, we reviewed what we learned about adjectives and turned it in to the "secret snack game".  I wrote several riddles about snacks and students had to circle all of the adjectives they could find.  They then had to guess what type of snack I was describing. Small groups were then given a bag with a secret snack in it.   They had to hide their snack from the rest of the class and come up with a list of as many adjectives as they could to describe that snack. 

Tomorrow, the small groups will use their adjective lists to write at least 3 sentences describing their secret snack.  The goal is to write as many adjectives as they can in the 3 sentences.  The fourth and concluding sentence is, "What is my snack?" The rest of the class will guess what is in each mystery snack bag.  Of course, this lesson would not be complete without eating the snacks!