Friendly Folders: A Second Grade takeaway

I am in my last weeks of internship right now. I have finished my fulltime teaching in Mrs. Casey's class, so she is allowing me to visit grades I haven't got the opportunity to observe in other field experiences. First on the list was second grade. I visited Mrs. Stephens' class, and I observed several lessons, activities, and ideas that I would certainly incorporate in my future classroom.  Mrs. Stephens' students write friendly letters every week to someone in their family. Their letters are all kept in their friendly folders, and it is just a great way to practice writing friendly letters correctly, pay attention to capitalization, and punctuation. I think this is a great thing to incorporate into any classroom and any grade. I really like that students get weekly practice, and it also provides parents and other family members with examples of their student's work. I think it is also a great way for teachers' to look back at students previous work to see their growth or areas for improvement.

 

Book of idioms: A Second Grade Takeaway

Mrs. Stephens' class also made a book of idioms. Here are just a few pictures. I thought adding illustration to the study of idioms was a great way to ensure students' made personal connections. Not to mention, it makes a great addition and visual to the classroom library!

Arthur: A Second Grade TakeAway

Number one on my takeaway list is Arthur! I LOVED this idea, and it is definitely something I will use in my future classroom! The students' rotate taking Arthur home every night. They get to take Arthur everywhere! Arthur eats supper with them, goes to practices or games, and he even tucks them in. Then the students' write a letter to the class about something they did with Arthur that night. Some even include pictures of their happenings with Arthur. Just this year in Mrs. Stephens' second grade class, Arthur has went to a Braves game, rode on a motorcycle, went to little league games and practices, ate at tones of local restaurants, read several bedtime stories, and the list goes on!

Takeaways: Charts I made for my future classroom.

 I absolutely LOVE Mrs. Casey's use of text coding with almost every lesson. She has a chart similar to this one, and she uses it usually with informational texts like TIME for Kids. The students' first read the story and put their own text codes beside the passages as they read. Mrs. Casey also projects the copy of the text on the board, and she puts a few text codes as she reads as well. Then she calls on different students' to go put a code on the board where they put one on their paper. They then read the text together. They pause throughout to discuss the codes that are beside a particular passage. I love this because readers are thinkers! This really encourages students to think about the text as they read it!

Another takeaway I will use in my future classroom is think, pair, and share. I was already familiar with this strategy, but I really liked Mrs. Casey's anchor chart and reference to it throughout her lessons. I made this anchor chart to use! I even added think, pair, and share strategy to all my lessons taught in Mrs. Casey's class.

 

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Expository Writing Anchor Chart

I also made this Expository writing anchor chart for Mrs. Casey's class. I love that it color codes each section! This will definitely be useful for students' to go back and ensure they have included each element in their expository writing.

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Sequencing Chart

I created this sequencing chart to use with an expository writing lesson and hang in Mrs. Casey's classroom for future reference.  Students' need to be comfortable with the word sequence, and know that it can apply to their writing (not just math!) as well. 

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Continuing our study of tall tales: Comic Strip Tall Tales

We have been talking about tall tales for a few weeks now.  Tall tales are definitely a favorite genre for all students', and we have been reading some unfamiliar tales in our study.  I love Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs because it has easily identifiable tall tale elements and even problem and solutions or cause and effects throughout the story. First we read the text and discussed the elements that made it a tall tale. We would pause throughout to discuss some of the problems and solutions as well. Then students' got to write their own tall tale. I decided to have them write a tall tale comic strip of sorts, so they would have clear instruction and not stray from including the key elements that all tall tales have.

We folded our 11x9 papers together to create our template or sections, and then we discussed what each section would include. The students' went right at it, and their tales were really impressive! They were also able to illustrate in the spaces throughout their comic strip tall tale.

 

 





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Picture Prompt

After talking all about problem and solutions all week, reading different examples, and comparing and contrasting, I wanted to give the students an opportunity to write their own story. I decided to give a picture prompt to help ease writers' block and ensure a little creativity! I chose not to set the picture up at all because I really wanted to see where students would go with it. I did make sure boys knew that there could be a boy in the jar and no girls, I just used that picture to show the idea. My instructions were:

1. Make sure you identify how this problem came to be.
2. What are the characters names?
3. What is the setting?
4. How does he, she, or they arrive at a solution?
5. What is the solution?
6. Give your story a title!

I was so impressed with their creativity! Their stories were also quite entertaining! After we finished our stories, those who wanted to share got the opportunity to. Then I would pose questions to ensure problems and solutions were evident to the listening audience.