Acrostic Poems

This week our 2nd graders are working on writing acrostic poems.  With each phone call and Zoom meeting, I loved hearing all the creative poems these students are writing.  Check out this fantastic poem below!  The details are so specific and the art work is beautiful!   2nd graders, I'd love to see your poems!

Opinion Writing

We just finished up our writing unit on opinion writing.  When we begin talking about what it means to have an opinion, we use the idea of school uniforms as an example.  We talk about the pros and cons of wearing school uniforms.  This class stands united that they don't want to wear school uniforms!

 We started with writing about what we thought would be the best pet or not the best pet.  The students brainstormed their ideas on a graphic organizer and then used these ideas to write 2 paragraphs with a topic sentence and a concluding sentence.  This writing went into a class book.

We followed this up with writing about the best thing about ourselves.  I love this writing project!  They turn out so unique to each student!

You've got Mail!

The weeks leading up to our holiday break are full of excitement in 2nd grade!  One of our favorite writing units is the letter writing unit.  Once we review the parts of a letter and the expectations of what the students need to include in their letters, they begin writing and sending letters out in our classroom mailbox!  Who doesn't love to write a letter and receive a letter back!  During our writing block, we meet for a mini-lesson to either write a letter as a class or work on conventions in their writing.  Then we hand out the mail we've received in our mailbox and a few students deliver the mail we've written around the school.  During our writing time I meet with students for conferences. They must conference each letter with me before it leaves the classroom.  Needless to say, we've been writing up a storm and the students love it!

Awesome Adjectives

We've been learning about characters in our reading and using adjectives to describe them.  After reading "The Duckling Gets a Cookie?!" by Mo Willems, we brainstormed a list of adjectives to describe the crazy Pigeon!  We then called up a classmate and used adjectives to describe her. 

The students wrote out a list of adjectives to describe themselves along with a cute little self-portrait to go along with it.

Personal Narrative Writing

We completed our personal narratives this week in writing.  The students should be very proud of the hard work they put into each step of this writing process.  We began by learning that a personal narrative focuses on a small moment.  We compared it to thinking of a big topic as a whole watermelon and a personal narrative topic as a watermelon seed.  We brainstormed many topic ideas that would be big whole watermelon topics and other topics that would be watermelon seeds.

The next step was to complete a graphic organizer to help us brainstorm all of the details that would go with our small moment.  I asked the students to recall details that related to their 5 senses.  During their small moment, what did they see, hear, smell, taste (if applicable), feel?

The students then took their ideas and wrote them out in complete sentences.  They cut apart their sentences and put them in an order that made the most sense.  We also found that some details needed to be left out if they didn't make sense.  Then the sentences were glued down onto large pieces of construction paper.  The students learned about transition words like first, then, next, finally.  On a colored note card, the students wrote a few transition words to add to their story and cut and glued those in the spots that made sense.  We also added some sound or feeling words to give our writing even more voice.  Those were also written a colored note card and cut and glued on.

After all of these steps were completed, the class was certain that they had their finished writing project.  Then we talked about putting it into a format that can be easily read and understood by their readers.  The final step was to recopy their work onto writing paper, including an illustration, and putting it into a book with a dedication page.  They turned out great, and the students are enjoying reading each other's books on the rug.

On Friday a few students shared their completed writing, and others will share on Monday.

Nice work 2nd graders!

What Turns You into a Crankenstein?

This week we read the funny book "Crankenstein" by Samantha Berger.  This story takes you through many examples of  what makes the main character very cranky.  At the end, the reader is surprised to find out the main character is just a normal little boy!  We shared stories and examples of what makes us cranky.  The class shared examples of long car rides, taking out the garbage, or wanting a toy that is too expensive.  We used our ideas to put together a class book.  Each student came up with a main idea and three details to support that idea.  We're still finishing up our writing, but we finished making our Crankensteins yesterday.  They turned out great!

You're Finally Here! Books

The students recently finished writing their first book of 2nd grade.  On the first day of school we read the book "You're Finally Here!"  by Melanie Watt.  After we finished reading, the students recorded on a sticky note about 1 event they did over the summer that kept them away from 2nd grade for so long!

The next step in the process was to use a bubble map to record 2 more ideas about where they had been all summer.  They also wrote down an idea about what they are looking forward to in this school year.  We then took our ideas and wrote them into complete sentences focusing on beginning with a capital letter, ending with an end mark, and making sure that the sentence makes sense.  After conferencing their sentences with me, the students wrote their sentences in their booklets and illustrated each page.  They turned out so cute, and the students love reading each other's books down on the rug.

A Special Place for Our Writing

At the end of the week we worked on decorating our writing binders.  The students brought in special pictures, stickers, and magazine cutouts to personalize their binders.  The students couldn't wait to begin this project because they loved their pictures so much.  I love to see pictures of everyone's families and baby pictures and pictures of their pets.  It's so sweet to see how excited they are to share these details of their lives with each other.

This binder will hold all of their creative ideas, fiction stories, and personal narratives of school events, family traditions, play date recounts,  birthday party excitement, and so much more throughout the year!  Often, the students will also look at their binder to spark an idea of what to write.  Looking over the pictures of family and friends will remind them of something that has happened that could make a great story!