English Language Arts Grade 2 [2011]

• The Fight - Oral Fluency Practice
  To help improve the students oral reading fleuncy, this activity can be applied to any grade appropriate reading material.

• A Journal for Corduroy: Responding to Literature
  This lesson from ReadWriteThink leads first-grade students to reflect on and respond to literature through journal writing. Students read books in the Corduroy series and interact with a stuffed bear to personalize their experiences. They also record their own adventures with Corduroy, share their stories with the class, and create a class book using the computer.
• A Trip to Wonderland
  This unit explores Lewis Carroll's adaptation for younger readers of his beloved classic, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. After sharing their concepts about Wonderland, students listen to the opening chapters of the story and view Sir John Tenniel's illustrations from the original edition. Using images of 'big' and 'small' from Alice's experiences, students develop these concepts in their own drawings. Students then compare Carroll's fantastic animals with creatures from other children's stories and use computers to craft images of their own fantasy creatures.
• Active Reading Using "The Enormous Watermelon"
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students engage in word recognition activities using character names and high-frequency words from the predictable texts of nursery rhymes and the big book "The Enormous Watermelon." Students also identify the main characters in these texts.
• Adventures in Nonfiction: A Guided Inquiry Journey
  This lesson acquaints students with multiple nonfiction resources and helps them to think about what they want to learn during research.
• Aesop and Ananse: Animal Fables and Trickster Tale
  In this lesson from EDSITEment, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions. They will explore how folktales employ animals in different ways to portray human strengths and weaknesses and how this wisdom is passed down from one generation to the next. These lessons introduce students to the world of folklore and explore how folktales convey the perspectives of world cultures.
• All Together Now: Collaborations in Poetry Writing
  This set of 3 lesson plans from EDSITEment makes poetry exciting for students as they listen to, write, and recite poems that are sure to please. By the end of these lessons, students should be able to create lines of poetry in response to poems read aloud, identify musical elements of literary language, and recite short poems or excerpts.
• Animal Study: from Fiction to Facts
  This lesson describes how to use selected fiction and nonfiction literature and careful questioning techniques to help students identify factual information about animals. Children first identify possible factual information from works of fiction which are read aloud, then they listen to read-alouds of nonfiction texts to identify and confirm factual information. This information is then recorded on charts and graphic organizers. Finally, students use the Internet to gather additional information about the animal and then share their findings with the class. The lesson can be used as presented to find information about ants or can be easily adapted to focus on any animal of interest to students. Resources are included for ants, black bears, fish, frogs and toads, penguins, and polar bears.
• Cinquain Poems: A Quick-Writing Activity
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students write simple cinquain poetry of their own as a follow-up to a subject they have been exploring in class. Cinquain (pronounced "cin-kain") is a five-line poetic form, using a wavelike syllable count of two-four-six-eight-two.
• Cowboys and Fairy Tales: Interacting With Fractured Texas Tales
  This lesson explores the way versions of fairy tales are created and challenges the students to create one of their own.
• Dr. King's Dream
  In this lesson, students will learn about the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Students will listen to a brief biography, view photographs of the March on Washington, hear a portion of King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, and discuss what King's words mean to them. Finally, they will create picture books about their own dreams of freedom for Americans today.
• Dr. Seuss's Sound Words: Phonics & Spelling Play
  Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!-Everywhere you turn, you're bound to find exciting sounds. Whether you visit online sites that play sounds or take a sound hike at school, a near-by park, or on a field trip, ask your students to notice the sounds they hear then write their own book, using sound words, based on Dr. Seuss's "Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?" By focusing on these sound words, this ReadWriteThink lesson helps students develop spelling strategies that help them move from phonemes, the sounds they make, to graphemes, the written representations of those sounds.
• Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Hieroglyphs
  This lesson plan from EDSITEment introduces students to the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and through tomb paintings. The lesson plan is in two parts. In this first lesson, the class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. In the second lesson, Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Scroll Painting, students identify and represent in their own drawings figures from the Book of the Dead, a funeral text written on papyrus and carved on the walls of tombs to help guide the deceased through the afterlife.
• Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Scroll Paintings
  This lesson plan from EDSITEment introduces students to the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and through tomb paintings. The lesson plan is in two parts. In this second lesson, students identify and represent in their own drawings figures from the Book of the Dead, a funeral text written on papyrus and carved on the walls of tombs to help guide the deceased through the afterlife. In the first lesson, Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Hieroglyphs, the class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet.
• Fairy Tales Around the World
  In this unit of six lessons, from EDSITEment, students will read and learn to understand fairy tales so that they can better comprehend the structures of literature as well as for the sake of the wonder, pleasure, and human understanding these stories can provide in their own right.
• From Fact to Fiction: Drawing and Writing Stories
  Getting children to use their imaginations when writing a story can sometimes be difficult. Drawing, however, can create a bridge between the ideas in a child's head and the blank piece of paper on the desk. In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students use factual information gathered from the Internet as the basis for creating a nonfiction story. Story elements, including setting, characters, problem, solution, and endings, are then used as a structure for assembling students' ideas into a story.
• If You Were a Pioneer on the Oregon Trail
  In this lesson from EDSITEment, students compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers. After creating, as a class, oral stories about contemporary cross-country journeys, students learn about the experiences of the emigrants who traveled on the Oregon Trail. They then create works of historical fiction in the form of picture books, drawing upon the information they have learned.
• Listen, Look & Learn: An Info Gathering Process
  In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, primary students will work together as a class group to seek for information on the sloth. A variety of resources and formats will be used with notes recorded on an information wheel graphic organizer.
• Mapping Our Worlds
  Students explore the world of maps and learn how to view the world around them in a two-dimensional format. They begin by depicting the familiar terrain of their favorite rooms. In order to understand the concept of boundaries, they then create maps of areas within their classroom. To reinforce the relationship of small to large and the concept of one area nesting within another, students then compare a series of online geographical maps, beginning with a map of their home state and ending with a map of the world.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and Me: Identifying with a Hero
  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day provides a great opportunity to teach about heroes. This lesson explores ways to help students identify with Dr. King - ”an American hero who lived and died long before they were even born - ”through reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities that provide a glimpse into Dr. King's life. Students record what they know about Dr. King on a KWL chart. They then read aloud the picture book My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers and add information to the KWL. They take a virtual tour of King'™s birth home and compare it to their own homes. Throughout the week, they explore Websites and other sources of information about Dr. King, record new information on the KWL chart, and keep a journal of their own thoughts and ideas. As a culminating activity, they plan a birthday party for Dr. King to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
• My Piece of History
  In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students examine pictures of household objects from the late 20th century, gather historical information about them from older family members, and then create an in-class exhibit of historical objects from their own homes.
• Portrait of a Hero
  Through the series of interactive activities, students will explore their beliefs about heroes and heroism. They will share names of familiar figures they consider to be heroes, and then closely examine their reasons for believing each one is a hero. Students will then view portraits of heroes from American history, and glean a bit of background information on each one.
• Stars and Stripes Forever: Flag Facts for Flag Day
  In this unit from EDSITEment, students learn what a symbol is while developing their understanding of how one particular symbol, the American Flag, plays an important role in the everyday lives of American citizens. An additional lesson, geared specifically to grade 2 students, focuses on the words and phrases contained within the Pledge of Allegiance. From this introductory page, teachers can access archival images needed to complete the unit.
• Stories in Quilts
  Heighten your students' awareness of how quilts tell stories that reflect the lives of the people who create them, and that record the cultural history of a particular place and time. Students will be able to understand how quilts and other cloth-based art forms are used to preserve family and community traditions and recognize that people of different countries and cultures use cloth-based art forms to pass down their traditions and history.
• Teaching Short Vowel Discrimination With Dr. Seuss
  The study of common rimes, or word families, is vital to students' early reading and writing skills. Through the contrast of short vowel patterns, this ReadWriteThink lesson supports first- and second-grade students' use of analogy to apply their knowledge of vowel sounds in reading and spelling new words. The integration of Dr. Seuss rhymes creates an engaging study of onsets and rimes. Students will discover patterns in words, sort words based on their vowel patterns, and apply their knowledge in reading and writing activities.
• The Meaning Behind the Mask
  Students explore the cultural significance of masks, discuss the use of masks in stories, and then investigate the role masks play in ceremonies and on special occasions in various African cultures. After students have studied these masks, they are then given an opportunity to choose a familiar story and make simple masks to perform the story.
• Under the Deep Blue Sea
  In this lesson, students have the opportunity to explore oceans and ocean life. Through creative writing and research projects, students will learn about the ocean and the creatures that live there. This resource is located on the Edsitement website.
• Unicorns, Dragons, and Other Magical Creatures
  This lesson will explore images of magical creatures from around the world. After discussing the special attributes of such creatures, students will view images of specific mythological creatures from two cultures--a unicorn from the South Netherlands and a dragon from Korea--and listen to stories about them. Finally, students will create puppets representing magical creatures of their own invention, or ones based on the creatures they've learned about, and put on puppet shows, dramatizing original stories about their creatures.
• Using a Predictable Text for High-Frequency Words
  In this lesson, from ReadWriteThink, students develop fluency as they participate in a choral reading of the predictable text. After reading the story, students construct sentences using the words found in the predictable text. Students then have the opportunity to write their own stories using the interactive Stapleless Book.
• Word Recognition Strategies Using Nursery Rhymes
  This lesson from ReadWriteThink uses familiar nursery rhymes to draw attention to words that end with the same letters. Kindergarten and first-grade students are encouraged to create word family lists and compare them to words in different word families.
• Word Wizard
  An interactive version of making words. Students use clues to build words.