Poetry Books

In the month of March we learned about 4 different types of poems: acrostic, portrait, haiku, and 2 words on a line poem.  The students wrote several of each type of poem and chose their favorite of each type to publish.  To publish our poems we typed them and added unique artwork to each.  We also included a page about the author.  After finishing up our books, we invited the first grade class into our room to share our poems with.  Since then our books have been on the rug in a basket.  The students love reading each other's poems.  They are beautiful booklets!

Opinion Writing

Our most recent writing unit focused on opinion writing.  We started with writing about what we thought would be the best pet or not the best pet!  The process we followed was brainstorming our ideas with a graphic organizer and then using these ideas to write 2 paragraphs with a topic sentence and a concluding sentence.  We compiled this writing 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! 

Awesome Adjectives

Last week while Mason was visiting in the morning he read one of his favorite picture books to the class, "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late" by Mo Willems.  We used this story to revisit adjectives.  The class came up with a fantastic list of descriptive adjectives to describe this funny pigeon.  We then called up a classmate and used adjectives to describe this friend.  The class loved calling out adjectives as we stuck them right to her.  The students then brainstormed adjectives to describe themselves that they added to a picture they drew of themselves.  We found the adjectives we used to describe ourselves were quite different than how we described the Pigeon!

We've Got Mail!

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are so fun for us in 2nd grade!  The students learn about writing letters, and they actually have the chance to send letters throughout the school in our mailbox!  Each day the students write letters, conference them with me, address them and include a stamp, and send them off in our yellow mailbox.  Our mail is sorted daily, and we have 2 different mail helpers each day that go around and deliver our mail.  Incoming mail is handed out at the beginning of our writing block.  The students are so excited to receive a letter!

Thanksgiving Fun

A few weeks ago we started a Thanksgiving writing project after reading the book "Turkey Trouble" by Wendi J. Silvano.  In this book the turkey doesn't want to become the Thanksgiving meal so he dresses up in many different disguises to try to trick the farmers.  The students chose a way to disguise a turkey and wrote a letter to the farmer for reasons that the turkey should not be eaten.  They worked on writing specific details to go along with the disguise.  We put all this all together in a class book that the students love to read!  This project dates back several years now, and the class loves going back and reading these booklets of disguised turkeys from previous classes!

Today we played Turkey Bingo, and we had 1 winner!

Happy Thanksgiving 2nd grade families!

What Turns You into a Crankenstein?

This week we read the book "Crankenstein" by Samantha Berger.  This funny book follows a boy as he shares what makes him terribly cranky!  We all have a few things that can make us terribly cranky.  The students shared all their different ideas.  Our next step was to make our own Crankenstein.  Next week we will complete this project with writing about what turns each of us into a Crankenstein.  They did a fantastic job creating their Crankensteins!  I love how unique each one is!

A Special Place for our Writing

This week we worked on decorating our writing binders.  The students brought in special pictures, stickers, and magazine cutouts to personalize their binders.  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!

You're Finally Here! Books

This week we finished writing our first books as 2nd grade writers!  On the first day of school we read the book "You're Finally Here!" by Melanie Watt.  The students used a sticky note to write about 1 thing they had been doing in the summer that had kept them away from 2nd grade.

The next step in our writing process was for the students to brainstorm 2 more fun events that had kept them away from 2nd grade all summer.  The class then took their ideas and wrote them into sentences for each page of their books.  The final page telling the reader what they're looking forward to in 2nd grade.  After conferencing with me, the students worked in their little books on their words and illustrations.  Now our books are down on the rug for our classmates to enjoy during Daily 5 time!  I just love reading their books and seeing their sweet illustrations!