Learning Lessons With Amy Labrasciano: informational writing

Click here to learn all about teaching ELA in the second grade classroom. These free and fun lesson outlines will detail curriculum and ideas for all informational, literature and writing standards in my 2nd grade elementary classroom. This week's lessons will be all about: Penguins, Cold Weather Penguins, Warm Weather Penguins, Cause and Effect, Compare and Contrast, Informational Writing, Opinion Writing. Your second grade students will love the lessons and activities shared here. These lesson outlines are added and updated almost each week.

Hi everyone! I hope that your new year is off to a great start! This week is all about penguins and informational text. I love this time of the year because we can tackle several standards in one week and the students are well on their way to working effectively and independently. Their third grade teachers will be pleased. We start the week off by bribing a staff member to deliver a frozen or very cold package that is marked "URGENT". Inside is a letter and penguin articles. The letter is from my "good friend" Dr. Hanson who is noticing effects from climate change and wants our class to investigate whether or not penguins could move to a warmer climate. The students are so excited to not only receive the package, but also to help solve the cute little penguin's problem. We'll be exploring key details, compare/contrast, connecting events and response to text. The students will carry their learning over into writing where they research and choose a topic about penguins to write about. Students who finish their work on time will get to make a penguin cover for their writing. They love that part. I'll post pictures below that show some of the activities will have during our independent time.

For the materials that I used this week, click on the picture below.

Click here to learn all about teaching ELA in the 2nd grade classroom. These free and fun lesson outlines will detail curriculum and ideas for all informational, literature and writing standards in my elementary classroom. This week's lessons will be all about countries of the world which include: Spain, South Africa, Japan, China, U.S.A and Sweden. Your second grade students will love the lessons and activities shared here. These lesson outlines are added and updated almost each week.

Here we are in week two of one of the best units EVER! The students are having a great time learning about cultures from around the world, how those cultures affect us, all while incorporating reading, writing and social studies standards together. This week will not disappoint! All teachers know that learning just before a break can leave students a little less motivated, distracted and it may feel a bit like herding cats. This is why I up the engagement of my lessons so that students keep on going until the minute they leave on Friday.

We will be diving into comparing and contrasting again on Monday. The students will have a host of H.O.T questions to guide their thinking. On Wednesday we will take a break a break during shared reading from cultures and dive into Thanksgiving. We do not learn about a sugar coated Thanksgiving, rather we learn an age appropriate approximation of the events. Students will look at the cause/effect relationships between these events in order to connect each event through a timeline. Students have been discussing and learning about an author's point for weeks now, Thursday will have them reading three passages, determining the purpose and finding evidence to support the different points.

So much going on this week that every minute counts. Our shared reading lessons will run between 20-30 minutes. We will have fun read alouds ever day. (I'll list some of them below for you.). We will also be incorporating fall fun into our guided reading. Students will continue to write their Sweden pieces to display for their culture fair. If you are interested in details to any of the extra events that I have listed, please look for links below. You can find my lesson plan outlines from A Modern Teacher here.