In this lesson, students use what they read to analyze the character in the story.

In this lesson, students create thought bubbles for either the brother or the sister from Patricia Polacco's story, "My Rotten, Red-Headed, Older Brother".

Students will construct an animal catching machine using found materials.  You may want to reread the book in order to help students get ideas!

This unit was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 2nd Grade ELA.

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 2nd Grade English Language Arts content.

In this lesson, students will read Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish. Students will discuss text-dependent questions to promote an understanding of the story’s character. Through subsequent readings, they construct and support arguments concerning the character traits of Amelia Bedelia and use the text to determine how Amelia Bedelia and the Rogers can have different reactions to the same events. After these discussions, students demonstrate their understanding of character by completing a trading card for Amelia Bedelia.

This lesson is for Grades 1 - 2 on literacy. At Home Learning Lessons are a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, PBS North Carolina, and the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.  Each lesson contains a video instructional lesson, a PDF lesson plan with a transcript, and a PDF file of extension activities.

This lesson is for Grades 1 - 2 on literacy. At Home Learning Lessons are a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, PBS North Carolina, and the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.  Each lesson contains a video instructional lesson, a PDF lesson plan with a transcript, and a PDF file of extension activities.

This lesson is for Grades 1 - 2 on literacy. At Home Learning Lessons are a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, PBS North Carolina, and the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.  Each lesson contains a video instructional lesson, a PDF lesson plan with a transcript, and a PDF file of extension activities.

In this lesson, students identify the setting, main characters, the problem, and solution. Students also create a new solution to the text.

In this unit, students will read several books by Kevin Henkes. Students will study the characters, retell the stories, and will compare and contrast the plots of the different stories written by Kevin Henkes.

Cause and Effect Jamboard: use this to organize information in either whole group, small group, or as an assessment!  Cause and Effect

In this lesson, students will study four different versions of the Cinderella story. As a group students will identify the good characters, mean characters, problem, and solution of each story. Story elements will be written down on a large poster board and categorized so students can draw identify patterns and differences. Then, students will work in small groups of seven to identify the main parts of the traditional story. Each student will choose a part in the story to illustrate. After illustrations are complete students will practice retelling their part of the story. Students will then scan in their illustrations and use the program, Movie Maker, to format their group's story. Students will record their portion of the retelling with a microphone.

In this lesson, students complete two prewriting activities, one on brainstorming ideas using story maps, and one on creating beginnings of stories. They then work on two collaborative-writing activities in which they draft an "oversized" story on chart paper. Each student works individually to read what has been written before, adds the "next sentence," and passes the developing story on to another student. The story is passed from student to student until the story is complete. In a later lesson Collaborative Stories 2: Revising, the story is revised by the groups.

This lesson plan features an example of a cumulative literary experience or “literature unit” structured around a text set made up of conceptually-related fiction and nonfiction for reading aloud and for independent reading.

Beginning with a comparative study of selected, illustrated retellings of the traditional folktale “Little Red Riding Hood,” including versions from several different cultures, this literature unit continues with a study of modern revisions of this well-known tale. After students have an opportunity to explore similarities and differences among the retellings and revisions, they are introduced to fiction and nonfiction texts featuring wolves in order to provide them with a different perspective of the “villain” in the "Little Red Riding Hood" tales. The unit culminates in a class-written version of the folktale.

Students engage with the text by talking back to characters in Cinderella, dramatizing events in Bubba the Cowboy Prince, inserting themselves into the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and critiquing and controlling story elements in Little Red Cowboy Hat. After comparing and contrasting Little Red Riding Hood and Little Red Cowboy Hat, students plan and create an original fractured tale.

Students listen as the teacher reads different picture books by Ezra Jack Keats. Following the story, the students undertake class discussion and compare the different stories and plots using a story mapping graphic organizer. As a culminating project, students choose their own characters, define a problem and a solution appropriate for their characters, and then write their own problem-solving stories.

The teacher reads aloud Thank You, Mr. Falker. There is a follow-up whole-group instruction that provides a basis for improved higher-level reading comprehension. The teacher works with the whole class to model making predictions and personal connections, envisioning character change, and understanding the themes of the book. Response journals can also be used to further student connections to the characters and themes in the book.

This lesson will allow students to demonstrate comprehension of a text by using a wide variety of strategies and by making personal connections to stories. Students will learn how to develop deeper understanding of character and theme, as well.

Students will read two similar versions of the same fairy tale, such as the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieszka.  Students will acknowledge differences in the points of view of the characters, including speaking in different voices of each character when reading dialogue. Students will use illustrations and details in the two versions to describe the characters, setting, events and plot through questioning and analysis. The product of the lesson will a graphic organizer used to compare and contrast the two different versions of this story.  This lesson fits into the larger context of examining different genres in literature, learning the elements of the particular genre and comparing and contrasting literature. This lesson would fit well into a unit on fairytales, folklore, myths etc. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

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 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 fiction story.

In this activity, students will read Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers, and then take another look at one dramatic moment in the story. After revisiting the moment, they will create a new scene that is not in the book, based on the character of Abraham Lincoln.

In this lesson, students will read part of a story and use details in the text, personal experience, and prior knowledge to predict the way the story will end. To support their predictions, the class discusses the plot elements of the book to the stopping point as well as experiences they have had with other books in the genre and in their own lives. Students individually create illustrations of the story’s ending that reflect their predictions and share these illustrations with the class before the entire book is read again. After the entire book has been read, students compare their endings to the ending in the original story.

Students listen to A Pocket for Corduroy and three other Corduroy stories and discuss the characters and plots. A letter to parents introduces a follow-up writing activity, in which a stuffed classroom "Corduroy" goes home with a different student each night. With parents' help, students write and illustrate a two- to three-sentence adventure story about Corduroy's stay with them, and share their stories with the class.

Please note this lesson has been aligned to math standards, as North Carolina does not currently have a STEM SCOS for K-5.

After whole class participation in a Socratic seminar led by the teacher, with procedures and ground rules stressed, AIG students will be grouped in pairs to plan and lead small group Socratic seminars for their second grade class. The seminars will focus on fables during a fables and folktales literature unit. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

In this lesson, students choose their own reading material, respond to reading in a journal, and talk about their books daily in small groups. The teacher guides the work through structured prompts and by rotating participation with the groups. Students read at their individual levels, while heterogeneous grouping provides peer support. This lesson is a structured guideline for helping students learn to think about the books they read, and to ask questions about books shared by other students.

ABCya! presents its fifth children's storybook for the classroom. It's called Marvin Makes Music, an original work by Michelle Tocci. The story is about a frog that is sad because he cannot sing like his friends, until one day when he gets a new musical instrument. This is a great storybook to share with kids using an interactive whiteboard.

*This storybook has narration! Students can click the speaker button to have the story read to them.

These activities using the book The Matchbox Diary, will help students use illustrations and text for better understanding. They will answer questions about the book using information read and inferred.

Watch the story being read.  Respond on the form to tell how the characters reacted to the events.

 Students will listen to the book The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires and then collaboratively work together to make a doll that talks using the Scratch program and a Makey Makey. (These two tools were introduced and taught prior to this lesson.)

Can you create a free standing castle using the given materials that will withstand the dragon’s fire?

In this unit, students will become aware of the importance of retelling and essential story elements through teacher modeling and progressive levels of independent work. Students demonstrate their understanding of stories through the use of online interactive graphic organizers and present story elements of an individual book through a book talk.

After reading books about how/why the seasons change, higher-level students will read a fiction book that incorporates season changes and effects of those changes with their parents for homework.  They will then answer questions about the changes and the effects of the changes and bring those answers to class so that students may engage in a discussion seminar.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

The chair built must be attractive enough for Goldilocks to want to sit in it.  The chair must hold Goldilocks up without falling.

In this introductory critical literacy lesson, students will consider the perspectives of central but silent characters in the picture book Stevie, by John Steptoe. They will look at the story from these characters’ points of view and give voice to their thoughts and feelings, thereby gaining much deeper understandings of the story and realizing that every story truly gives just a partial account of what happened.

This AIG extension task will be used as differentiation within a second grade dramatic literature unit. AIG students will be grouped to read an adapted version of Shakespeare's Macbeth and complete a character analysis task. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

In this lesson students will create a traditional or non-traditional family tree using the Bee Bot robot to move through their family tree discussing pre-written descriptions of family relationships.