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.

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

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.