This resource accompanies our Rethink 2nd Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning.  

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.

Students will use the engineering design process, various materials and their imaginations to make a trap for a leprechaun after reading How to Catch a Leprechaun.

Students are involved in an interactive read-aloud of A My Name is Alice by Jane Bayers, during which they identify and examine the characteristics of alphabet books. Students then engage in shared writing to create a class alphabet book. After completing the class book, they work in small groups using technology to write their own alphabet books. These books are later shared with an audience, giving an authentic purpose to the writing experience.

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 resource is a lesson plan for using the book, The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall. Anticipation guide, graphic organizer, recipe for apple pie, and a link for the book is included. Students will observe an apple tree throughout seasons while answering questions.

This leson meets the learning needs of most students. Students are called upon to be careful readers without jeopardizing the pleasure they gain from reading. It is best to allow students to read the entire story before engaging in a detailed study of the work. Students will examine the front cover illustration and the information on the title page to try and determine what the book will be about. They will also explore how the author uses figurative language. "

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.

 Students will compare and contrast the Wolf’s actions from both the Three Little Pigs and the True Story of The Three Little Pigs by creating a StoryboardThat visual.  An extension activity would include the use of the Dash Robot to code and verbalize their understanding of the Wolf’s actions and how they differ in each book.  

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.

In this lesson, students explore key elements of design such as color, shape, size, texture, density, and layout to understand and appreciate how these elements combine to convey meaning in Little Blue and Little Yellow, by Leo Lionni. Using art and digital media, they will then create their own designs to express meaning for setting, character relationships, and plot.

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.

In this leson, students begin exploring sounds through a read-aloud of Dr. Seuss's, Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You? They then play with the sounds in their classroom, creating words that capture what they hear. Next, they explore sounds from selected websites and record what they hear on a chart, using spelling strategies to help them. Finally, students create original cinquain poems using sound words.

In the multi-day lesson, students will distinguish facts about worms from fictional details by listening to and reading Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin. Students will have the opportunity to explore the illustrations, fictional details, nonfiction details, and captions and speech bubbles within the text. In this way, students are given concrete strategies that they can use to help differentiate narrative and informational elements in other books they read.

As some of the foundational texts for beginning readers, fairy tales are a staple of many classrooms. This lesson allows students to engage with fairy tales from different regions around the world and compare important cultural elements of these stories.

Students will read books about families and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections using those books. Students gain a deeper understanding of a text when they make authentic connections. Beginning with a read-aloud of Donald Crews' "Bigmama's", the instructor introduces and models the strategy of making connections. Read-alouds of "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats and "The Relatives Came" by Cynthia Rylant are followed by activities that help students learn to apply each type of text connection when responding to texts. After sharing and discussing connections in a Think-Pair-Share activity, students plan and write a piece describing a personal connection to one of the texts.

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.

This lesson will incorporate the classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are, student research on wild animal environments, and green screen technology.