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 in Writing.

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.

After the teacher has read books about trading and bartering and discussed situations in our history when bartering was extremely important for survival (for example when the Pilgrims traded with the Native Americans for survival/needs/wants), she will lead the higher level students in a game of bartering. 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 first write a message to their families explaining what they have learned about a topic. Next, they write a message comparing what they know to new information that they are just learning. Finally, they write a message saying how they feel about something they encountered in class, such as a favorite character in a book.

The following lesson is optional.These are two Skype lessons that were planned with a 2nd grade teacher from Guatemala, for our students to connect and meet one another via a virtual form of communication using Skype. I was connected with a class in Guatemala with the help of Teachers 2 Teachers Global (For more information see Digital Resource for Skype Project in the Instructional Unit). The purpose of this activity was so that my 2nd grade Dual Language students could communicate in Spanish with a 2nd grade class in Guatemala who was learning English at their school. This lesson was developed by Gabriela Bermingham as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students are given their "Global Folders" and the teacher explains to them how it will be used throughout this learning unit. The teacher introduces the global issue of: challenges children face in trying to go to school around the world. This lesson was taught to my dual language students in English during their social studies content time. All available resources are provided in English.This lesson was developed by Gabriela Bermingham as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will learn about organizations, campaigns and leaders who are making an effort to help children world-wide go to school and get educated. Such leaders include Michelle Obama with her program and Oprah Winfrey. The students will watch a video about an organization called "Transforming Education for Girls Project." Students will take a leadership role and begin to plan actions to improve conditions in the country of Guatemala by starting a fundraiser at the school level. The funds collected will be used to fund educational teaching materials and student learning resources. The fundraiser is supported by Teachers 2 Teachers Global, who will use the money collected to fund the classroom in which the teacher is connected with and is planning future interactive Skype lessons. (see Leson 6: Skype Lessons with Another Classroom).This lesson was developed by Gabriela Bermingham as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will learn about new friends: Manju from Nepal, Wadley from Haiti, and Jednel from Tanauan. Students learn how different natural disasters, such as earthquakes and typhoons, have destroyed schools in various parts of the world due to their catastrophic nature, leaving children struggling go to school and get an education. These are cross-curricular lessons that include the teachings of science, social studies and the language arts. These lessons were taught in English during social studies/science content time.This lesson was developed by Gabriela Bermingham as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

The students will be reading a biography about Ruby Bridges called, Ruby Bridges Goes to School, My True Story (Bridges, 2009). She is an American activist who became a symbol of the Civil Rights movement. At age six, she became amongst the youngest of a group of African American students to integrate schools in the south. She was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960. The purpose of this lesson is for students to learn about the struggles that African-American children faced in trying to get an equal education, here in the United States around the 1960's. This lesson is taught in English during the social studies block.This lesson was developed by Gabriela Bermingham as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Students will learn how transportation can be a challenging factor for some children to go to school in other areas of the world. There are children all over the world who are challenged in going to school because of how far their school is, and/or because of their means of transportation. This lesson was taught during social studies content block in English.This lesson was developed by Gabriela Bermingham as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

Second grade students will explore their school site in order to understand the basic needs of the animals on our campus. Through that exploration they will learn challenges animals may face raising their young without proper resources and a safe environment. They will work collaboratively in groups to come up with a plan to improve our school site, asking school leaders and members of our community for help. After engaging with others to join in, students will use those resources (possibly funds) to help make our school site more animal friendly.

In this unit, students will begin their inquiry by comparing fiction and nonfiction books about animals, using a Venn diagram. They will list things they want to know about animals on a chart. As a class, students will vote on an animal to research. They will revise their question list, and then research the animal using prompts from an online graphic organizer. After several sessions of research, students will revisit their original questions and evaluate the information they have gathered. Finally, students will revise and edit their work and prepare to present their findings to an authentic audience.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to Family Message Journals. The teacher introduces journals by demonstrating the process of writing a letter. Students are then led into composing through guided writing and finally independent writing of messages that they will bring home for family (or others) to read and write a reply. Messages focus on classroom learning and activities in which children have participated at school. A letter to families is included so that they understand what they are expected to do with the children's daily journal messages and why.

The NC Kids' Exploration Journals are a fun educational tool to help youth explore their communities and natural surroundings! Each journal contains: 18 multidisciplinary activities with guided prompts, 6 lined journal pages for recording observations and reflections, and 4 blank pages for individual creativity.

The digital versions of the journal are designed to be printed out for students either as individual activities or in its entirety so that they can explore their school yard, local park, or own backyard. Though designed for 1st - 5th-graders, older audiences may enjoy them too! They are also available in both English and Spanish languages.

While supplies last, hard copies of the journals are currently available for free to teachers by contacting karen.ipock@ncdcr.gov.

This task will extend classroom integrated instruction within a science unit on weather, focusing on the sun's energy. AIG students will use synectics, write an opinion piece and create a collaborative digital product. After whole-class instruction on how the sun's energy heats the air, land and water, AIG students will engage in close reading of nonfiction texts about solar energy. They will then work in collaborative pairs to brainstorm and write similes using synectics to compare solar energy with seemingly unrelated items. The pairs will then create a digital product to publish and illustrate their extended similes. 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.

This inquiry leads students through an investigation of symbols and representation. By investigating the compelling question "What symbol best represents the United States?" students explore what each American symbol represents, how we use these symbols, and what we, as US citizens, value. Students work through a series of supporting questions, performance tasks, and sources in order to construct an argument using evidence from a variety of sources.

In this lesson, letter-sound correspondences are taught within a meaningful context in an explicit, systematic, and extensive manner. This lesson uses onset-rime analogy to present word families and spelling patterns. An onset is the consonant letter before the vowel in a given word or syllable, and a rime is the vowel and consonants that follow the vowel in a given word or syllable. Thus, in the word bill, the onset is the letter b and the rime is the letters ill. Furthermore, this lesson supports cooperative and integrative learning where students and teacher learn together and carry out tasks collaboratively.