Homophones – Second Grade English

Homophones – 2nd Grade Writing

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meaning.

A pair is two of something (socks, shoes, gloves, etc).

A pear is fruit.

I can build sandcastles by the sea.

I see an airplane in the sky.

I hear mom calling me.

“Come here“, she said.

When I am sick I feel weak and out of energy.

Every week has seven days.

A shirt without any signs or words on it is a plain shirt.

I see a plane flying over us.

I wanted to go to the store too, but there was only room for two.

I knew that their stuff was over there by the tree.

Can you tell me which girl was a witch for Halloween?

I would like to get some new stickers.

My desk is made out of wood.

These books belong to our classroom.

I have to leave in an hour.

I want to wear my yellow shirt, but I don’t know where it is.

My mom bakes with flour, which sounds like a flower plant growing outside.

I got a brand new bike for my birthday.

I knew the answer to that question.

I better be more careful next time because there is a bee hive in the backyard.

I bought four popsicles for my family.

The Rainbow Fish – Lesson Plan- Second Grade

Grade Level : Second Grade

Subject : Language Arts

Duration: 40 minutes

Benchmark Description : Florida Sunshine State Standards

LA.A.2.1.1: The student uses the reading process effectively – determines the main idea or essential message from text and identifies supporting information.

LA.2.1.7.3 – summarize information in text, including but not limited to main idea, supporting details, and connections between texts.

LA.2.1.7.4 – identify cause-and-effect relationships in text.

LA.2.1.7.5 – identify the text structure an author uses (e.g., comparison/contrast, cause/effect, and sequence of events) and explain how it impacts meaning in text.

LA.2.1.7.8 – use strategies to repair comprehension of grade-appropriate text when self-monitoring indicates confusion, including but not limited to rereading, checking context clues, predicting, summarizing, questioning, and clarifying by checking other sources.

LA.2.2.1.2 – identify and describe the elements of story structure, including setting, plot, character, problem, and resolution in a variety of fiction.

Objectives:

After this lesson:

Students will be able to identify the main idea in the story.

Students will be able to summarize the text and make text connections to their own lives.

Students will be able to identify cause and effect relationship in the text.

Students will use reading comprehension strategies to monitor their own understanding of the text.

Students will use higher order cognitive skills to create their own story on topics of friendship, sharing, and/or happiness in their journals.

Materials:

The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister

Poster size Rainbow fish

journals

pencils

markers

paper scales

Procedures:

1. Teacher will start the lesson by discussing the role of sharing in friendship. Teacher will ask students how sharing makes them feel. How do they go about sharing things that they really like? Does it hurt their feelings when someone does not want to share with them? How do they feel when a friend shares with them?
2. Teacher will proceed to introduce the story and then read the story. During the story, teacher will pause on a couple of spots and check on students’ comprehension and thought and prediction on the story. (It is important not to make too many comprehension pauses/stops in order to prevent loss of interest in the story.
3. At the end, ask students to summarize the story. What was the story about? Students will identify the cause and effects relationship in the story. How did the Rainbow Fish behavior change the way other fish treat her? Discuss the importance of sharing and what really made the Rainbow Fish happy? Was it the shimmering scales or friends?
4. Take a step further and encourage students to think about their own friendships and instances when someone’s selfishness made them feel bad or vice versa. Then give out a pice of paper in the shape of a scale to each student. Tell them to think of one word that comes to mind when they think of sharing and friendship. Have them write the word on the scale. Let them decorate their individual scales, and once they are done, glue the scales on the big poster fish.

Assessment:

Students will either retell the story in written form in their journals or create a new story on on the topic of sharing and friendship.

Pilgrims – The Story of Thanksgiving – Magic Tree House Guide

Pilgrims- by Mary Pope Osborne –  Magic Tree House (Nonfiction) Research Guide

This is one of the best children’s nonfiction books about Thanksgiving. It is ideal for any age group, especially primary students who are discovering their first chapter books, and for elementary school teachers’ lesson plans.

The book describes the lives of Pilgrims and the origin of Thanksgiving in an interesting and engaging way.

Happy Reading!

The Polar Express – by Allsburg – online story

The Polar Express -  by Chris Van Allsburg

This is an amazing Christmas story for all those who believe and/or doubt Santa. It’s a perfect holiday read for both parents and kids alike. The story is about a boy who gets on a magical train ride to the North Pole where he meets Santa and receives a special gift. Now you can watch this great story at www.storylineonline.net

Enjoy!

Friend or Fiend? by Judy Blume- The Best First Chapter Book

Friend or Fiend? by Judy Blume-
If you where looking for a great first chapter book for your child, this is the one. The stories are about a brother and sister, the Pain and the Great One. Unlike many other first chapter books, in which kids are badly behaved, Blume’s characters are just adorable, funny, and interesting. You will enjoy reading these chapters as much as your child.
Happy Reading!

Tacky the Penguin – Helen Lester- Something for Laughs

Tacky the Penguin- by Helen Lester- Something To Make Kids Laugh

Tacky is an odd bird. He does not blend in with other penguins. He has his own style, his own way of greeting and marching and splashing… And when he sings, others wish that he’d stop, but one day when the hunters come to hunt for penguins, Tacky saves the day. You’ll have to find out how.. This is a perfect story for 4-8 years olds. They will laugh and ask for a reread.

Happy Reading!

Reading Fluency K-2

Once children know their letters and can read simple CVC words, such as cat, dog, hat, they are ready to take a next step. But this next step can cause frustration in both children and parents.

Students come out of kindergarten reading letter by letter. And if they are not taught word families, they continue to read letter by letter even when words get bigger. This impedes decoding, fluency, and comprehension, and causes great stress.

To address this, students should be taught word families, as I noted in one of my previous posts. Word family study is often referred as “chunking”. Students learn to “chunk words” by learning rhyme patterns/word families. For example…

-ash

dash

smash

rash

trash

Hooked on Phonics books are great for learning and teaching word families and chunking. Hooked on Phonics books progress in difficulty and each story reviews words/word families prior to child’s reading. As with other phonics material, stories don’t offer much of a story line, but they are good practice of word families/chunking.

Learn to Spell- Kindergarten, First Grade, Second Grade

Spelling – Kindergarten, First, and Second Grade

Check the spellingcity.com site. It lets you plug in your own spelling words into a list and play games. It just makes the memorization of the spelling words a bit more meaningful, which will help your child put the words in context and remember them even after the test.

High Frequency Words – Kindergarten

In Kindergarten, your child will be introduced to high frequency words, which are sometimes called tricky words, red words, or sight words.

High frequency words are the most common used words in written English, and by memorizing them, children are better able to process text.

I, see, like, my, to, go, a , and, he, she, the, is , here, are, have, play, said, for, do, saw, out, them, was, help, too, that, be, you, me, they, good, of, his, her, has, all, put, this, we, look, want.

To help children memorize these words, introduce these words slowly. One word every couple of weeks. Have your child write out the words and say it out loud at the same time. Look for the word, which your child is learning at the time, in print. For instance, let your child find and circle every “the” that he/she finds in the book, magazine, catalog. Later, once your child can write few words, help him/her make sentence using high frequency words. Look for high frequency words outside the home on billboards, signs, etc.

children's books online

On a rainy day when you feel like reading some new books but don’t want to go to the library…  Here are some good sites with children’s books online.

Kids love this site. A lots of books read aloud by actors. http://www.storylineonline.net/

Between the Lions – PBS – stories online

http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/

International Children’s Digital Library from the University of Maryland

This site has books from all over the world. It’s a good way to introduce your child to different cultures.

http://www.icdlbooks.org/

Check www.biguniverse.com books online