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Using a Graphic Organizer

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Topic:

Using a graphic organizer- personal narrative

Standards:

ELACC2W3: Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Essential Question:

How do writers organize their writing?

Duration:

About 1 hour

Materials:

graphic organizer-beginning, middle, end, story lead

Overview or notes pertaining to lesson:

Students will learn how to use a graphic organizer to organize their personal narrative stories.

Mini Lesson:

Today I would teach students how to use my beginning, middle, end graphic organizer. Last time we wrote a personal narrative we used our hands to help us organize our writing. Today I am going to give you a graphic organizer that we will be using in second grade. It has beginning, middle, and end on the graphic organizer because like every story, you need to include all of those parts in your story. I would model writing my story ideas in the graphic organizer in front of them. I want students to see that the organizer is for organizing thoughts, not for writing our whole story. I would make bullet points and incomplete sentences in the boxes and think aloud while I do this. I would explain to students that a graphic organizer is to quickly organize thoughts in order to jog our memory of the events of the story later when we write our complete story in our journals. My students always have a hard time with graphic organizers, because they always want to write the whole story with sentences in the organizer. We will continue to work on this concept throughout the year. Another note is that I like to do each part of the story separately, especially at the beginning of the year.

Guided Practice:

So I would model the first box first, then allow students to complete theirs. Then I would model “beginning”, allow students to turn and talk about what they will write in the beginning, then let them go and write the beginning. Then I would model “middle”, allow students to turn and talk, then let them complete their middle. Lastly, I would model “end”, allow turn and talk, then let them complete their end. This may take 2-3 days to complete.

Independent Practice:

When students are working independently, go around and help students struggling, and make sure everyone is completing the organizer properly.

Closing:

What does every narrative story need to have? (characters and setting, beginning, middle, and end.)



Problem Solving: Check

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Topic:

Problem solving process: check

Standards:

MCC2.OA.1. Use addition and subtraction within 100 to solve one- and two-step word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing with unknowns in all positions., e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

Essential Question:

How do mathematicians check their work?

Duration:

About 1 hour

Materials:

chart with problem solving steps, marker, math games, word problems

Overview or notes pertaining to lesson:

Students will learn the last step of the problem-solving process: Check

Mini Lesson:

The past few days we have talked about the problem solving process: Read and Understand, Plan, Solve. Today we are going to do the last step in the process: Check. Once you solve a problem, you’re not done. You need to check your work and make sure you have done everything correctly. To check you can solve the problem in a different way or look back at your work and look back at what the problem says.

Guided Practice:

Solving a different way probably won’t work very well with this type of problem. Practice with Lynn’s Ladder, looking back at what the story says, and matching it to the work we have done to make sure everything looks correct. Then check the sentence we wrote as our answer to make sure we stated the correct answer and that it makes sense. Math always needs to make sense.

Independent Practice:

Group 1: pattern activity with base ten blocks from day 7, Group 2: teacher-allow students to practice the “Plan” step with a different exemplar problem (use the same one you used in the last lesson), Group 3: tic tac toe, Group 4: odd/even game. After about 10 minutes, clap for attention, clean up, and rotate. Remember to correct behaviors immediately and praise good behaviors. Feel free to switch up any of those math games with others at any time.

Closing:

Journal Entry: Review all 4 problem solving steps.



Story Leads

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Topic:

Students learn how to write attention grabbing story leads.

Standards:

ELACC2W3: Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Essential Question:

How can a strong story lead capture my reader’s interest?

Duration:

About 1 hour

Materials:

anchor chart of story leads, marker

Overview or notes pertaining to lesson:

Students learn how to write attention grabbing story leads.

Mini Lesson:

Yesterday we chose an experience to write about that will make a great story. Writers write narratives to entertain their readers. Talk about what entertain means. Therefore, we need to figure out a way to capture the reader’s interest and make them want to keep reading our stories. Show students the mentor texts that you have already read. Reread the story leads from those stories. Discuss how the authors got the reader’s attention in those books. Display your anchor chart of “Story Leads” with dialogue, onomatopoeia, and questioning. I also have a print off for students to put in their journals as a reference. Talk about each example and how it captures the reader’s attention. Model making a story lead for your story.

Guided Practice:

Think about which story lead you are going to try for your story today. Turn and talk to tell your partner your story lead. Share a few with the class and talk about if it will capture the reader’s interest. If not, work together to improve.

Independent Practice:

Send students back to their seats to work on their story leads. Confer with students during this time independently or in small groups.

Closing:

Review story leads and their importance.



Problem Solving Step 3: Solve

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Topic:

Problem solving method- Solve Step

Standards:

MCC2.OA.3 Determine whether a group of objects (up to 20) has an odd or even number of members, e.g., by pairing objects or counting them by 2s; write an equation to express an even number as a sum of two equal addends.

Essential Question:

How do mathematicians solve problems?

Duration:

About 1 hour

Materials:

math games, chart with problem solving process, word problems

Overview or notes pertaining to lesson:

Students will learn step 3 of the problem solving process: Solve.

Mini Lesson:

So far we have discussed the first 2 steps in the problem solving process: Read and Understand, and Plan. Today we will move to step 3: Solve. We chose our strategy yesterday and we said that we would draw a picture of Lynn’s ladder. Today, we are going to do just that to solve the problem.

Guided Practice:

Together, draw the ladder according to the directions given in the problem. Make sure to add details to your picture, such as numbers (for rungs), words (colors), and talk about the picture and what students notice about it (patterns). Answer the question together using the picture. Write the answer in words.

Independent Practice:

Split students into groups for independent practice/work. Group 1: pattern activity with base ten blocks from day 7, Group 2: teacher-allow students to practice the “Solve” step with a different exemplar problem (use the same one you used in the last lesson), Group 3: tic tac toe, Group 4: odd/even game. After about 10 minutes, clap for attention, clean up, and rotate. Remember to correct behaviors immediately and praise good behaviors.

Closing:

Journal Entry: Review step 3: Solve. Talk about how important it is to show your thought process during this step using pictures, words, numbers, and a sentence stating your answer.



Choosing an Experience to Write About

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Topic:

Choosing a personal experience topic to write a personal narrative

Standards:

ELACC2W3: Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Essential Question:

How can I choose the best experience to write about?

Duration:

About 1 hour

Materials:

personal experience chart,  Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel

Overview or notes pertaining to lesson:

Students will choose a personal experience topic to write a personal narrative.

Mini Lesson:

Students bring writer’s journal to the floor. Yesterday we made lists of personal experiences we have had in our lives. Today we need to choose one of those experiences to write a story about. Remember that not all experiences are happy ones. Sad or scary stories can be good to read as well. Read Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel. When we choose an experience to write about we need to choose one that we think we can make a really great story that others will like to read. Sometimes sad and scary stories are great, because other people can make connections to those stories. Maybe the reader was scared of the same thing as the writer, so they would probably enjoy reading that book, because they can relate to it. Make a connection to the book you just read. Model choosing an experience from your list and talk aloud about why you would or would not choose that experience to write about. Choose one that you can say your reason is that 2nd graders can connect to it, like getting a new puppy.

Guided Practice:

Think about which experience on your list you might want to write about and why. Turn and talk, then share some ideas with the class. Discuss good reasons to choose the topic with those who share.

Independent Practice:

Send students back to their seats so they can choose a topic and write about why they chose that topic in relation to the audience.

Closing:

Have a few students share what topic they chose and why.



Making a Plan in Math

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Topic:

Problem-solving in math: making a plan

Standards:

CCGPS: MCC2.OA.3 Determine whether a group of objects (up to 20) has an odd or even number of members, e.g., by pairing objects or counting them by 2s; write an equation to express an even number as a sum of two equal addends.

CCGPS: MCC2.OA.2 Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers.

Essential Question:

What does it mean to have a plan?

Duration:

About 1 hour

Materials:

chart paper (poster for problem solving)

Overview or notes pertaining to lesson:

Students will learn the second step in the problem-solving process: Make a Plan

Mini Lesson:

Review yesterday’s discussion about Step 1 of the problem solving process: Read and Understand. Explain that today we will be working on Step 2: Plan. What does it mean to have a plan? Have students turn and talk and then share a few ideas with the class. When you plan, you decide what is going to be the best thing for you to do. Mathematicians always need to have a plan to get them to an answer. There are many different strategies that we can use to help us. Introduce the strategies one at a time: Draw a picture, find a pattern, guess and check, manipulatives, make a list, table/chart, number sentence, work backwards, make it simpler. You might want to pre-make the list of strategies, or print this one for students to glue in their math journals for a reference. But on your chart paper, I think it is best to pre-make the list and draw examples of each strategy, so students can easily see what manipulatives they can use, what a chart, number sentences, lists, etc look like. Explain that we don’t use all of these strategies at once. We have to think about the problem and what we understand about the problem to decide which strategy would be best for solving the problem.

Guided Practice:

Use the exemplar problem from yesterday’s lesson: Lynn’s Ladder. Review what we understood about the problem yesterday. Ask students which strategy they think would be best to help us solve this problem. Turn and talk, then share ideas. Probably the best strategy for this question would be “draw a picture”. Write “Plan” under “Read and Understand” and write: I am going to draw a picture of the ladder that Lynn is painting.

Independent Practice:

We will be practicing some of these strategies today in our groups. Again split students into groups that you have been using. Group 1: pattern activity with base ten blocks from day 7, Group 2: teacher-allow students to practice the “Plan” step with a different exemplar problem (use the same one you used in the last lesson), Group 3: tic tac toe, Group 4: odd/even game. After about 10 minutes, clap for attention, clean up, and rotate. Remember to correct behaviors immediately and praise good behaviors.

Closing:

Journal Entry: What are your favorite math strategies, or which do you feel most comfortable using?