Sunday, May 5, 2013

What we have been up to...

Wow, it has been a busy couple weeks! I can't believe it is already May!! Well, we have been working on our Australian Animal Research papers. If you teach second you know how hard it is to get students to research and then write about it! They just don't understand how to get the important information. So I modeled how to research the animal first. I did a graphic organizer as a whole class and then wrote about it as a whole class. I put it on chart paper so they could refer back to it. I then had them work in partners, choosing an animal from a list. I had them take their graphic organizers with important questions we came up with (Where does it live? What does it eat? Characteristics? Fun Facts) to the computer lab. Then they had to take that information and turn it into a 4 or more paragraph paper. They also created a One Pager to go with it. Most of them did okay with this assignment. I had a few strugglers that I had to help with organizing what information went in each paragraph. Here is how they turned out.....



 
I also created a travel brochure for them to write about Australia. (If you don't already know, I work at a International school where each grade studies a country. Second grade is Australia.)
I wanted to make something fun that they could write about information and also create pictures. You know how they love to draw!! This is what I came up with....
Could not get this picture to rotate :( 
 
 
Hope you have a great week!!!
Signature