Second Grade, Grammar, Set Six

Parts of Speech

• We used an old reader and underlined the verbs, pronouns, nouns, proper nouns, plural nouns, and adjectives in one story. The story had four pages, so we did one page each day.

Sentence Structure

• We divided sentences between the subject and the predicate.
• We added subjects to predicates.
• We added predicates to subjects.

Usage

• We learned that 'I' gets used in the subject of a sentence and 'me' is used in the predicate.
• We completed sentences to avoid using double negatives.

Listening and Speaking Skills

• Giving an oral book report from an outline

Writing Skills

• To prepare for writing a descriptive paragraph (she chose to write about chocolate cake), we completed a Word Web and a Senses Chart.
• We practiced combining sentences that had common subjects or common predicates.
• I had K. pick two words from her word web and two from her senses chart that were plain, everyday words. We used the thesaurus to find more interesting words to use. For instance, soft was exchanged for spongy.
• She spent two days writing sentences from the things on her charts. I asked her to write five sentences each day.
• The next day we looked for sentences that had the same subject or predicate and she combined them into one sentence.
• She decided on the order her sentences should be in the paragraph, and wrote the paragraph in her best writing.

Second Grade, Grammar, Set Five

• Mechanics & Sentence Structure
• Punctuation / Capitalization / Types of Sentences -- we read and did the activities in Child's Own, pages 150 - 153a. This has you learning about "stop" and "go" signs in sentences, then capitalizing words and putting punctuation in a story.
• I downloaded a supplemental curriculum called Punctuation Theater. It teaches the use of periods, exclamation marks, question marks, and commas by using percussion instruments when the punctuation should appear in sentences. It has a lot of sample sentences to work through (because it is made for a classroom) so I was only going to do some of them, but K. wanted to do all of them.
• I found a story in an old book that had plenty of opening phrases and extra information. I read the story and K. underlined the opening phrases and extra information.
• Writing Projects
• I let K. pick an envelope (the information she gathered about penguins). Then we work together to write a paragraph.
• All the paragraphs are written. We will do the editing and publishing during our week off.
• Book Report
• K. picked the book A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond. I am having her make a book jacket as her book report. I took the jackets off about six books and we looked at what was on them -- illustration, author, illustrator, a paragraph to interest a person in reading the book, etc.
• Writing Skills
• Step-by-Step Chart -- K. wrote the five steps for getting cereal ready in the morning
• Story Map -- K. filled out the form -- the characters, where the story takes place, the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
• Speaking Tips
• We talked about speaking in front of a group
• Look at the audience
• Smile before you start, and while you are speaking
• Talk to the person in the back row so you speak loud enough
• It is important to speak clearly
• Here are a couple books you might want to look at:
• Speaking Up, Speaking Out by Steven Otfinoski
• Speak Up! by Patricia Sternberg

Second Grade, Grammar, Set Four

• Parts of Speech
• I printed out a couple sheets of people doing things (biking, calling, jumping, etc.) we talked about what the first one was doing. Then we talked about how we would say it if we were talking about the person doing it yesterday (biked, called, jumped). If they are doing it now, we call that present tense. If they did it, we call that past tense. We went through one sheet of activities writing the present and past tense of each activity. We completed one sheet on two different days.
• Another worksheet had a crossword puzzle of present tense verbs
• I wrote out a handful of sentences and had K. change them from present to past tense.
• We took turns changing the verb tense in a poem.
• Books we read:
• Kites Sail High by Ruth Heller
• To Root, to Toot, to Parachute by Brian P. Cleary
• We used the book Winter Days in the Big Woods (My First Little House Book series) to review proper and common nouns, plural and singular nouns, present and past tense verbs. I read a page then asked K. to find (for example) three plural nouns.
• We used an Amelia Bedelia book to review in the same way.
• We reviewed pronouns by using pictures to make sentences, then exchanging pronouns for the nouns in the sentence. Below is the sentence: Henry shot an arrow at the rabbit and the deer. Which gets changed to: He shot at them. (Looking at it now, it should have been, He shot it at them.)
• We played the Bag Game to review nouns, adjectives, verbs, and prepositions. We played it differently. First we spread out the word cards and then we each made a sentence (of course, every words of the sentence isn't there), but each sentence had to include at least one noun, verb, adjective, and preposition. After reading our sentence, we told what parts of speech each word was and put them in their appropriate bag.

• Writing Projects
• Research report -- K. decided to learn and write about penguins. We looked on the computer card catalog to find out where to look for books about penguins. Then we went to the library and were able to find five books that were interesting to her.
• I wrote each of these categories on a sticky note and put each on a different envelope.
• My home
• What I eat
• What I look like
• How I am born
• What eats me
• How I protect myself
• Fun facts
• Then K. wanted to add
• What I do
• I had her pick one of the books. We take turns reading a page or paragraph and then she decides if there is anything important to remember. We write it (not in complete sentences) on a 3 x 5 card and put it in the appropriate envelope.
• With the rest of the books, I'm letting K. just read them (or we read them together) and when she is all done, think of two new things she learned and make cards on them. We have been doing one book a week. She will finish up any unread books during this week of vacation.
• I decided to have K. write the report in the next set of weeks because we want to take her to the aquarium to see penguins before she writes her report.
• We have started reading the book The Secrets of the Rock by Phyllis Perry. Through a story, the author teaches basic research skills. We are reading two chapters each week and then duplicating the research done in the book. The author has written two other books for younger elementary students to learn research skills (Fribble Mouse Library Mystery), and two books for older elementary students (WHAM Agency Library Mysteries).

Second Grade, Grammar, Set Three

• Listening Skills
• I found an idea on line to make a sheet of paper with pictures of seven different fruits and vegetables printed on it. Then I have K. seven two-part instructions, such as, draw a line from the apple to the pear and color the pear yellow.
• I found a picture on line with instructions. These were three-part instructions, and she did really well.
• We did one more listening skill activity. I found the idea online, but made up my own pieces and instructions, as theirs were just too detailed for a second grader. Here is the picture.

• Sentence Structure
• We added punctuation at the end of sentences and decided if the sentence was a statement, command, question, or exclamation.
• I had K. draw a line between the who and what of sentences.
• K. told whether "sentences" were complete or fragments.
• Mechanics
• I used Child's Own
• Comma, pages 157 - 161
• Apostrophe, pages 163 - 164
• Contractions, pages 164 - 165
• Writing Skills
• Senses Chart -- one day we took a banana and wrote down words for how it smelled, looked, felt, sounded, and tasted. The next day we did the same for a bowl. Then I had K. write a simple paragraph about the bowl from her chart.
• Writing Project
• Shape Poem
• I picked up the book, Doodle Dandies: Poems that Take Shape by J. Patrick Lewis at the library. One day we read the book.
• Another day we googled "shape poems" and looked at the images of all the different shapes of poems.
• The other two days we made shape poems. I discovered that the best way to do this is to print or draw with a very heavy outline the shape you want. Then put a piece of clean white paper over the paper with the shape. Tape them together so they stay together easily. In the picture below, K. wrote a poem around the teddy bear shape and then drew the features of the bear inside.

• Study and Reference Skills
• I found a unit study online called Dazzling Dictionaries Unit.
• One page I used has the child use the dictionary to (1) find correct spelling, (2) find the meaning of words, (3) find a synonym, and (4) find the plural spelling of words.
• The second page has twenty words for the child to put under the correct guide words. K. and I discovered that for one set of guide words there was only one word. The guide words were folk / fool. The words that I think they had planned to go under them were: food, for, foot, and foolish. However, food is really the only word that actually belongs. I had K. look in our dictionary and write three more words that were between folk and fool.

Second Grade, Grammar, Set Two

• We reviewed Verbs
• I read aloud pages 56 - 57 in Child's Own English Book.
• Then it was time to Play Games:
• We pretended that we were sailors (this went well with our history studies) and took turn acting out things sailors would do. K. really enjoyed this and wanted to keep going, even when it was time for lunch! (Game #1 on page 57)
• We played "Dumb Crambo". Player 1 thinks of an action verb (something that can be acted out). They tell player 2 a word that rhymes with the verb they are thinking of. Player 2 then thinks of action verbs and acts them out. Player 1 has to guess the word player 2 is acting out. This continues until player 2 guesses the verb player 1 is thinking of. Then roles are switched. This game was a great hit, too. (Game #4 on page 58)
• We underlined the verbs in one of the stories in the book. (Game #5 on page 58, story #2 is about Columbus, which went really well with our history)
• We underlined the verbs in a story in an old reading text book, Finding New Neighbors.
• I introduced Linking Verbs
• I read pages 61 - 62 in Child's Own (linking verbs are called "copulas" in this book)
• Then it was time to Play a Game:
• I printed out pictures of sets of freight cars. Player 1 writes a noun in the first car, player 2 writes a noun in the second car -- a word that relates to the first. Then the players decide on a linking verb to put in for the coupler between the cars. (Game #1 on page 62)
• We underlined the linking verbs in a story in Finding New Neighbors.
• We reviewed Pronouns
• We practiced substituting pronouns for other nouns in sentences. Example: Sally and Fred went to the store. They went to the store.
• We practiced using "I" or "me" in sentences.
• Then it was time to Play Games:
• We played games on the computer 2Bee or Nottoobee and Balloon Pronoun Game
• We reviewed the Parts of a Book with the lapbook from first grade
• Listening and Speaking
• We practiced what to say when she answers the phone, takes a message, or makes a phone call.
• We reviewed Punctuation
• Childcraft 1969 Edition, Volume 11, page 262 -- has a short paragraph without punctuation, and it talks about the need for punctuation. We copied the paragraph out and K. put the punctuation in.
• Common and Proper Nouns
• We played the game from Set One
• Singular and Plural Nouns
• I picked a story in Finding New Neighbors. On the first page K. underlined in green all the plural nouns. Then I had her find and underline in red an equal number of singular nouns.
• We did the same thing on the next page. Then I decided to expand it by circling the proper nouns in purple and underlining pronouns in orange.

• Writing Skills
• I picked a story in Finding New Neighbors and we picked a word from each paragraph (just on one page) to find a replacement for in the thesaurus.
• We made word webs for a food (donut), activity (swinging), and place (park) -- one each day. The first day I used the words she wrote and wrote out a short paragraph. The next day we did a paragraph verbally. The third day K. wanted to write the paragraph.
• Writing Projects
• We spent a couple days writing and illustrating couplets. Sometimes we would write a complete one by ourselves, other times one of us would write the first line and the other would write the second line.
• A couplet has two lines, the last word of each line rhymes, and both lines have the same number of syllables.
• Usage
• We spent a couple days talking about the difference of can (ability) and may (permission).
• I figured the best way to practice was to use them, so I asked her which she would use if she was asking . . .

Second Grade, Grammar, Set One

• I introduced the concept of Common and Proper Nouns.
• First, I wrote "Noun" at the top of a paper. I asked K. if she remembered what a noun was.
• Then I wrote "Person - Place - Thing" underneath "Noun".
• Under that I wrote "Common Noun" and "Proper Noun".
• On the left side of the paper I wrote the sentence: We went to the city.
• On the right side I wrote: We went to Cerritos.
• Then we talked about city being a common noun and Cerritos being a proper noun (a specific person, place, or thing).
• Next, I wrote: "sister" and "Debbie" in the center of the paper. I asked her which was common and which was proper and drew arrows from each word to the left (common) or right (proper) side of the paper.
• We did the same thing with: "fireman" and "Fireman Jones".
• Now it was time to Play a Game:
• I had 14 cards with common nouns written on them. We mixed up the cards and laid them on the table.
• We took turns turning over a card and giving a proper noun for each common noun.
• Example: If I turned over "park", I would give the name of a specific park, such as "Rynerson Park".
• Here are all the card words: park, street, place, holiday, book, language, day, month, city, school, person, church, state, country
• We talked about Singular and Plural Nouns. Theses terms were new to her, but we have talked about "-s means more than one" many times.
• First I wrote "Nouns" at the top of the page.
• Under that I wrote "Singular & Plural".
• I asked K. if she knew what those words meant.
• On the left side of the paper I drew one cat. On the right side I drew two cats.
• I wrote "cat" by the one and "cats" by the two, and explained that singular means one and plural means more than one.
• Now it was time to Play a Game:
• We took turns writing either singular or plural words.
• The other person would illustrate the word.
• Example: She wrote "butterfly" and I drew one butterfly. I wrote "stars" and K. drew five stars.
• I introduced Pronouns.
• I used Child's Own, starting at page 41. It talks a bit about pronouns, then it has a story where they use no pronouns, but they want the child to give other words for the repeated words.
• Example: Billy said, "Billy wants a lollipop." You replace the second "Billy" with "I".
• We made a list of the words we replaced -- the pronouns.
• We learned about Homophones -- words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
• Game:
• We made a matching game by putting a word on one card and a picture on its match.
• Example: A card with the word "blue" and another with a blue octopus. A third card with the word "blew" and a fourth with a girl blowing bubbles.
• Some words (to, for, our) aren't easily pictured, so we put the meaning on some (meaning belonging to us) or the part of speech (a preposition).
• Friendly Letters
• I showed K. the form friendly letters should follow (you can Google this if you need to be reminded -- I did).
• Then she wrote a letter to thank a friend for a present.
• She will be writing a letter each week until she has written all the "thank you's" from her birthday.
• Sentence vs. Fragment -- a complete sentence is a complete thought; it has two parts who/what and the action.
• I started by writing "The big green frog" and asked K. if that was a complete thought. She told me no. I asked her to complete the sentence. She wrote "jumped on the tiger".
• Next she wrote "The tiny fish" and we decided that wasn't a complete sentence. I added "swam around the bowl".
• We took turns going back and forth this way.
• Another day I took a bunch of word cards and we made sentences, showing that complete sentences had the two parts.
• The last day we went back to the sentences we wrote down and K. drew a line between the subject and the action.
• Capitalization
• The first day we completed a worksheet.
• Game:
• I took the game board we made and a spinner with numbers 1 - 4. Player 1 dictated a sentence to Player 2. If player 2 capitalized correctly then she got to spin and go that many spaces. Then the roles were switched.
• The second day we played this I printed out a couple worksheets because thinking up sentences made the game drag a bit. Maybe it depends on the age of the players.
• Writing Instructions
• I gave K. a choice of writing how to make the bed or how to set the table. She chose setting the table. However, her instructions were very short. Example: Put plates. Put knives. Put forks. Put spoons.
• She wasn't being receptive to my instructions, and it was lunch time. After we ate, I had her read what she wrote and I acted it out. "Put plates." Well, it doesn't say where, or what size of plate, or how many, so I just put a stack of dessert plates on a chair. Then she worked through rewriting her instructions bit by bit to get something that was usable. "Put one dinner plate on the table at each place a person will sit." We went through each step of setting the table like that. We were able to laugh and have fun while she corrected her work.
• The following day we used the thesaurus to replace all the "put"s with place, set, stick, etc.