Women'sHistory Month

March is Women’s History Month. This is a great time to teach about the accomplishments of women in our classrooms. Celebrating Women’s History Month not only teaches about the contributions of women, it also serves to inspire a new generation of young girls. Some inspiring women to include in your classroom studies are:

-        Joan of Arc

-        Pocahontas

-        Catherine the Great

-        Sacagawea

-        Harriet Beecher Stowe

-        Susan B. Anthony

-        Florence Nightingale

-        Harriet Tubman

-        Clara Barton

-        Emily Dickinson

-        Annie Oakley

-        Marie Curie

-        Helen Keller

-        Eleanor Roosevelt

-        Amelia Earhart

-        Mother Teresa

-        Rosa Parks

-        Anne Frank

-        Sandra Day O’ Connor

-        Jane Goodall

…and the list continues to grow! Check out different ways to incorporate Women's History Month into your classroom.

 

Looking for informational texts? Check out the FREEBIE for Rosa Parks!

Need a complete unit that can be used in your Social Studies and Reading/LA block? Check out the best-selling complete no-prep Women’s History Unit.

 

"Learning to Read" to "Reading to Learn": Making the Transition

One of the biggest transitions that takes place in my second grade classroom is the move from learning to read to reading to learn. Throughout the school year, we continue to work on our reading and phonics skills. However, my goal for my students is that they leave the second grade with the ability to comprehend so that they can read informational text.

Upper elementary students are required to read to obtain information. Students have to be taught how to retrieve the information that they are looking for. One of the best ways to do this is to model this skill. This can be done as a whole class, small groups, or one on one.

Before you begin, make sure that your students have the supplies that they need. My students LOVE using highlighters. Yes, when they first start using them they tend to go a little overboard with the highlighters. However, once they get used to having them they use them more wisely.

Find a text that is meaningful! I would make the text relevant to something that you are covering outside of your Reading/LA block. I would use a text that relates to your current Social Studies or Science unit.

We start by reading the text together and discussing the text before we move onto the questions. If you are doing this as a whole group activity, I would definitely have the text enlarged on a projector. Once you start the questions, read the first question aloud. Allow for time before asking students where they found the answer in the text. I like to have students come and point to the sentence in which they found the answer. Then together, we all highlight the sentence that answers the question.

Then, we write down our answers. If students have more than one color highlighter I would allow them to change colors when answering different questions.

We work on this skill quite a bit in the spring as preparation for the third grade. These skills enable my second graders to be better prepared for third grade.

Looking for some FREE reading passages to use in your classroom? Check out these FREE Social Studies and Science reading passages!

Weather FREEBIE 

Inventor FREEBIE

Goodbye Word Wall!

Goodbye Word Wall!

I have ALWAYS had a word wall in my second grade classroom. It was filled with vocabulary words and sight words. However, most of the words that were on the wall were in their writing notebooks, which they use for reference while writing. We weren’t really USING the word wall. In order to make the word wall more effective, I decided to make it a wall for all of the over used words. The words on the wall are the words that I notice they use way too often in their writing. I thought that I would change up the wall to encourage more colorful words. Instead of fun…

Instead of sad…

Instead of happy…

Instead of good…

Instead of bad…

They really enjoy using these words in their writing and even push themselves to think of other words that are not on the wall!