Teaching formal and informal English in second grade
This lesson does not try to teach second graders that informal English is wrong. It does not hand them a list of banned words, and it does not ask them to talk like a news anchor all day. What it does is narrower and, I think, more useful: it asks students to notice... read more
A second grade digital citizenship lesson on kind messages
Someone in an online game asks for your password. That is the scenario second graders face in the guided practice of Being a Kind Digital Citizen. I like that the lesson picks it, because a seven-year-old’s first instinct is usually to be helpful. Online,... read more
A second grade number line lesson for students who need it again
Some second graders need to see a jump before they believe it.If you are a counselor, an intervention teacher or the person who coordinates independent study, you have probably had this request land on your desk: a student is behind on number lines, the class has... read more
A second grade computer science lesson on fixing programs
A parent once asked me at a fall conference why her second grader kept talking about fixing programs when the class hadn’t built anything complicated yet. Fair question. My answer was that fixing is most of programming, and seven-year-olds already do it on paper... read more