I have found literacy to be incorporated into lessons I teach in all subjects. Whether that be reading about influential figures in social studies or learning new vocabulary in science, literacy is involved. We also spend the most amount of time each day on literacy related activities. While students appreciate the routine of phonics and literacy centers, these activities can become mundane. That being said, this semester I tried to intentionally find ways to make these routines engaging. One of the ways I did this was with my literacy unit.

Students in second grade focus on narrative, informational, and opinion writing. Because of this I based my literacy unit on opinion writing, and I think I have found my new favorite way to practice opinion writing. In this unit, students were presented with the "true story" of the three little pigs, inspired by the book by Jon Scieszka. I read the story to the class, they listened to an audiobook, and it was then acted out by a few of the students. I found that presenting this story in multiple ways strengthened students' comprehension and bringing it to life with drama caused students to be even more invested in their writing (3.6). 

Math has been one of my favorite subjects to teach this semester. With that, I have really enjoyed teaching how to tell time on an analog clock because it is so applicable to everyday life. In one of my lessons on telling time I was very intentional to design the lesson to have active student involvement at the whiteboard and use a variety of hands on manipulatives (3.3). In a later lesson, all students had their own individual clocks to work with while there was a student explaining their answer at the board.

Students in this class love to come up to the front of the room, show what they know, and teach their classmates. Oftentimes when we were doing addition or subtraction, I would call students up to either show their work under the doc-cam or do the problem on the whiteboard for the class (3.7).

One of the social studies standards for second grade is learning about influential people and heroes. The class read a variety of biographies about people like Ludwig van Beethoven, Martin Luther King Jr., and Pablo Picasso. Oftentimes the process for learning about these people was the same. We would read a passage about the person, fill in a graphic organizer with what we had learned, and then do an activity. While this was a great way for students to learn facts about these people, I decided to mix it up one day.

During my social studies unit focused on explorers, I dressed up as Sally Ride to make the history come to life. I came to the class as a special guest, and students were thrilled. I shared the same information that students would have heard if we had read the passage from their social studies binders, but because I presented it in a new way, as a person students could connect with, it made an impact (3.6). This lesson is my reminder to myself that the people and emotions are often what makes social studies come to life. 

Science can be a challenging subject for students or one of the most exciting things students do all day; it all depends on how it is presented. I found that the science curriculum that Vieja Valley uses is very hands-on and I love that about it. However, often as I taught science, I was reminded of how many new vocabulary words I was using. This is one of the things that makes science challenging for some students.  

I was very intentional to keep this in mind as we began our unit on plants and pollination. Instead of introducing the words all at once, I taught them as we planted seeds as a class. And because students were learning these words as we planted, they had opportunities to see, feel, and maybe even smell real representations of the vocabulary (3.5). The words came to mean something; realia is so important.

The first whole class lesson I taught this semester was an art lesson. As someone who loves being creative, this felt like the perfect way to introduce myself as a teacher to the students and to do something that I love with the students. I really enjoyed this lesson on symmetry and butterflies. And though the class goes to an art specialist each week, I have continued to find other ways to incorporate art projects into my teaching.

The most memorable art lesson that I taught this semester was one that I had not planned to teach. One day when I was subbing, I learned that the art teacher was out sick right before it was time for us to head over. I quickly took inventory of what supplies we had and what we could do for that hour of time. The class had just used water colors for a St. Patrick's Day craft and had loved that, so I decided to have them paint again. This time we used the extra paper plates from a compass craft we had previously done and made snakes. Students cut a spiral shape on the plate, colored a pattern using a white crayon. and then painted over with the watercolor. 

Students at Vieja Valley are lucky enough to have PE two days a week with PE teachers. They get to have amazing opportunities to do things such as learning how to ride a bike. Many of my students didn't know how to ride a bike coming into this year, but after four days of practicing, they were confidently riding through the halls with everyone. 

However, even though students get times like this twice a week, I believe that getting students outside, moving around, and in the sun can't be overdone. In other words, I think that providing opportunities for students to be active is very important even if they have a PE class. I also have come to realize that I really enjoy playing outside with my class; this was one of my favorite lessons I taught this semester. We began with stretches and a quick warmup game we called "The Number Game". I would yell out a number and students had to get into a group with that many students. If there were any students who didn't fit in a group, they would do 10 jumping jacks. I did the jumping jacks with them because I think it is important to also model being active. This game became one of my go-to games because of its simplicity. I could also see it being used to teach multiplication, factors, or something of the sort.

Before this semester, I had never taught a health lesson, however as I mentioned earlier, I think the standards addressed in health can help teach valuable life skills and am glad I have become familiar with these standards. 

At first I thought that learning to navigate new standards would also mean needing to find new ways to effectively accommodate and modify lessons to meet all students' needs. However, I soon realized that many of the accommodations I had previously used worked very well here as well. Just as in some of my writing lessons when I provided scaffolding for students, I gave students sentence starters to use as they wrote their goals (3.2).