All Kids Love Learning About Animals!

The second graders love learning about animals!  We started the unit by making interesting animal sentences.  Using an idea I got at a conference this year, I covered the board with columns of different colored paper.  Each colomn was named: adverbs, nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions.  Nouns and verbs were easy for the kids to list.  Adjectives and adverbs were a little more difficult, so I gave them lists and they highlighted words they knew and liked.  After filling our columns with words, each student chose two animal pictures.  They had to write a silly sentence about one animal and a serious sentence for the other.  They also had to use each of the five parts of speech we listed on the board.  It was a fantastic exercise and it got the kids thinking about the characteristics we attribute to certain animals.

Recently, we've been discussing how animals can be divided into different groups.  The students are working together in different centers to deepen their understanding and at the same time, strengthen their skills.  They use the Oxford Picture Dictionary to match amphibians and reptiles from a list of pictures to a nature scene. 

The students really enjoy the information hunt tic-tac-toe activity.  In this center, they have to find the animal book and page that is specified on their tic-tac-toe board, and find the missing information. 

One of the most exciting things about centers is watching the students help each other.  I was busy helping students at a different center, so I asked Alejandra if she would help Athan understand what to do, since she had already visited the vocabulary match-up center.  Cooperative learning is the optimum learning environment for English Language Learners, and allows for students of all proficiency levels to become experts and teachers themselves!