Writing

During this year, you will see your child's writing grow from groups of letters (inventive spelling) that represent a word, to the correct spelling of basic words in their writing while still using inventive spelling for "harder" words. This is a natural process for second graders, and it's great to see and keep some of their "Second Grade" writing for future enjoyment.

You will also (hopefully) see your child's handwriting improve as the year goes on. This is a skill that takes repeated practice at school and at home.

	Snowman Stories It took us quite awhile to finish these stories. We went through the whole writing process (brainstorming, rough draft, proofreading, editing, and final copy). While we were in the computer lab, we got to type up our final copy of our story. We then connected them to a snowman that we made in the art center.
	Journal Writing One of the second grade skills is for a student to be able to write on a self-selected topic. Every other day the students write in their journals. They can write about an event that has happened in their life, how they are feeling that day, or they can make up a story or a poem. They then meet with Mrs. Sims for a one-on-one journal meeting. During this meeting we talk about the order that the events are written in, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and anything else that may arise. Hailee enjoys writing about her mother and going hunting.
	Guess My Word Our word wall is another resource that we can use when we are writing. It is full of words that we have trouble spelling. To keep us familiar with the words, we play "Guess My Word". Mrs. Sims picks a word from the wall and gives us 5 clues. From these clues we have to figure out which words she has chosen. Clues: 1. It has 2 syllables. (many choices) 2. It is a noun. (several choices) 3. It has 2 vowels (narrows it down more) 4. It has an "h-brother" (th) in it. 5. It begins with an m. (got it~Mother)
Letter Writing We all learned the different parts to a friendly letter, how to write one, and how to address a letter. Once we had learned all of that, we were able to write to our friends in other 2nd grade classrooms. After a "stamp" was put on them, we mailed them.

Aaron and Krissy write a letter to someone. They use the class "address book" to prepare the envelope.	Andrew mails his letter.
Snowmen Stories We worked our way through the writing process (rough draft, proofing, editing, final copy) on a story about a snowman. We then went to the computer lab and typed up our final copy. We had a lot of fun typing up and then seeing our stories printed out. We got to choose our own font and size.

Here is David finishing up his story.	Alexis types up her story too.
	Pumpkin Stories One of our writing projects for October was to write a story about a Jack-O-Lantern. We could pretend that we were a Jack-O-Lantern and tell what we would do or make one up about a Jack-O-Lantern. Some of us were nice Jack-O-Lanterns and some of us were mean and scary. After we wrote a rough draft, edited, and then wrote a final copy, we shared our stories with a group.