The opinion and persuasive writing unit is always a fun and insightful unit to do with second graders.  In the book What Every Second Grade Teacher Needs to Know About Setting Up and Running a Classroom, a Responsive Classroom author shares some characteristics about...

Students spent much of December deeply engaged in the Class Store project.   In a nutshell, they had to  brainstorm and create their own business, designing and manufacturing product to sell and working through what it truly means to play a role in the economy.​Quite...

The second annual Balloon Parade was a smashing success!  The second graders joined the third and fourth graders in planning, creating and handling these awesome "balloons" for a parade for the rest of the school and parents. Inspired by the book Balloons Over...

Student voice and choice dominated this project as the second graders became mayors of their own towns in the new state of Secondgradia.  Intended as a kickoff to our new PBL project "2nd Grade Store", this activity hit upon many different standards in social studies,...

Reading and writing nonfiction has a variety of benefits as outlined in "Research Says / Nonfiction Reading Promotes Student Success" (Goodwin & Miller, 2013).  Over the course of reading and writing nonfiction, students learn important research skills, practice...

Our most current PBL project had us learning all about our feathered friends in Alaska.  Our driving question "How do we create a safe winter habitat for some Alaskan birds?" guided us in our explorations. The second graders first reviewed what a habitat was and what...

Too many times we hear arguments over why the arts should not play such a prominent role in today's educational settings.  However, if you start to break down what the benefits of the arts really are, you will notice that the skills and opportunities that an arts...

I packed up our classroom today.  As I sorted through the remnants of our time together, it would have been easy to feel a little melancholy about the way our school year ended.  However I found myself focusing on the great and wonderful things that we got to...

As we move into the sixth week of home learning, things are starting to fall into place.  Routines have been established, tech problems have been addressed, and we've settled as well as we can into this new normal. But something is still missing. At PNA, we are so...

The world has turned upside down and the roles of parents, teachers and students have shifted. Teachers are practicing their lifelong learning skills in order to learn and manage different online programs and using these online learning and presentation skills to...