We’re in the home stretch — just 4 more days of 2nd grade — and I’ve been spending some time reflecting on the past year. This was my first time teaching 2nd grade and I’m coming away from the experience with some pretty big observations.
If you’re about to embark on a 2nd grade adventure, I hope you can benefit from this little run-down of our experience. I’ve certainly appreciated looking back on the joys and sorrows of teaching 2nd grade.
2nd grade is a year of big-time skill-building.
This year, so many of my students became capable and confident readers and writers. Every single one of them can sit down with an idea of something to write and put letters on a page that they can then read back. A couple of them write so well that they pretend to misspell words so I don’t send them back to write something more challenging.
They went from barely recognizing lower case letters to being able to use them correctly and fluidly. And their handwriting is fantastic! (Remind me of these glory days when they’re in middle school.)
I owe a huge amount of their success to the book Roadmap to Literacy. The ideas, exercises, and guidance of this book really formed our year. If you haven’t checked out this book yet, you really should.
They’ve grown just as much in math. They’re adding and subtracting with triple digits and solidifying their single digit facts. And some of them have discovered a hunger for math that simply will not be satisfied!
1st graders are sweet. 2nd graders are cute.
Lately I’ve been looking back on photos of my students from last year and I’m struck by how sweet and tender they were. Compared to then, these days they seem like little beasts! They’re full of activity, feelings and plenty of strife! In first grade they were angels. In second grade they’re puppies. Adorable, rascally, lovable, trouble-making puppies who snarl, nip, wrestle and fall over each other daily — only to fall back in love with each other anew every morning.
Does this sound exhausting? Yes. Yes, it is.
The most important class of the day — recess!
All of that social puppy play has to happen somewhere, and recess is the best place. At every parent meeting I have let the parents know that “Recess continues to be an area of learning.” Though it can sometimes feel exhausting to help them work out their troubles, with each encounter I remind myself of how much they are learning.
Our school has a practice of having the 1st and 2nd grade teachers outside for every recess. Though I was feeling just about done with recess duty in rainy February, I couldn’t imagine my students navigating recess without my guidance. I was SO grateful to be able to support their social-emotional growth!
Well, lo and behold, here we are at the end of the year having beautiful, harmonious recesses! (For the most part.)
These students are learning so much by working things out with each other. They make mistakes, say something wrong, hurt someone’s feelings and then know not to do it again tomorrow. How lucky we are that every day is a new day!
Community is EVERYTHING.
I thought about saving this one for last, because it is so important, but I wanted to make sure those of you who only make it this far read this one.
This was a year of big challenges for me personally and professionally. My daughter went away to college. I continued to face challenges serving on our school’s leadership team. I felt the pressure of teaching students to read — something I’ve never done before! I BROKE MY WRIST!
Throughout all of these challenges, my colleagues supported me every step of the way. Our aftercare teacher stepped in and taught phonics lessons, coached by our 2-hour Sunday night phone calls. Other colleagues took on extra classes so I could stay home and recover. I appreciate my colleagues so much!
But the true heroes are my class parents. They organized a month-long meal train. (I didn’t buy groceries for a month!) Two days after my injury they came to my house and completely made over my garden (an end-of-year gift which had been planned for weeks). They navigated the bumps in the road that come along with having your class teacher incapacitated for two weeks. They filmed our class play performance and sent me the video moments after it was complete. They stepped in to turn the morning jump rope. They continuously asked about my healing process and let me know their care and concern.
In our first parent meeting I remember telling these parents that during this age of authority, their children would be best served by knowing how much they (the parents) love and support Ms. Floyd-Preston. I told them that the attitude they should have is “You are so lucky to have Ms. Floyd-Preston as your teacher.” I told them that I would hold them in the same high esteem. I regularly tell my students things like, “Look at that delicious lunch your dad packed for you! You’re so lucky!” or “Your mom is such a hard worker! We can always count on her!”
At the time, I thought that this would be a practice we would need to work to cultivate, but as it turns out I HONESTLY have the utmost respect for this group of parents. Expressing my love and gratitude for them is easy and genuine. And I experience their respect and support daily.
I don’t feel that this mutual admiration society came about because of any effort on my part. It is simply an incredible gift — one that I am so grateful for and don’t take lightly. So, 2nd grade teachers of the future, my advice to you is to put in whatever effort might be necessary to cultivate a supportive relationship with your class parents.
Appreciate them. Understand them. Raising children isn’t easy. Let them know you’ve got their back.
2nd grade is a year of tremendous growth.
During this year, my students have gone from being little kids to entering middle childhood. They have thoughts, opinions and even fears that they just didn’t face in 1st grade. Last year they were just as easily engaged in movement as with a good story. This year they are all about the story. Today it was about a pair of purring kittens and by the end I could tell I had got them all with “the feels.”
They still want me to tell them what to wear and to check that they’re eating their strong food.
I’m happy to report that authority is still alive and strong. Though I’ve got a handful of students who conveniently “forget” to put on their inside shoes when we come in from recess, those same students ask me what to wear when we’re heading out. Apparently I am still the maker of the rules. Thank goodness.
I’ve even heard from some parents that their students want me to check to make sure they are eating their strong food or that they are dressed appropriately for recess.
If authority is how I can show them I love them, I’m all about it.
Main lesson books are nice and all, but they don’t even begin to tell the story.
This year when we gathered our main lesson books, pulled out the extra pages and started to bind them together, I was struck by how FEW pages there were. Last year we completed a TON of main lesson pages. This year I kinda wondered if I’d done something wrong.
Here’s the thing about 2nd grade. There is SO much skill-building (see above) that there just isn’t as much time to create beautiful main lesson pages.
At a certain point this year I stopped worrying about creating beautiful main lesson pages where students copied my writing and emulated my drawings. Instead, I had them work through THEIR OWN writing.
Independent composition is a much more time-consuming process, but I’m convinced that my students learned so much by doing it! They may not have a thick main lesson book, but what they do have contains their own independent compositions and they’ve got a binder full of kid-writing.
I will say that this approach has presented a challenge for those of you who have been asking me for tips on teaching 2nd grade. I’m afraid I won’t have a robust collection of main lesson pages to share, but I plan on creating a guide to teaching language arts in 2nd grade, full of templates for phonics activities you can do with your students. Stay tuned.
2nd graders still LOVE to move together.
Now this one may be unique to my class, but my students continue to be incredible participants in our daily circle. They move so beautifully together we almost always have a folk dance in the daily rotation. I can’t think of anything better for bringing them together. I’ve been so hard-pressed to find resources for these dances, I’ve been making them up on the spot!
2nd grade learning is SUPER-FUN!
I have always been a teacher who appreciates A LOT of form. When there is too much noise or distraction in the room, I just can’t think straight. If someone makes a small amount of sound in the back of the room it goes straight to my super-sensitive ears, so I often insist on silence. My poor students.
Well, my compromise is Friday Project Day. I started this tradition in first grade and it has continued into 2nd grade, much to my students’ delight. They get to push their desks together, chat to their hearts’ content, and create something about the previous day’s story. My job is to provide them with materials — pipe cleaners, glue sticks, tissue paper, beeswax, cardboard — whatever they need to create their vision.
This year we have had students work with partners to write scripts and create puppet plays. I’ve seen miniature beeswax recreations of story scenes. A favorite was when I introduced brass brads as a tool for creating a wagging tail.
So much fun.
2nd grade learning is SUPER-HARD!
Today I was working with a student on an individual assessment. I presented a math problem and he thought about it for awhile.
After a few minutes I asked, “Are you thinking or are you stuck?”
His response: “I’m stuck.”
It was a moment when I realized how hard we’ve been working this year.
Can you imagine learning some new bit of information and needing to automatically incorporate it into your way of working with the world around you? This is what we regularly ask of students of this age.
My students often astound me with how capably they assimilate new knowledge. But it isn’t always so easy. Of course, the moments that stand out to me are the ones when students have sudden epiphanies or recognize something I’ve taught them. (“Look, Ms. FP! An -ed word!”)
But there are plenty of other moments. Moments when students work hard. They make mistakes. They wish they hadn’t made those mistakes. They learn from them.
And then, in those hardest moments, they notice that others don’t make those mistakes. They realize they are different from their friends. They’re irritated, frustrated, annoyed about it.
They wish they were like those friends who seem to never make mistakes.
They’re ready for third grade.
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