Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great school year so far! I know I’m terribly late with posting this, but I figured better late than never. A few weeks ago, I updated my 2nd grade October literacy centers. I’m so happy with the make-over! I was motivated when a new teacher at my school asked me for centers. I looked over them and realized they were in need of a 2015 update!
I know I printed this in color, but when I taught first grade and used these menus, I didn’t bother with the color. I just printed black and white and it looked great still. 🙂
Just like the first grade menus, there are four categories and four centers under each category.
This is the easier version of the Read and Sequence. In this pack, there are two different choices for Read and Sequence AND two levels of difficulty with both choices.
There are three different versions with varying levels of difficulty for the Read, Visualize, Draw.
Read and Comprehend probably takes a bit longer than the other two. There are lots of options. you can have students do an Anticipation Guide where they answer questions before and after reading. You could have them simply write four facts or do a comparison chart. Either way, they are reading and showing their comprehension.
On to Word Work. Students will see how many words they can make out of the words scarecrow and harvest.
This is a simple real/nonsense word sort. There are three different sets of words (oo, ee, and -dge)
This is one of my favorite activities: matching the two syllables of a word.
Here, students will sort short and long e words. It’s extra tricky though because I use ea words so they really have to read the word to determine if it is short or long.
One of the biggest changes to this menu is the writing section. I wanted to align it better to Common Core, so I added an opinion writing center. There are two choices of prompts, both with a planning page.
This is another favorite! Who doesn’t love writing a real letter to a friend or family member. This spinner gives them some guidance though. 🙂 Some prompts call for descriptive writing, one for “how-to” writing, and one for persuasive writing.
These writing prompts are the same but I added some planning pages for more guidance for kids.
Sticker Story is always a hit in my classroom. Halloween stickers are everywhere! I always encourage them to add detail to their picture so it’s not just a flood of random stickers. Yes, I definitely made that mistake in my early years. I would get papers with TONS of stickers on them and no real picture. Putting a limit on stickers definitely helps!
I also added Fill a Sentence to the menu because I remember at the end of first grade this was always a great center. I thought adding the adjectives gave it an extra challenge.
Super sentence is the same but always a fun one. 🙂
There are four sentence scramblers. In the 2nd grade edition, I leave our the capital letters for an extra challenge. They have to write the sentence with the capital letter though. I would make a big deal out of this so they remember!
Last, is Word Endings. Students will add the correct word ending to the sentences.
In case you haven’t seen this before, students color the menu to show they finished a center. The picture on the cover of the folder that holds that activity matches the picture on the menu. The folder goes into the magazine holder with the reading, word work, writing, or sentence building label (just like the menu has those labels.)
Since October is half over, I’ve put this on sale! Grab it now and have it ready for next year or introduce it now so your students get the routine for November!
You can get my October centers for 2nd grade here:
You can see my 1st and kinder centers by clicking on the pictures below.
