A Season for Chapters

All second grade teachers out there who have implemented Common Core know the first unit has been focusing on studying the four seasons through use of poetry, informational text and other forms of text. 

Honestly, it has been so hard to find informational articles relating to the four seasons that are age appropriate. Common Core wants the students to be able to read and understand informational text through use of text features, finding the main idea, etc. How can they independently do this without some form of age appropriate text?

Thus comes this packet that I created. Although this packet doesn't have some super cute craftivity about the seasons, it does go in detail regarding main idea and key details. The students will read four different articles relating to the 4 different seasons. In each article, the students will be responsible for finding the main idea and key details. Don't get me wrong, I love cute activities, but Common Core really requires the students to read and understand informational texts. In order for them to master this skill, they must be given practice.

Lastly, the students will participate in a performance task as a summative assessment of our seasons study. This performance task comes in the form of a research based project where the students will create a brochure of a particular season. This could be an at home project or in school. The students will list characteristics of the season, find pictures of the season, and describe seasonal activities. The students must also record where they found their resources. What a great start to learning about research...you must record your resources! The information can't just come from your head!

You can download this packet from here!! I'm excited as this is one of my first somewhat "big" packets [it's only 15 pages, but I've never done this before.] Haha I'm excited about it though. My kids have LOVED learning of the seasons, and they are in the process of completing their research project/brochure. I'll have pictures of that soon! 

Hope this is somewhat helpful to you as you are either implementing Common Core OR teaching the seasons! NOW...I am off to work on grad school stuff..woo hoo...why can't I be more motivated for working on grad school like I am for blogging or creating other classroom materials???