Maria MarianiED 311/316

October 18, 2011Second Grade Reflection

My lesson plan was done on the word endings –s, -ed, and –ing. I was given a group of four students; Gillian, Zach, Rhianna, and Toby. This group stayed on task and worked well with me. I felt that I had pretty good control over the students.

I began the lesson by showing them signs that I had made with the endings –s, -ed, and -ing. I explained to them that words ending in –s and –ing were words that were in the present tense or show something that will happen in the near future. Words ending in –ed showed past tense or something that has already happened. Next, I went on to show them how to make these words; you take a word (jump) and add the appropriate ending to make jumps, jumping, or jumped. The hardest thing to get across to them was the difference between present and past tense. Even though I had explained this to them, it was a bit confusing to the students when they were supposed to use the present tense and when they were supposed to use the past tense.

After some instruction on how to form the words, I read the book “When Autumn Comes,” by Robert Maass. I chose this book to go with the lesson, because there were many verbs with the endings –s, -ed, and –ing throughout the book and it showed actions that had already been done or actions that were in the process of happening. For example one of the sentences reads, “Boats are pulled up onto shore.” The picture shows a picture of a boat already pulled up onto shore. Another sentence reads, “Autumn is a time for making ready – for painting.” The picture shows a man painting a fence in front of his house. As I read to the students, I pointed out the actions that had either happened already or were in the process of happening in the pictures. I think this helped them to understand present versus past actions.

After reading the book, I had the students play a game that taught them how to take a root word and add an ending (–s, -ed, or –ing) to it. This was a way for me to check students understanding of how to make these words. As a group, the students took turns choosing a root word out of one bag and an ending out of another bag. Once they had the two pieces of the word, they put it together to form one word. For example, Rhianna went first and she pulled out the word “gather” and an “–s.” She put the two together and formed the word “gathers.” The students were each given a worksheet that had a column to fill in the words ending in –s, -ed, and –ing. They each took turns making words and they recorded each word that was made onto their worksheet. The words that I had chosen were words from the book that I read, so they all had an autumn theme.

After doing the activity, I had the students complete a fill in the blank worksheet with the same words that I had chosen from the book. This was a way for me to check students understanding of using these words in sentences. I had put the endings on the words, so they had to determine which word went in the blank. I decided to do this as a group activity, because I

wasn’t sure if the students would be able to complete the worksheet on their own. I read each sentence and the students took turns filling in the missing words. Zach and Rhianna seemed to understand the concept a little better, because the two of them filled in all the missing words in the blanks. Toby and Gillian followed along and filled in the words as we went through the worksheet.

Gillian did a good job writing out the words during the activity. Her penmanship is neat and easy to read and all of her letters are written correctly. Although she didn’t contribute much when filling in the blanks on the worksheet, she followed along and spelled all of the words correctly.

Zach did a pretty good job when writing the words during the activity. I noticed that he had some trouble spelling the word “harvesting” and sounded it out and spelled it “hrvisting,” at least he knew to add the –ing ending! His letters are all written correctly. He did a very good job when it came to filling in the blanks on the worksheet, as he found a lot of the answers when we worked together as a group on the worksheet.

Rhianna has very neat penmanship that is easy to read and all of her letters are written correctly. Like Zach, she also volunteered a lot of answers when filling in the blanks with the worksheet and all of her words were spelled correctly.

Toby seems to still be learning how to write his letters. Sometimes he made the letters correctly, but sometimes he made them backwards. For example on the chart worksheet he wrote the “g” in “gathers” backwards. He also wrote the “s” in “feasted” backwards. However, when he was able to copy the words on the worksheet, he made the letters correctly and spelled the words correctly.

After completing the worksheet, I gave the students another worksheet. However, this time I asked them to write a sentence and draw a picture of either something they like to do using the present tense or something they did over the weekend using the past tense. This was a way for me to check students understanding of how to use these words in their writing.

Gillian wrote, “I like watching t.v.” I helped her to spell the word “watch” by having her sound it out and then I asked her which ending should go onto the word and she correctly chose the –ing ending. From her work, I would guess that Gillian is well into the beginning stage of reading and writing.

Zach wrote, “I plad lego game on the weekend.” Although he had some trouble with spelling, he demonstrated his understanding of past tense by adding the “d” to the word “play.” His writing was hard for me to read and I also think he tried to sound out a lot of the words in his sentence. I would guess that Zach is near the middle of the beginning stage of reading and writing. He still needs to work on improving his spelling.

Rhianna did a good job writing her sentence, “I like laying in bed to watch t.v.” She demonstrated that she understood use of present versus past tense by using the word “laying” in her sentence. Like Gillian, I helped Rhianna sound out the word “lay,” but she added the correct ending to the word. I would guess that Rhianna is well into the beginning stage of reading and writing.

Toby also demonstrated his understanding of using present versus past tense in his sentence. He wrote, “I love shoping for toys.” Toby was able to

sound out the word “shopping” and knew how to add the correct ending. Because Toby had some trouble forming his letters in previous worksheets, I would guess that Toby is in the beginning stage of reading and writing. He needs to work on his spelling, but more importantly he needs to work on learning his letters.

I felt that everything in my lesson went very well. I was proud of all the students and their hard work during the lesson. One thing I would change is to do this lesson over a period of days, rather than one day. Learning past and present tense is hard for students, and it is something that needs to be learned over a few days. If I were to do this in my own classroom, I would not have the students begin writing sentences until we had worked on the endings more and they had a better understanding of present and past tense. I think my students had a pretty good understanding that –s and –ing are used for present tense and –ed is used for past tense. However, I think they need to work on this idea and practice using these words in writing. I noticed that most of the students I worked with tried to use helping verbs when writing their sentences, rather than using the endings they had learned about. For example, Toby had tried to write, “I like to shop,” instead of using the word “shopping.” I had to remind all of them that they had to use the word endings that they had learned about today. Overall, I think I gave the students a good introduction to these word endings and with some continued practice with writing, I think they will have a better understanding of when to use these words.