Construction Day

Our room and teacher were briefly transformed for the day! 

We have been really struggling to understand nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  Something we need to have solid for second grade.  So today, we were second graders under construction.

One of my student's dad works for a construction company and let us borrow some supplies to transform our room. 

To start the lesson off, I pulled out my "tools."  Students had to name the tool that I held up. That was our noun.  Then, students had to list things that the tool could do. These were our verbs.  Lastly, students had to describe the tool.  These were our adjectives.  We did this activity whole group for three different tools. (saw, tape measure, and a hammer)

Next, I had giant bricks with either nouns, verbs, or adjectives written on them.  Together as a class we sorted these brinks and build 3 different walls.  A noun wall, a verb wall, and and adjective wall. 

Next, it was time for our centers.

At the first center students had to color code their blue prints. I printed these on larger paper and rolled them for a more authentic look. ;)  Students had to color code the nouns, verbs, and adjectives in the sentences. 

At the second center, students had a pile of real rocks with words written on them.  They had to sort the rocks next to the correct construction vehicle. (Noun, Verb, or Adjective. Sensing a theme here?) Of course we had to wear our helmets!

The last center students had to BUILD sentences with nouns, verbs, and adjectives. I wrote nouns, verbs, and adjectives on large Duplo blocks.  I also color coded the nouns, verbs, and adjectives to make it easier to sentence building. 

Students had to pick one of each. Then, they would place the words on the floor and write the sentence directly on the floor with a Vis-a-Vis marker.  We call this floor graffiti. Students love it!  I had students wear safety vests at this center. 

My students had a blast during our construction day!  Most importantly they were engaged and the learning was tied to a memory. I am confident now that my students have a good grasp of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Bring on second grade.