Teachers, I need some help!

I taught 2nd grade for 4 years...its the best grade to teach!!!!

What about a punctuation lesson.

Start with like a morning message or story to the students but maybe make some punctuation mistakes...leaving out a period, capitals, wrong marks etc. Ask the class to help you edit or correct your mistakes.
I really ham it up....tell them you wrote this story and you think its really good....but when they find mistakes in the work they get excited. Kids love to correct their teachers.

Then Discuss the proper marks and how we use them.

After I did that I would have the students work in groups and play a game called Showdown. Its a Kagen Cooperative Structure. Each child receives 4 cards ... 1 with a comma, one with a period, 1 with a question mark, and one with an exclamation. The children hold the cards facing themselves. In the center of the group are a pile of sentence strips. Each sentence strip has a sentence with a missing punctuation mark. I draw in a square where the missing mark is so they know where to look. Each child in the group places the punctuation card that they think goes in the box face down on the table. WHen all children in the group have placed the card down the group shouts out 'showdown' and flip their cards over. If everyone in the group has the right answer they do a little cheer. If someone has a wrong answer the group coaches that child or children and discuss the correct punctuation mark. There should be about 10 different sentences to practice. While the groups are doing this you walk around the room and go from group to group to see how everyone is doing. When all groups are done quickly go over each sentence and ask for volunteers to review the answer for each sentence.

As an individual assessment or follow up you could give each child a short paragraph or some sentences to fill in the missing punctuation marks.

The kids really love playing the game and by having all of the students place a card down to show what they think the answer is allows all students to be involved in the lesson.

I hope I explained the lesson ok.

Good luck!!!!!