Students fill out papers throughout the year all about themselves to create a portfolio that can be assembled and taken home at the end of the year.
Lesson Plan:
This is ongoing… I begin the first day of school by passing out a sheet I created titled “Look At Me!” This sheet has topics that the students fill out: Today’s date, My full name, My favorite food, My favorite color, My best friend, My favorite school subject, My favorite song, My favorite movie, My favorite TV show, My favorite game, My newest friend, etc. This can be tailored for your class.
I also have the students copy a paragraph from a poem or anything you choose. Be sure to date it.
I collect these and place in a “Weekly Papers” box. I use a sturdy box that reams of copy paper come in.
Because I grade papers daily and let my students file them in a “Weekly Papers” file box, then into each student’s file folder to be taken home on Friday, we do this next part on Friday as we prepare for home. You may adapt this to fit your management. As each student gets their weekly papers, they go through them and choose their favorite one to turn in to the “Weekly Papers” box. Sometimes I will keep a set of papers and place in the box on my own…it is your choice. Sometimes we may skip a week. This goes on through the school year.
The last week of school, I hand each student a page titled “Look At Me, Again!” This has the same information from the first day of school; but, they most often have different answers to them. They also copy the same paragraph from the first day of school.
We then pass out the papers from the year, put them in order beginning with “Look At Me!”, then “Look At Me Again”, then the paragraphs, then all the August papers, September, October,…through May. You can see it is quite helpful to have dates on all the papers.
We finish this off with a thank you letter to parents/guardians for their help with homework, school volunteering, buying supplies, etc. This page goes on top of the others. We then put a construction paper cover to it. The students can decorate it as they please, add a catchy title, name, date, grade, school, etc. And it is ready to go home to parents as a wonderful memento.
Comments:
I have been doing this for some years and have had only wonderful comments from parents! They love going through it to see progress, topics we cover…The kids love it for the same reasons. They are so funny saying “I remember doing this!” “This was fun to do!” and other such comments. If no other papers are kept from 2nd grade, this is a great keepsake.
As I staple the papers together, I go through each student’s booklet, and I get a kick out of seeing their work through the year! It is quite rewarding!
By: Lisa Slaughter, 2nd Grade Teacher
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