Early elementary grades are some of the most critical times for developing language arts skills.

Kids are learning how to read fluently, how to identify parts of speech, and how to create clear sentences on their own.

As part of second grade language arts standards, children often learn how to form and use both singular and plural nouns.

And that’s why I wanted to share a simple language arts lesson: a printable noun practice for second grade activity with a fun back-to-school theme!

This simple cut and paste activity is perfect for early grades.

And you can work on the singular and plural nouns and then add in collective nouns when your students are ready.

Read on to see how to get your copy.

And don’t miss our complete ELA lesson Construction Contractions for even more early grades language arts learning!

Back to School Noun Practice for Second Grade Activity

To use this singular and plural noun practice for second grade activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer Paper
• Child-safe scissors
• Glue stick
• Pencils

This noun sorting practice lesson is a cut and paste activity featuring singular nouns, plural nouns, and collective nouns.

Collective nouns are nouns that look like singular nouns but refer to a group, such as “team”, “group”, “class”, etc. 

Learning to distinguish between these types of nouns is a critical language arts skill for second grade.

Once kids decide which picture goes with which noun, they glue them into the box below.

Use the noun writing worksheets for reinforcement after the hands-on activity.

These also give students a chance to practice writing and spelling plural nouns and collective nouns correctly.

You can also send these writing activities home as an independent practice activity.

Get a look at this resource in action below!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Back to School Noun Practice for Second Grade activity!

Don’t miss these other ELA resources for early grades!

Want more early grade back to school learning fun? Get a look at these resources from my fellow bloggers!

Melting Crayons Science Experiment from Creative Family Fun

Free Addition Facts Game from Life Over C’s

Number Ordering Activity 0-999 from Sallie Borrink Learning

Interest Based Learning Project from Still Playing School

What I Love About School Art Project from Planet Smarty Pants

All About Me Flag Project from School Time Snippets

{Free!} Getting to Know You Back to School Game from Preschool Powol Packets

FREE All About Me Worksheets (Lego style) from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Me Llamo – Simple Spanish Game from Rainy Day Mum

Setting up a homework station from Crafty kids at home

The post Back to School Noun Practice for Second Grade appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

Okay, maybe not life-sustaining. But definitely life-enriching.

Nothing gets my kids up and out of the bed faster than me shouting “Alright, let’s go to Krispy Kreme!”

So when I wanted to share a fun ELA activity set to keep them practicing creative writing, parts of speech, and more, I knew this Delicious Donuts Activity would be a winner!

This is a fantastic activity pack for National Donut Day, which is usually in early June. But it’s a good fit for winter time, since most of us (myself included) start baking as soon as the weather turns cold.

Since these activities are low-prep, you can just print them once, laminate them, and use them at centers if you like!

Read on to see how to get your copy! And for more ELA fun with donuts, take a look at our Donut Colors Sentence Writing Activity!

Delicious Donuts ELA Activity Set

To use this donut themed ELA activity set, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer Paper (I like Astrobright paper)
• Pencils

This product includes five different donut-themed writing activities, plus an answer key.

On the Donut Adjectives page, students can brainstorm adjectives they’d use to describe donuts.

On the Delicious Donuts page, kids can try to find as many individual words in the phrase as possible.

The Design A Donut page allows students to create their own confectionery masterpiece!

Then they can practice unscrambling donut-related terms too!

Finally, there’s a donut code breaker activity students can complete to decode donut flavors!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Delicious Donuts ELA Activity Set!

Take a look at these other ELA activities for early grades!

See more ways to teach ELA on my Fun Language Arts Ideas for Kids Pinterest board!

To get your copy of this Delicious Donuts ELA Activity Set, click the image or the link below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Delicious Donuts! ELA Activity Set <<<

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After all, when we teach early readers to decode CVC words, the short vowel sound in the center is what separates the two consonants.

But early learners tend to remember concepts best when they get to incorporate movement in each lesson. 

So these interactive vowel houses make a wonderful short vowel sounds activity for increasing phonics skills!

This is a fantastic activity for literacy centers or morning tubs! You can reuse the vowel houses and let students practice matching up the correct sounds again and again.

Read on to see how to get your copy! And for more fun with short vowels, don’t miss our printable short vowel flashcards!

Vowel Houses! Short Vowel Sounds Activity

To use this Vowel Houses! short vowel sounds activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer Paper
• Child-safe scissors
• Colored pencils
• Glue stick
• Laminator (optional)
• Hook and loop sticky dots (optional)

This product includes five different vowel “houses” – one for each letter.

Each house contains four CVC words with short vowel sounds, as well as matching pictures for each word.

Students can color the houses and pictures and then practice placing each picture above the correct CVC word.

You can use these with scissors and glue if you’ll only be using this activity once.

Or you can laminate the houses and pictures and attach hook and loop sticky dots for a reusable phonics activity!

Scroll down to get your copy of this Vowel Houses! CVC Short Vowel Sounds Activity!

Stop by to see these other fun activities for ELA!

See more ways to teach language arts on my Fun Language Arts Ideas for Kids Pinterest board!

To get your copy of this Vowel Houses! CVC Short Vowel Sounds Activity, click the image or the link below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Vowel Houses! CVC Short Vowel Sounds Activity <<<

The post Vowel Houses! Short Vowel Sounds Activity for Kids appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

Personally, I’ve had a wonderful summer break and I am not in any way ready to get back to class. I have a pretty strong hunch my kids feel the same way.

But, like it or not, summer is coming to an end. So, I thought it would be a little easier to get back to ELA with this easy creative writing activity about summer vacation!

We usually take a vacation each summer. This year, we went camping for the first time. And we didn’t die!

My kids had a lot to say about that trip, but I also wanted to encourage them all to write about it, including my younger learners. 

This simple vacation-themed creative writing prompt is great, because it’s a bite-sized lesson. So if you have reluctant writers, they won’t be intimidated by it at all.

Read on to see how to get your copy for free! And, for more fun with ELA, don’t miss my Donut Colors Sentence Writing Activity!

Travel Tales! Vacation Creative Writing Activity for Kids

To use this vacation creative writing activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Cardstock
• Pencils
• Child-safe scissors (optional)
• Colored pencils (optional)

This activity includes five pages of prompts: four with different colors and a line art version. 

I found it best to print it on cardstock, because I wanted kids to be able to cut out their finished writing and hang it up on the wall.

If you use the line art version, kids can color in the suitcase themselves!

Students can use this activity to describe their actual vacations or to write about places they’d like to go. And, since it’s evergreen, you can use it any time there’s a school break, including, fall, winter, and spring. 

Scroll down to get your copy of our Vacation Creative Writing Activity!

Take a look at these other ways to learn with ELA!

Follow my Language Arts for Kids board on Pinterest for more ideas!

To get your free copy of Travel Tales! Vacation Creative Writing Activity for Kids, click the image or the text below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!

>>> Travel Tales! Vacation Creative Writing Activity <<<

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If I did, though, I think donuts would be near the top.

Down here in the South, Krispy Kreme reigns supreme as the best place to get doughnuts. While I’m a stickler for the unadulterated goodness of glazed, my kids love frosted donuts. 

So I thought this fun Donut Colors sentence writing activity would be a neat way to get some basic sentence writing practice in! 

These are fantastic for early writers who are just learning about simple sentence structure! 

Read on to see how to get your copy. And, for more fun with sugary sweets, don’t miss our Big and Small Cupcake Worksheets for preschoolers!

Donut Colors Sentence Writing Activity for Kids

To use this donut themed sentence writing activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer Paper
• Pencils
• Colored pencils

This writing activity includes eight worksheets. Each features a different colored donut with a different sentence.

Students can practice reading each sentence, coloring each sentence, and tracing each sentence.

Then can write them on the lines provided – all by themselves!

Since each sentence uses two words that describe each donut, this is also a fantastic introduction to adjectives!

If you use literacy centers or morning tubs with your students, you could also use a laminator to laminate each worksheet.

Then hand them out or place them at centers, along with dry erase markers, for writing practice students can use again and again!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Donut Colors Sentence Writing Activity!

Take a look at these other sweet treat posts!

And see more ways to teach ELA on my Language Arts for Homeschoolers Pinterest board!

To get your copy of this Donut Colors! Sentence Writing Activity, click the image or the link below to get it from my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Donut Colors Sentence Writing Activity <<<

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As a child, I read The Cat In the Hat first. But Green Eggs and Ham is, by far, my favorite Dr. Seuss book. I love it so much.

With the help of our BookShark program, we turned this classic story into a simple Green Eggs and Ham poetry activity. My first grader loved it!

Take a look at how we extended this story into a super easy creative writing lesson! And for more practice with ELA, don’t miss our printable Construction Contractions Language Arts lesson!

Disclosure: I am a BookShark brand ambassador and am receiving free curriculum as part of my role.

Easy Green Eggs and Ham Poetry Activity for Kids

To do this simple Green Eggs and Ham poetry activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Green printer paper
• Black marker
• White Posterboard or Giant Wipe Off Index Card
• Dry Erase Marker (only needed if you’re using the wipe off index card)

We began by reading Green Eggs and Ham. Our little one read it to me while I sat and looked on. She found the story and the illustrations hilarious.

At one point, after Sam-I-am offered the green eggs and ham again, she actually said “He just told you he doesn’t like it!”

In our BookShark Level 1 lesson, the curriculum guide encouraged us to work on writing our own poem based on a food that we would not like to eat.

So I pulled out our giant laminated index card and started a couple of sentences. Then it was up to our first grader to fill in the blanks with her own ideas for yucky food and where she wouldn’t eat it.

Then I thought it would be a little more fun to let her write her answers on some “green eggs” of our own. So I just cut out some wiggly shapes from green paper.

She started by choosing a strange food color – “gold”. Then the food she added was noodles. Incidentally, she’d just had noodles for lunch that day. It’s entirely possible she was trying to tell me something.

When we started thinking of words that rhymed with noodles, she got to “doodles” and decided that would work.

Then it was time to think of a place she wouldn’t like to eat her strange food. She choose “at home”.

Which definitely made me think she was trying to tell me something.

And, naturally, if you won’t eat them at home, then you won’t eat them with a gnome either.

And her rhyme was done!

I asked her what she thought the lesson of the story was. She said “Don’t say you don’t like something just because it looks weird. You should try it.”

Score! Now let’s see if she remembers that little lesson the next time I serve dinner.

This Green Eggs and Ham poetry activity was just one of the activities in BookShark Level 1 for this book. Take a look at BookShark’s curriculum to see more ways you can use it to bring stories to life with your kids!

Check out these other reading activities for children!

And see more ways to make story time fun on my Reading for Kids Pinterest board!

The post Simple Green Eggs and Ham Inspired Poetry Activity appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

My oldest is a fellow ELA junkie, but my middle kids are…less enthusiastic about learning the rules of lexicon. Plus, I just wanted to make a basic ELA lesson more fun, especially for our rising second grader.

So we came up with this hands-on parts of speech sorting activity: Snow Globe Grammar! This is a perfect way to introduce different parts of speech to young learners – with a fun winter theme.

If you use literacy centers, this would be an excellent prep and reuse activity. Or if you wanted to make it into a one-time lesson, you could use it as a cut-and-paste activity for early grades.

Read on to see how to get your copy of this parts of speech sorting lesson! And, if you’d like more practice with ELA and foreign language, don’t miss our printable Spanish verb flashcards!

Snow Globe Grammar: Parts of Speech Sorting Activity

To use this parts of speech sorting activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer Paper
• Child-safe scissors
• Glue stick
• Laminator (optional)
• Hook and loop sticky dots (optional)

This activity includes sorting mats for three of the basic parts of speech: nouns, verbs, and adjectives – two sets for each.

Two parts of speech cards are included, which feature winter-themed words (24 in all).

If you’d like to use this activity once, you can have students cut out the parts of speech cards and glue them on the correct mat.

If you’d like to use it over and over, just laminate the mats and the parts of speech cards. Then add hook-and-loop dots to the mats and the backs of the parts of speech cards.

Kids can place the cards on the correct sorting mat and then remove them for use with the next student!

If you introduce one part of speech per lesson, just cut out the cards and introduce the nouns in one lesson, the verbs in another, and the adjectives in another.

Let students sort them for themselves to review at the end of the week!

A full answer key is included.

Plus, there’s a line art version if you need to save on ink. Or if you just want to let the kids color the pictures on their own!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Snow Globe Grammar: Parts of Speech Sorting Activity!

Stop by and see these other ELA learning ideas!

The post Snow Globe Grammar: Parts of Speech Sorting Activity appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

So I thought I’d make a language arts contractions lesson that lets them learn how to “build” basic English contractions: Construction Contractions!

It’s a complete construction themed language arts lesson on how to make and use standard English contractions that’s perfect for construction fans!

Read on to see how to get your copy of Construction Contractions and what’s included in this ELA resource!

If you’re looking for more language arts learning ideas, don’t miss our printable Punctuation Mark Flashcards!

And be sure to share these fun construction picture books with your construction fans too!

Construction Contractions: Construction Themed Language Arts Contractions Lesson

Inside Construction Contractions, you’ll find 66 pages of language arts learning fun! This is truly a complete lesson for teaching kids about how to form common English contractions.

The product includes “building” activities for 24 basic English contractions, such as:

• aren’t
• isn’t
• I’m
• they’d
• should’ve
• you’re
• And 18 more!

With each English contraction, kids learn which words are used to form it and how they should spell and write the contraction.

Along with writing and spelling practice, kids can get to practice rewriting sentences using the contractions they learn.

There are three matching activity quizzes included as well, which offer a simple way to review the concepts after you complete the pack.

Plus, ALL of our construction contraction flashcards are included! There are 48 contraction flashcards in this product!

One set with word pairs and the matching contraction, and another set without the contraction so that you can quiz your little learners.

Scroll down to pick up your copy of Construction Contractions: Construction Themed Language Arts Contractions Lesson!

Check out these other language arts resources for homeschoolers!

Did you know that email subscribers get exclusive learning printables? Sign up using the widget below for access to our special Subscriber Library!

The post Construction Contractions: Construction Themed Language Arts Contractions Lesson appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

Remember when you first learned how to form contractions? 

I remember learning that in about first grade and thinking “It’s so cool that you can stick two words together and make a shorter word.”

I started looking at contractions as their own special code language, because you had to know what the original two words were to understand what the contraction meant.

It’s easy to see why I ended up becoming an English major, right?

Time has passed, but it’s still important to teach students how to “build” basic English contractions. Which is why I thought a construction theme would be perfect for these printable contractions flashcards!

My boys are deep into a construction phase right now.

Our youngest son, in particular, is obsessed with earth movers, bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, and just about anything related to building.

He told me last week that he intends to be a firefighter, a builder, and a policeman.

I told him that was good, because he could build a house. Then if the house caught on fire, he could put it out and take the person who caused the fire to jail.

To this he replied, “And then I’d build it all over again!”

So, I made these flashcards to help him learn about language arts in a fun way.

Read on to get your set!

And for more language arts fun, check out Construction Contractions – our complete English contractions ELA lesson!

Printable Construction-Themed Contraction Flashcards

To use these contractions flashcards, you’ll need the following: (Affiliate links provided below. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer Paper
• Scissors
• Laminator (optional)

• he’d
• I’m
• they’d
• And five more!

There is one set of cards with the base words plus the contraction, and another set with just the base words.

That way, you can go over how to build the contraction and then quiz the kids on which contraction each pair of words forms.

These would be an excellent ELA review for early elementary students!

As you go over each contraction’s root words, show students how the final contraction is altered (missing letters are replaced with an apostrophe).

Then let students flip through the blank word flashcards and try to remember which contraction is formed by the root words on the construction sign!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Printable Contractions Flashcards!

You might have noticed that there are more than eight English contractions on the cards in these pictures. 

Want the full set of TWELVE English contractions flashcards, plus printables for learning how to build and use these contractions in writing?

Grab your copy of Construction Contractions: A Printable Language Arts Lesson!

It’s loaded with 60 pages of language arts printables for recognizing and using all of these contractions with kids!

Don’t miss these other printable flashcards for kids!

To get your copy of these basic English contraction flashcards, click the image or the link below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>> Construction Contractions Flashcards <<<

The post Constructing Contractions! Basic English Contractions Flashcards appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

Personally, I didn’t learn to read with phonics and neither did our oldest daughter.

Our oldest boy, though, really needed help with phonic sounds, so we focused on long and short vowel sounds pretty early.

I thought I’d make a set of short vowel flashcards to share with my lovely readers today!

These are really simple to use and what makes them even better is that they’re FREE!

Read on to see how to get your set!

And if you like these, don’t miss these long vowel flashcards as well!

Free Printable Flashcards: Short Vowel Flashcards

To use these flashcards, you’ll need the following: (Affiliate links are provided here for convenience. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer paper
• Scissors
• Laminator (to reuse the cards later)

Like our long vowel flashcards, these short vowel flashcards include words that help kids practice recognizing and differentiating short vowel sounds.

In this flashcard pack, you’ll find cards for the following short vowel words:

• Alligator
• Egg
• Igloo
• Octopus
• Umbrella

The pack includes a set of cards with the pictures and words, a set with only the pictures, a set with only the words, and a set of each with pictures and vowels only.

Kids can practice matching up the long vowel cards with the word cards.

Or use the picture cards to quiz them on their short vowel sounds!

More Resources for Teaching Short Vowel Sounds:

Looking for more short vowel resources? Try these!

• Gran on a Fan: Silly Short Vowels by Kevin Bolger
• Educational Insights Stick-To-It Phonics Short Vowels Game
• Circus Vowels: The Long and the Short of It by Jodi L. McMaster

Don’t miss some of our other reading flashcards!

To get your set of printable short vowel flashcards, click the image or the link below to sign up for our email newsletter!

You’ll get the short vowel flashcards sent directly to your inbox, plus this week’s newsletter on Sunday night!

>>> Short Vowel Printable Flashcards <<<

The post Free Printable Flashcards: Short Vowel Flashcards appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.