Once the children have mastered using a tree map to make sentences, we will move on. The circle map and tree map will still play a very important part in our writing skills, but more to organize our thoughts. By now, we are very comfortable writing and very excited to write. Our confidence will help us with the next stages. We are still practicing listening for sounds in words and writing what we hear. We are also still getting dictation sentences from the teacher. Now, the dictation sentences are getting a bit longer and introducing words that we might not be able to "stretch out" but still must memorize how to spell (no-excuse words). During the dictation sentences, we will work on stretching out words as well as remembering which words we must instantly know how to spell.
We also need to begin working on polishing up our sentences. We will learn what a complete sentence is (it must have a subject and an action: The dog ran very fast). We will also begin learning about punctuation. Every complete sentence must have a capital at the beginning and a period at the end. We will be very insistent on this and will remind each other ALL of the time. We will also talk about word spaces and how important they are. I will write some sentences that are squished together and the kids will help me to see that they cannot read it that way. I will model how to forget these things frequently, just so the kids stop me and remind me too. I will also model the right way.
Other Graphic Organizers:
We will also be using other thinking maps, such as the bubble map to describe things and the double bubble to compare and contrast things. These graphic organizers will help to get us thinking but we will not be making our own yet.
Second graders will still be working on creating their own tree map to organize their thoughts as well as forming complete sentences as explained on the September Writing Page. This will take us a while to master. First graders will soon begin to work on these strategies as well, some may be already! As we master writing complete sentences, using beginning and end punctuation, and more, we will begin to use descriptive words in our writing as well as other types of end punctuation.
Second graders will also be using various other types of thinking maps as described in the first grade portion.