Common Core Lesson Plans
for Second Grade

Using Common Core lesson plans with your second graders can be a lot of fun! First check out the standards on the Common Core website. Then try these lesson plan ideas.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.2a  (Capitalization)

S.I.P. (Specific Important Person)

Use this fun-filled lesson to emphasize the need of capitalizing the names of holidays and product names.

A. Holidays

Ask students to raise their hands if their name begins with a capital letter. When all of them raise their hands, ask several students individually, “Why is your name capitalized?”  Lead them to state that everyone’s name is capitalized because it is a proper name, because they are a specific, important person, or S.I.P.!

Next, talk about the names of holidays. Start with the name of a well-known holiday such as Christmas. Write it on the board with a lowercase c. Ask, “Is this a specific day? Is it an important day? Should we capitalize it?”

Continue this method with several other holidays. Guide students to suggest immediately that you capitalize the name of the holiday as you write it on the board. Also sneak in other common days such as yesterday, today and tomorrow. Help them to see that those are not specific, important days so those words do not need to be capitalized.

B. Brand Names

On another day, follow a similar process with brand names. Begin by asking students to name their favorite brands of foods and beverages, such as Kellogg’s,Sunkist and Campbell’s. Write these names on the board with lowercase first letters.

Ask students if anything should be changed in the words you’ve written and if so, what and why. If have a hard time answering, remind them of the earlier lesson S.I.P. lesson on holidays.

Continue this method with other brand names. Also insert non-branded names such as bread, eggs, and juice. Help them to see that since they are not names of specific brands they should not be capitalized.

Common Core Lesson Plans - Wrap Up

As a final wrap up to these common core lesson plans, ask students to do one or both of these: 

• Make a list of your 5 favorite holidays. Write one sentence about each one, telling what you like about the day. Draw a picture of one of the holidays and label it with the holiday name.  

• List 5 of your favorite brand-name foods. Write one sentence about each item, stating why you like it. Add a drawing of at least one of the food packages, labeled with the brand name.

Additional CCSS Resources: 

Here are more resources to help you with Common Core Lesson Plans for 2nd grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy L.2.1b  (Irregular plural nouns) 

Spelling Crossword Puzzle – Students write the correct plural nouns into the puzzle

CCSS.ELA-Literacy L.2.2c (Contractions)

Contraction Action – Fun worksheets to form and use contractions. Calendar words are on this page, too!

CCSS.ELA-Literacy L.2.2e (Using reference materials)

Dictionary Spelling Tips – Some of these tips for older students are worth sharing with your elementary students, too!

Fun Spelling Worksheets for Grades 1 and 2 – 50 reproducibles to build on LOTS of important spelling skills!

Common Core Ideas for Kindergarten

Common Core Lesson Plans for Grade 1

Visit my YouTube Channel for fun spelling practice videos!

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AnyWord Spelling Practice Series Worksheets, Games and Prompts that work with almost ANY spelling words!

Fun Spelling Worksheets for Grades 1 and 2    50 All-new reproducible pages for early learners!

Young Spellers Spelling Bee Word List for Grades 1 & 2 only