This blog shares ideas for using Wixie to meet standards and learning goals with second graders, whether they are learning at school or at home. Select the image for each idea or use the text link to open a template you can assign as a teacher, or use as a student, immediately.
If your child uses Wixie at school, they can log in at home to create and share their learning through a combination of text, images, and voice narration! Your child's teacher may even be suggesting activities by assigning templates that will show at the top of your child's Wixie home page. (If your child doesn't have Wixie, sign up for a free trial account you can use for 90-days.)
Find more ideas, samples, and lessons for second-grade learners at: https://static.wixie.com/edu/second-grade
1. Brainstorm signs of spring
Regardless of the current weather outside on the vernal equinox, what are the signs of spring in your area? Search "spring" or "cluster" at your Wixie home page, add what you see (or even hear, smell, taste, and feel) this spring to each petal. (template)
2. Create a superhero
Create your own super hero! What powers will they have? How will they help people? Where did they and their powers come from? If you need a bit of direction to get started, search "superhero" in Wixie to find a Superhero ID card. (template)
3. Create an animal alliteration
Create an amazing animal alliteration - a short sentence in the noun–verb–noun format, such as “Birds build bubbles.” Use the paint tools in Wixie to illustrate and record your voice to narrate your sentence. (template)
4. Create a collage
Add images to a blank Wixie page to represent something. For example, you could represent events in story or your day or even things you see during a particular season.
First grade combines the tools in FreshPaint and Wixie in order to create a spring “collage”. @visualartsbcps @Edgemere_BCPS @Tech4Learning pic.twitter.com/SjEQGAMDvq
— Greg Flach (@Mountaineer94) April 6, 2018
5. Explore antonyms
Explore antonyms with your students. Read Dr. Seuss's The Foot Book and create a list of antonyms with your child. You can start them off with things like hot/cold, high/low.
Have students create a page in Wixie that illustrates an antonym pair. Use the microphone tool to record their explanation.
Step-by-step directions for creating antonyms in Wixie
6. Go on a shape hunt
Read a book like The Shape of Me and Other Stuff by Dr. Seuss. Then have students walk around school or their home and find shapes, like rectangles and triangle, or even cylinders and spheres.
Use the Image button and Camera tab to capture the shapes you find and add them to Wixie. Search "3D" for a book template. (template)
Seeing Shapes lesson plan with literature connections, samples, and more
7. Make a wish
Search for "wish" at your Wixie home page and open the My Wish activity. Use the Image button and Camera tab to capture a photo of yourself blowing out a dandelion. Select the circle shape below the tools to change it from a rectangle to an oval. Type your wish in the bubble. (template)
8. Take a 5-senses walk
Go outside and walk around your yard or neighborhood. What do you see, hear, smell, touch, or taste? When you come back inside, search Wixie for "observation" and open the 5 Senses Observation template. Add text or pictures to show what you observed for each sense. (template)
9. Create an animal riddle
Create a riddle to challenge other student's knowledge about animals. Choose your favorite animal or learn about one you didn't know about before. (template)
Explore an Animal Riddles lesson plan
10. Real World of Math: Post Office Problems
Students’ use of computation skills coincides with the ability to solve word problems involving money. Search "Post Office Problems" to find a template that asks students to apply computation skills to solve stamp-buying questions. (template)
Former math specialist Scott Loomis has an entire series of Real World of Math templates. Find out more
11. Create a personal timeline
Have students add photos and images to create a timeline that shows important events in their life. Search "timeline" at your Wixie home page for a template. Add text to each bubble and images for an event or two. Use the microphone tool to record a summary. Share with family and friends by copying and pasting the URL. (template)
Extend student thinking by asking them to add another page and draw pictures of where they see themselves in the future.
12. Send a virtual high five
Show your appreciation for others with a virtual high-five. Has a friend connected on a regular basis, did your grandparents send something nice? (template)
You can also search for "five" at your Wixie home page and add text or voice narration to show you appreciate their being amazing. Use the paint tools and Image options to decorate.
13. Write a letter to or between characters in a story
Taking the perspective of a character in a story can help students understand their motivations and better comprehend their response to events in a story. Assign a stationery template, use the Stationery backgrounds, or have students design their own. (template)
Provide a prompt that connects to the story you are reading to direct their thinking and writing.
14. Simple surveys and great graphs
Survey your friends, family members, and neighbors about a favorite book, sport, food, game, or at-home activity. Collect your survey findings using tally marks to practice counting. (template)
Explore a Simple Surveys and Great Graphs lesson plan
15. Adapt a rhyming story to build skills with phonics
It's #SchoolLibraryMonth. Read a rhyming story like Dr. Seuss’s There’s a Wocket in my Pocket. Have students choose a place in the house and write a rhyming nonsense word for a creature living there. Use Wixie to add a Seuss-like sentence and illustrate your page. Use Wixie's Project Wizard feature to combine individual student work into a class book. (template)
Find more creating writing ideas that build phonics skills
16. Make a map of your neighborhood
Use the "By My House" template in Wixie, to have students create a map of important places in their neighborhood. (template)
Ask parents to help them review the cardinal directions from their home as well as what places they know in those directions. Have students use the paint tools and add images to create a map that shows these important places in their community.
17. Decorate an Easter Egg
Wixie includes seasonal activities in the Curriculum > Month-by-Month folder. Open the April folder and choose the Paint an Easter Egg activity to have students decorate using Wixie's paint tools. (template)
Print the file, cut out the eggs, and use as Easter decorations. You can even write notes on the back and hide around your home for an egg hunt or give to a friend as an Easter greeting card.
18. Capture reading fluency
Capture student fluency using the recording tool and Wixie templates with prose and poetry passages for grades K-3. (template)
Log in and search "fluency" or browse Curriculum>Language Arts>Reading>Fluency for a few examples, then customize or create your own to meet your needs.
19. What would you do with $100?
In second grade, students abilities in reading, writing, and math are blossoming. Embrace their growing ability to think independently by asking them what they would do with 100 dollars. (template)
Use this project to build literacy and math by asking students to tell you what they would spend their money to buy, why they would do this (reason) as well as subtract the value of this object from 100 to show the change they would get back from paying with a $100 bill.
20. Review and rate a book
Have learners write a review of a recent book they have read. Share with friends and other students to give them ideas for new titles they can read! (template)
Explore more book review ideas, including a book review cube, on Creative Educator.
21. Interview a family or friend about life in quarantine
Encourage students to connect with families or friends they haven't been able to see recently by asking them to conduct an interview. Students can connect with them on the phone or even FaceTime and interview them about their experience with life at home during quarantine. Create a Wixie document to record your questions and their answers with text and voice recording. (template)
22. Create an Arcimboldo-inspired self-portrait
Giuseppe Arcimboldo is an Italian Renaissance painter known for his portraits of people that use objects like fruit and books. Challenge students to create Arcimboldo-style self-portraits by combining clip art images in Wixie. Browse the Curriculum library and Art to find a template to support student work. (template)
Explore an Arcimboldo-style Self Portrait lesson plan
23. Explore character traits and support with evidence
Have students use Wixie to recall, retell, and share text, images, and voice narration about a character's physical traits, feelings, and actions. Search "trait" or "cluster" for a template. Students can also connect evidence from the text to each trait. (template)
Explore more ideas for using cluster diagrams to organize student thinking
24. Solve a tangram puzzle
A tangram is a Chinese puzzle made from a square cut into seven different shapes, called tans. You use these shapes to make the square, as well as a range of other shapes. Tangram puzzles help students practice visual-spatial awareness and geometric relationships like symmetry, transformations, and composite shapes. (template)
At your Wixie home, search "tangram" to find a range of challenges!
For a creative writing approach, use the Tangram Story file to build your own unique shape and finish the story of the happy square: "There was once a happy square who dreamed of being different, something exciting. But what could that be?"
25. Build vocabulary with word games
Wixie includes a folder of Word Play templates you can use to challenge students to expand vocabulary and see words. For example, how many three-letter words can you find in the word celebrate? How many four-letter words? (template)
Many of the Month-by-Month folders also include thematic words for this type of word play, like this one for Earth Day.
26. Create a backyard or neighborhood field guide
Ask students to go outside or look out a window and observe a plant or animal that interests them. Use Wixie to draw what they see and record observations using text and voice. Use this information to identify the species. (Go Botany and Cornell have sites that can help). (template)
Once students know the species, have them use Wixie to create a field guide for that species or even several species that live nearby.
27. Draw your own tree for Arbor Day
Gustav Klimt's "Tree of Life" is one of his most recognizable paintings. Search "Klimt" in Wixie and use the Eraser tool to create your own Klimt-style tree using a scratch art-style template. (template)
Scratch art drawing in Wixie is done with the Eraser tool, not the paint brush!
28. Write your own version of A. A. Milne's "When I was One" poem
Read "The End" a poem by A. A. Milne, who you know from Winnie the Pooh.
When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
Open Wixie and type "Milne" in the search field. (template)
Open the "When I was (age)" template, finish each line, and use Wixie's tools to illustrate.
If you have students of different ages, adjust the template to add or remove a line and assign different templates to different students.
29. Craft a concrete, or shape, poem
Concrete poems are poems where the words are arranged in a shape that reflects the topic of the poem. Write your poem in small phrases or stanzas and use the rotate handle above a text box in Wixie to adjust the direction.
30. Create a coat of arms for a book character
A coat of arms is a symbolic representation of a family’s identity and values. Create a coat of arms for a book character for a creative way to showcase your comprehension of their traits. Search "coat of arms" in Wixie to open a template that makes it easy to color, add images, and write a motto. (template)
Explore a Character Coat of Arms lesson plan
31. The pros and cons of quarantine
Life is definitely different under quarantine. Is quarantine good, or bad, or both? Think about your experience and use a "Pros and Cons" organizer in Wixie to list them. Search "quarantine" at your Wixie home page or open a general Pros and Cons organizer by browsing Templates>Graphic Organizers. (template)
32. Write a fractured nursery rhyme
Wixie has an entire folder of templates you can use to write a fractured version of your favorite nursery rhyme. Search "fracture" or browse Curriculum>Writing>Poetry>Fracture Nursery Rhymes. Have fun! (choice board)
33. Create a thank you card for your teacher
Open the Templates at your Wixie home page and open the Stationery folder to find a thank you note starter you can use to type a letter to your teacher. Better yet, start a blank Wixie page and use the paint tools to create an original drawing. You can also use the image button and camera option to capture your picture!
Use the microphone tool to record your voice and let your teacher know how much you appreciate them. (template)
34. Make a pictograph
Pictographs are fun ways to show off data. Ask students to share the number of pets they have at their home. Collect their answers and share the data with students. Search "pictograph" in Wixie to find a template that makes it easy to drag images to show the data with pictures. (template)
36. Write about your favorite relative
Practice opinion writing through a favorite relative project. Give structure to your emerging writers by asking them to state their opinion, share 2-3 reasons why, and finish with a concluding statement. Share students' work with their favorite relative. (O-R-E-O Opinion template)
Explore a Favorite Relative lesson plan
37. Design an Animal Diary
Have students use personification to write a diary for an animal that teaches others about its unique physical characteristics, behaviors, and adaptations. (template)
Explore an Animal Diary lesson plan
38. Write a Mother's Day Rebus
Read or watch I Love You, A Rebus Poem by Jean Marzollo. Challenge students to come up with reverse rhymes for their I Love You message. Great idea for mom!
39. Create an ABC's of... Book
After researching and learning about a topic such as geography or matter, have students use Wixie to create an alphabet book to share knowledge they have learned, organizing their writing using the ABC’s. (template)
Have them each complete a book, or assign each student a single page and combine into a class book using Wixie's Project Wizard feature.
40. Persuade for a pet
Humane Societies and Pet Rescues reported record numbers of adoptions during COVID-19. Encourage your students to write a letter or create a presentation in Wixie to persuade their family to get a new pet, supporting their opinion with reasons and examples. You can also search for "cluster" and "OREO" for graphic organizers to support research and thinking. (O-R-E-O and Letter templates)
Explore a Persuade for a Pet lesson plan
40. Write your own word problems
Visualizing word problems in Wixie by using the paint tools to draw models or by adding images from the media library can help students better identify key pieces of a problem and the relations between them.
Get step-by-step directions and more ideas for getting started with word problems in Wixie.
Explore a Multiplication Word Problems lesson plan
41. Send a chalk art message
Have students send a loved one a chalk message. Search Wixie for "chalk" to find a template you can use to create a digital chalk art message. Export the image or copy the URL and send to a grandparent or share with an elderly neighbor. (template)
42. Inform others about an endangered plant or animal
Use Wixie to create raise awareness or inform others about an endangered species. Search "trading card" at your Wixie home page for an easy template to help you to organize your writing to inform others about animals or plants in peril. (template)
43. Create a digital word wall
Students can use the "word wall" template in Wixie to create their own word wall. Assign to each learner so they can add words they do not know from books they are reading or hearing. Have students look up the meaning in a dictionary or ask a parent or teacher to help them define and add a picture and even voice recording. (template)
44. Create a class memory book
Use Wixie to create a memory book filled with each student’s favorite event from the school year. Have students use Wixie's image, text, and recording tools to create their page, combine them together into one file in your teacher account, and publish online, as PDF, or print. (template)
Explore step-by-step directions for this idea.
45. Partition shapes
In second grade, students learn to partition circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares. Search "partition" in Wixie for a range of practice and play activities that help students grow to learn that equal shares doesn't have to mean the same shape. (template)
46. Design a Habitat Snow Globe
Most students have or have seen a snow globe at home or at a tourist attraction. Ask students design a snow globe to showcase the animals and plants in a particular habitat. Search "snow globe" at the Wixie home page for a template. There is also a snow globe glass image in Wixie's sticker's library they can add to their file to add a glassy effect. (template)
Explore a Habitat Snow Globe lesson plan
47. Carve your own rock art
Petroglyphs are objects carved into rock by prehistoric people. Search "petroglyph" at your Wixie home page. Assign to students and they can use the Eraser tool to "carve" their own petroglyph image. Use the microphone tool to tell the story of the rock art. (template)
48. Publish a brochure for your neighborhood
What makes where you live special? Our families choose places to live based on economics, weather, family, geography, and culture. Have your students talk to their parents about why they chose to live where they do. Walk the neighborhood, take pictures, and use Wixie to create a brochure to let others know about the unique neighborhood you call home. Start from a blank page or search "brochure" at your Wixie home page to start from a template. (template)
49. Tell a data story
Read or watch Five Creatures by Emily Jenkins. This story describes a family with five creatures comparing features between them in many different ways. Have each student collect five creatures data for their home. Search "creatures" in Wixie to find a template students can use to collect data for five creatures in their home. (template)
Have students use this data to write their own five creatures story!
Explore other books that make for great literature adaptations.
50. Create Silhouette Art
A silhouette is a sharp outline or shadow of an object. While students can always draw silhouette outlines, they can also create them using stickers from the Image library.
Start a new blank page. Use the Image button to find and add a sticker to the page. Simple stickers are best. This may also be a great time to talk about horizon line.
Have students select each sticker, go to the Edit menu and choose Glue to Paint layer. Use the paint bucket to fill each sticker with black. Clean up spaces with the paint brush and add ground if necessary. Finally, select the Arrow tool and use the Background Picture button to find a colorful background!
