Second Grade Space Research Project
Written By BCS Second Graders, Mrs. Dunbar & Miss Zemrak’s classes
We, the second-grade students at Belgrade Central School, have published nonfiction books about the solar system. We were not born as nonfiction authors—we had to first become experts on our topic.
The first step we took was to read as many nonfiction books about the solar system as we could. We also watched short videos about each planet in our solar system. Next, we took notes about the information we read about in our solar system research notebooks. After we became experts and had enough information gathered we used our notes to write a draft of our nonfiction books. We organized our writing using a table of contents. From writing class, we remembered that the lead was one of the most important ways to get your readers attention. When the draft was complete we typed our book in Google Docs on our iPads. We had revised and edited our writing with our teacher. Then after all that hard work, we were able to print and illustrate our final copy.
In art class, Ms. Wrenn helped us make a paper mache solar system. We used newspaper and balloons and painted them. In computer class, Mr. Hine taught us how to make a slideshow. We each made a slide with facts and pictures.
On presentation day, we set up the classroom like a space museum with our planets, slideshow, and books. Our fourth-grade study buddies came to visit and see our hard work. We really loved presenting our research!
