Words with Purpose: ELA for 2nd and 3rd grade

Course Summary

Give your child the tools to read with confidence, write with creativity, and see every lesson through the lens of God’s truth. In this year-long class, skills gently progress from simple to more challenging, yet each lesson stands alone—making it easy for your child to join anytime and start learning right away.

Course Description

This course takes students on a faith-centered journey through key reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar skills. Lessons progress from easier concepts, like story elements and complete sentences, to more advanced topics, such as figurative language, persuasive writing, and determining a story’s theme. While skills become more complex over time, each lesson is designed as a stand-alone experience, so students can participate at any point in the year without needing prior lessons. Throughout the course, students will: - Identify and understand story elements (characters, setting, plot) - Use context clues, synonyms, antonyms, and word parts to expand vocabulary - Recognize and write complete, compound, and varied sentence types - Find main ideas and supporting details, make inferences, and use text evidence to support answers - Compare and contrast texts, determine themes, and understand cause and effect - Apply figurative language and shades of meaning for richer expression - Write in multiple genres, including personal narratives, opinion pieces, fictional stories, adventure writing, persuasive essays, how-to writing, and poetry - Use correct grammar, punctuation, and capitalization to clearly communicate ideas By year’s end, students will have gained a wide range of literacy skills, grown in confidence as readers and writers, and discovered how these tools help them better understand God’s Word and share His truth with others.

Syllabus

🍁 Unit 1 – Fall Foundations 🍁 (Sept) Goal: Start with basics in reading, writing, and grammar so students feel successful right away. 1. Story Elements (Characters, Setting, Plot) Faith: God is the best Author! (Jeremiah 29:11) 2. Complete Sentences vs. Run-Ons Faith: God likes order and clarity (1 Corinthians 14:33) 3. Context Clues for Vocabulary Faith: Follow God’s guidance (Proverbs 3:5–6) 4. Personal Narrative Writing Faith: Share God’s work in your life (Psalm 107:2) 🍂 Unit 2 – Building Words & Sentences 🍂 (Oct) Goal: Strengthen vocabulary and sentence structure for better reading and writing. 5. Synonyms & Antonyms Faith: Words can bring life (Proverbs 18:21) 6. Types of Sentences Faith: Jesus used different sentence types (Matthew 5–7) 7. Prefixes & Suffixes Faith: Understanding word parts gives deeper meaning 8. Opinion Writing Faith: Every season has a purpose (Ecclesiastes 3:1) 🍂 Unit 3 – Understanding What We Read 🍂 (Nov) Goal: Grow comprehension skills and start supporting answers with text evidence. 9. Main Idea & Details Faith: God’s Word has one truth (Psalm 119:160) 10. Making Inferences Faith: Use clues to understand God’s truth (2 Timothy 3:16–17) 11. Finding Text Evidence Faith: The Bible is our evidence for truth (Acts 17:11) 12. Subject-Verb Agreement Faith: God’s people work best in unity (1 Corinthians 12:12) ❄️ Unit 4 – Writing Adventures ❄️ (Dec–Jan) Goal: Apply skills to creative writing and understand text comparisons. 13. Adventure Story Writing Faith: Point to God’s light in every story (John 1:5) 14. Quotation Marks & Dialogue Faith: The Bible records meaningful conversations (John 13–17) 15. Compare & Contrast Two Texts Faith: Different Gospels tell one story of Jesus 16. Commas in a Series Faith: God’s commands guide us clearly (Psalm 19:7–8) 🌟 Unit 5 – Digging Deeper into Words 🌟 (Feb) Goal: Develop richer vocabulary and deeper word understanding. 17. Multiple Meaning Words Faith: Bible words can have rich meanings (Psalm 119:130) 18. Greek & Latin Roots Faith: Original Bible languages add depth 19. Figurative Language (Similes, Metaphors) Faith: Jesus used word pictures (John 10:11) 20. Shades of Meaning Faith: Our words can heal or hurt (Proverbs 12:18) 🌱 Unit 6 – Crafting Big Stories 🌱 (Mar) Goal: Combine skills for longer, more developed writing pieces. 21. Fictional Narrative Writing Faith: Jesus told parables with truth (Luke 15) 22. Persuasive Writing Faith: Paul encouraged believers (Galatians 6:9) 23. Compound & Complex Sentences Faith: God’s Word has many writing styles 24. Theme/Moral of a Story Faith: God’s Word teaches hope (Romans 15:4) 🌸 Unit 7 – Poetry & Purpose 🌸 (Apr) Goal: Explore poetic writing and higher-level comprehension skills. 25. Cause & Effect Faith: Choices have consequences (Galatians 6:7) 26. Poetry Writing Faith: Praise God through poetry (Psalm 150:6) 27. Apostrophes in Possessives Faith: We belong to God (Isaiah 43:1) 28. Author’s Purpose & Point of View Faith: All Bible authors share God’s truth 🏖 Unit 8 – Wrapping Up & Review 🏖 (May–June) Goal: Apply all skills to real-world writing and reading tasks. 29. How-To Writing Faith: Paul gave “how-to” instructions for living (Philippians 4:8–9) 30. Homophones & Confusing Word Pairs Faith: Words matter—use them wisely (2 Timothy 2:15) 31. Final Cumulative Project Faith: Show what you’ve learned through a faith-themed project or presentation

Supplies

Pencils (regular and colored) Erasers Lined writing paper or composition notebook Binder or folder for handouts and assignments Highlighters (different colors for main idea, details, etc.) Index cards (for vocabulary and quick writing prompts)