Grade 2 · Week 17multiple meaning words
A Day at the Zoo
Students read a short story about Ms. Lee's class trip to the zoo, answer five questions about the words trunk, bat, and cap, and use teacher and homeschool guidance to explore multiple meanings.
On screen - your kid, alone
- 1Day 1 - Meet the story
- 2Day 2 - Word work
- 3Day 3 - What it means
- 4Day 4 - Fix & re-read
- 5Day 5 - Show what you know
Offline - with you
Print the pages for offline work together; the answer key is for you.
Read the zoo story aloud together, then explain that some words can mean more than one thing depending on the sentence around them. Point to the word "trunk" in two different sentences and ask your child, "Does this trunk hold lunch, or is it part of the elephant?" Do the same with "bat" (a flying animal vs. something used to hit a ball) and "cap" (a hat vs. a lid on a bottle). A strong answer names the correct meaning and points to a nearby clue word, like "handle" for the lunch trunk or "hit balls" for the baseball bat. If your child gets stuck, reread just the one sentence and the sentence before it, then ask, "What is happening right here?" — the surrounding words almost always give the meaning away. For extra practice, take turns making up new sentences using each word both ways.
A Day at the Zoo
Ms. Lee's class went to the city zoo on Friday. Each child packed a lunch in a small trunk with a strong handle. Ms. Lee carried snacks and water bottles for the group. At the first stop, a big elephant lifted its trunk high in the air. The trunk sprayed water on a pile of hay. The children laughed and clapped their hands. Next, they saw a fruit bat hanging upside down in a tree. It looked soft and fuzzy under the warm sun. One boy said his brother used a bat to hit balls at the park. After lunch, Ms. Lee twisted the cap off her water bottle. The cap rolled across the path near a bench. The zookeeper smiled and tipped his blue cap to the class.
What this lesson checks
- Word meaning: Read this sentence from the story: "Each child packed a lunch in a small trunk with a strong handle." What does the word trunk mean here?
- Word meaning: Read this sentence from the story: "At the first stop, a big elephant lifted its trunk high in the air." What does the word trunk mean here?
- Word meaning: The word trunk is used two different ways in the story. Write your own new sentence using trunk in a third way that is NOT in the story. (Hint: think about parts of a tree or parts of a car.)
- Word meaning: Read this sentence from the story: "One boy said his brother used a bat to hit balls at the park." What does the word bat mean here?
- Word meaning: The word cap is used in two different ways in the story. Find one of those uses and write a sentence of your own that uses cap with that SAME meaning.