jueves, 7 de mayo de 2015

Mother´s Day Activities for Elementary ELL

LINK to this resource and more:

It is difficult to find easy activities for the Holiday.
 I designed a complete the book for Mom.

The pages are  for the children to complete following their mother´s characteristics.
 The numbers for the age. The children can cut images from magazines, bring pictures from home or draw their own pictures.

Photo booths and Props are popping everywhere, I made mine for Mother´s Day.
 Use them for greeting cards, fun classroom pictures for the year book or the celebration if you have one.
And very simple cards are included:

viernes, 1 de mayo de 2015

Body Theme for Elementary Language Learners

Get the files for the parts of the body resource for teaching Elementary English Language Learners at my TPT store:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Body-Theme-for-Elementary-ELL-1836555
body resource for teaching Elementary English Language Learners

 Watch the video of the resource:

Emotion, play and surprising activities are the secret ingredients to learning. This resource is help students describe the parts of the body and to describe people, family members and later on even animals.

Body unit draw book: Let them recognize that everybody in class is different.
Have the students draw  their bodies as they read the sentences. 
The grammar points are: possessive adjectives (This is my face) and demostratives (These are my legs)
Body unit draw book
Watch the video of the printable  book:

To learn Body Words Board Activity 1: Draw several shapes as torsos on the board . Have children come up to the complete the body.
Teacher: karla and Paul, draw the head.
Continue with more body parts until the drawing is complete. Go over all the body parts and label them.   Then, have children draw themselves with their complete bodies and label all their body parts.
learn Body Words Board Activity

Board Activity 2 Divide the class in several teams. Have a student from each team go to the board. Say a body vocabulary word and have the students write it on the board as fast as they can.  Give a point to each team that does it correctly. Continue with more words.

Children can count with their fingers. I printed onto cardboard  a right and left hand. Then I glued all the numbers onto clothespin. Students have to number all the fingers in the hand.
  
Adjectives Left and right related to the body: teach directionality during this unit. Have students hold both hands in front of themselves. Use the hands and arrows available for this purpose. You can make them smaller and paste the hands on their tables to remind them of left and right. Have students say right hand and show it to you. Do the same with left hand.
Adjectives Left and right related to the body


Pocket charts help children manipulate language in a special way. This time I included the adjectives Big and small as a sorting body part activity. if you don´t have a pocket chart do it on a file folder, on the table or the board.
adjectives Big and small as a sorting body part activity

Or make puppets with the cutouts and make big and small body parts patterns.

Another version, using complete sentences or making sentences.

Make words: print letters onto different colored paper or construction paper. Give students the letters to make body parts words as in a crossword.

Spelling: approach spelling as problem solving instead of a memorization activity. Teach spelling strategies and skills. Here are some ideas.

Task cards: motivate students with these cards instead of a regular worksheet. Students will have to deal with one question at a time instead of a whole page in front of him/her. I create the task cards with all the grammar points in mind and you can use the ones that suit your class. Use them to review before tests. Students can work individually or in pairs. Save paper by printing  and laminating the set. Students write on their notebooks.

Worksheet: there is no perfect worksheet, but make changes to make it work. After I did the worksheet as in the instructions I cut everything out and created a label all activity by labelling the body parts and then the colors.

Body Unit Domino game benefits group learning experiences and reinforcement of the new language.

Body half game: print as many as you need. Give one half card to each child and have them walk around finding their other match and stand together. They can ask questions: Do you have the arm ? Make it a speaking activity.

Tracing helps with :
-       Eye-hand development and use of the writing tools: pencils, crayons, markers,etc
-     fine motor skills
      Develops the awareness of key concepts of print  in  the new language, even more when the language alphabet is completely different
-       teaches directionality about the ley movements for letter and word formation
-     The result is a neat worksheet or card that makes the child like independent handwriting that has been lost for the excessive use of technology.    
     Students can show the card and say: This is an eye.

s

Picture and word matching: this kind of activity help develop the word recognition skill necessary to reading. Students can see very letter in each word in his own work area instead of looking at it on the board that several meters away from him/her. Children need to focus on recognizing words readily  to move on to meaning.

There is a bundle for the body unit at the store. Check it out.

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domingo, 22 de marzo de 2015

Easter for Elementary ELL

Easter small cards: play match the pairs of cards. Students will have to observe the cards  and concentrate.


Easter read and color book: have students construct meaning from the text and pictures. Then have them color only what indicates a color. The rest has to be blank.


Easter Pocket Chart: a wonderful resource to have in the class for those children who are kinesthetic learners. Children can work alone using the pocket chart. Explain to the children how the pocket chart works.


Get the files:


Easter Egg book: This book can be easily made just by coloring the picture and tracing the phrases. It can also be made by coloring, cutting out and gluing the pictures onto each egg. The phrases are very easy to read. I punched a hole and placed a butterfly clip.


Easter Letter Tiles: have the students make the Easter words by using the letter tiles. Then, invite them to make new words by using each letter of the word.


Easter worksheets. Use them in a dynamic way having the students interact with each other as they complete them.


Get the files :

Please join my Facebook Group: ESL/EFL Elementary Teachers. Guest bloggers are welcome.

More Easter activities at my other blog:www.eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com






sábado, 14 de marzo de 2015

St. Patrick´s Day

Link to the resources: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-for-Preschool-and-Elementary-ESL-1763425
                                            Watch the view with the resources:

Teaching the language will eventually come with teaching the culture. Provide a variety of activities, because the information for St. Patrick´s might be new for most kids. It is important that you understand the context of this Holiday and what you want them to learn.
                                              Flashcards 

Coloring book. I made a bigger version for the teacher and a smaller for the students. Have them read each sentence and color only what it says. Children will learn to focus on details when coloring. It will help recognize colors.
Here is my book with engaging reading text for Elementary English Language Learners.
book with engaging reading text

 Matching number/picture card and words. Games usually capture the student´s attention and encourage speaking .
 Play:
- Memory
-Match the word and picture
- Play Who has it? Hand in a card to each player in the group. Name a word and the student who has it, stands up and says the word.
- Play Find and say. Place all the cards face up on the group´s table. Name a word or number. The first student to find it and say the word wins the card. The winner is the one with the most cards.
Domino Game: 
 A tracer book. 
Fun bracelets.
                                   A hat for the super student.

Worksheets: they will work as a supplement to the activities, helping keep track of learning and understanding of the Holiday. Put students together in groups to finish the task.
Worksheet 1. 
Worksheet 2. 
Worksheet 3. Emotions.
Worksheet 3. counting.

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sábado, 21 de febrero de 2015

Calendar: Days and Months

Link to the Calendar resource for Elementary English Language Learner:    https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Calendar-resources-for-Elementary-English-Learners-1722495
Same resource on another store: 
https://www.bilingualmarketplace.com/products/calendar-resources-for-elementary-english-learners?variant=14422675718193
                                      Watch the video:


Collect all kinds of calendar even if they are old to help out during the lesson. Use a real calendar to show the day and months of the year. The calendar helps understand numbers up to 31.  Have the students  identify the days of the week in the calendar and how many days in each month . 

Introduce the days of the week using the cards.

Hand in the cards in random order to seven students that will come to the front. They have to arrange themselves in order.

Ask questions. Teacher: What day is it ?
                         Student: It’s Monday!
         Teacher: Tuesday, come to the front. Show your card.
Teacher: Ursula,What is your favorite day of the week ?
Ursula: It’s Wednesday. (the students with the card shows it to the class).

I made cards to help ordering the days of the week. There are also abbreviation cards. The students order the days of the week and match the correct abbreviation.
Calendar unit printable cards

Introduce the Months of the Year  using the cards. You can also use them for the Birthday unit.


Game: Go to Month.
 Stick the cards on the wall in a random order. Bring a group of students to the middle of the room.

Teacher: January!  The students go  to the  January card and touch it and says the word. Continue with all the other months of the year, or days of the week.

Here the abbreviations  cards for the months. I resarched and there are two ways to abbreviate June and July. I placed both just in case. use the cards to order the months and match the abbreviations.


Continue with the ordinals numbers. There are the numbers and the word cards. 
Students should learn the ordinal numbers for telling dates. Explain that the ordinal numbers are used to express order. Use the cards to play a game connecting the ordinal number and the written form .


Question and answer cards. Prepare the question cards in one colored paper and the answer cards which are the days and months in other colored paper.


Activity 1-You can place the question cards in a bag or facedown in a pile on your desk. Draw a question card and read it to the class. Have the children answer orally or write the answer on their notebooks.

Activity 2- Divide the class into groups . Tell the class that you are thinking of a word , day or month. Star giving some clues.
Teacher: the first letter is J and the last letter is Y.
The students look through the cards and guess the word. The first team to say : JULY, is the winner of a point. Continue with more words.

Also use the ordinal numbers cards  to order the days and the month such as, 1st day of school is Monday, the first month is January.

Explain how to write the date by writing the number of the month  (8), followed by a slash and the number of the day 8/25. Write the date on the board every class.

I made days of the week crowns  for Preschool students, but I guess they might work well for older students. You can use them to help them line up in order as a warm up game.
If you just want the crowns, get them here:    https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Days-of-The-Week-Crowns-1722398

Pocket charts: I find them useful to review the calendar the whole school year.

I included cute months of the year cards.

Have the students create a calendar for the year. There is a blank clandar template where the students will color and paste their month and write the numbersfor each day as in the year you are doing it. 
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