domingo, 25 de febrero de 2018

Weather around the world for ESL

I made a lot of flashcards from different countries around the world.

You can group the flashcards according to  the continents. I used America for my example. Check the real weather on internet before the activity or have them do it before the class. Have it ready. Link: https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/
Flashcards 1. Sort the countries according to the weather.
Teacher: What ´s the weather in Jamaica? 
Students: It´s warm. It´s partly cloudy.
Flashcards 2.
Teacher: In Brazil ,it is hot. And what about in Germany?
Students: It is cold in Germany.
Do more examples.Teacher: There is snow in Estonia. Is it cold ?
Student: Yes, it is.
Teacher: What season is it ?
Students: It is Winter.
And here´s Argentina.
 I made a smaller version for the students to look up the weather around the world on internet and make some posters.
weather around the world

 Students can talk about their poster.
Student: Today it is hot and sunny in Kenya and Chad. It is 37ºCelsius in Chad and 26º Celsius in Kenya.
Weather unit poster

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jueves, 22 de febrero de 2018

Weather and Clothes Themes for the ESL Learner

Flashcards 1. Place the people Flashcards on the board.


Have the children guess the weather. I wrote the numbers from 11 to 20 to practice them.
Teacher: What is the weather like in Number 15?
Students: It´s cold and snowy.
Teacher: Is it snowy in number 18?
Students: No, it isn´t. It´s sunny and hot.
Flashcards 2. Place the weather flashcards on the board (rainy, sunny, windy, snowy).


Place the frog´s clothes on a desk.
Call on individual students to come and pick a piece of clothing, show it to the class, say the word and place it where it belongs according to the weather.
Student: raincoat! Rainy!
Flashcards 3. Weather and adjectives. Divide the board in two and write the words hot and cold. Place the sun flashcard on the hot side and a snowflake flashcards on the cold side. Have the students sort the frog´s clothes.
Then, dress up your frog for the hot or the cold weather.

Flashcards 4. Weather and seasons.
Show the students several flashcards and ask questions.
Teacher: Which season is it ?
Students: It´s winter.
Teacher: Yes! But, why? What is he wearing?
Students: He is wearing a hat a coat, pants, and boots.
Give the students the flashcards and have them sort the people according to the season.
Teacher: How is the weather in the Spring?
Students: It´s rainy.
Have the students sort the flashcards according to the weather.
Teacher: What´s the weather like ?
Students: It´s cold.
Teacher: What is the boy wearing?
Students: He is wearing a hat, a jacket, mittens,pants and boots.
Have the students say what they wear for each weather.
Students: I wear a raincoat and boots on a rainy day.

Activity 1. After this practice, hand in the frog template to each student.
Have them color their frog by using only the 11 colors that we use in the class (and for the Bingo later) but only in one color each piece and dress the frog according to a specific weather.
Place the Weather flashcards (from the previous blog post) around the room. Students listen to the weather that you mention and walk with their frog and stand next to the flashcard.
Teacher: Winter frogs come here!
Then count together how many students are at each flashcard and have them say which weather has the most students.

Activity 2. Play frog Bingo! Since all the students have their frogs ready. Play Bingo.   Print and cut all the Bingo cards and place them in a bag or box and start calling out all the clothes:
Teacher: a red shirt!

Activity 3. Fashion Catalog. Since it is a favorite in my store I added it including more summer and winter clothes. Just print a page per student and have them look for clothes in magazines to cut and paste as in a catalog. Divide the whole class into 4 groups so one group will do the Winter Catalog, another the Summer one and then assign Fall and Spring. I´d love to see pictures of this if you do it.
Activity 4. Write the clothes words. Have the students write the clothes that are worn in each weather. You can hang them up in class.


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martes, 20 de febrero de 2018

Weather Flashcards Activities for ESL EFL Learners

The Weather unit and the Flashcards activities for Elementary English Language Learners.



Flashcards activity 1. Display all the weather flashcards on the board. Point and ask questions.

Teacher: What´s the weather like  today?
Students: It´s rainy.
Teacher: Is it snowy?
Students: yes, it is.
Teacher: Is it sunny?
Students: No, it isn´t.

Flashcards activity 2. Make a weekday chart on the board using your flashcards.

Ask Questions.
Teacher: Today is Tuesday. What´s the weather like ?
Students: It´s windy.
Have the students ask and answer more questions.

Flashcards activity 3. Order the flashcards by size. Have the students tell you how to order them on the board. Then ask questions.
Teacher: Which is the biggest?
Students: The sun!
Teacher: Which is the smallest?
Students: The snowflake!

And ask questions about color.
Teacher: What color is the sun?
Students: yellow!

Flashcards activity 4. Make patterns. Hand in the student´s flashcards.


Say a pattern order and have the students create them on their desks using the smaller version. Place the flashcards on the board for student´s correction. This makes for a good listening exercise.
Teacher: windy, cloud, lightning, sunny!


Flashcards activity 5. Express  weather likes. Place the weather flashcards on the board. Review all the weather flashcards that you have selected.


Hand in the small weather cards for the students to color and write their name on their favorite.
When they come to the board to place their card they have to express their opinion. 
Student: My favorite weather is sunny. 

Ask questions: Which weather has the most votes? ,Which weather has the least votes?, How many votes are there for sunny?

Flashcards activity 6. Games !
Game1. Spinners.
Give each student a spinner and a set of flashcards and questions to the group.


One student will be the reader and the rest will judge if the answer is correct. When a student answers a question correctly he or she colors a fraction of the spinner. If the answer is incorrect, he or he can´t color the spinner.  The first student to complete coloring the spinner is the winner. I made a colored version that you can add plastic contact paper or laminate, students can use board markers to color and the spinner can be erased and reused. If not, use the paper version. The spinner has 8 fractions.

Game 2. Cards around the room. Place the flashcards on the floor around the room following a path. Play some music or some weather sounds and have the children walk around the path of path. When the sounds stops they have to grab the card close to them and at your signal  show the flashcard and say the word.

Game 3. Have the children order the flashcards alphabetically. Give each group a set of flashcards and at your signal have them order the flashcards. The first group to finish calls STOP!


Game 4. Draw it. Divide the class into groups. Have them assign one student from each group to come to the front and draw the flashcards that you will show them. The first group to shout out the word wins a point.


And a freebie, Weather Flashcards in Spanish ( Tarjetas imprimibles del clima en español) ! Just for the teachers that are in a dual language class or teach Spanish anywhere. 


          There is a lot more for the weather theme, follow me!

miércoles, 17 de enero de 2018

Valentine´s Day Resources and ideas for ESL-ELL teachers


First of all I made flashcards. I know that you will find many ways to use them. I made the one flashcard per page version, another version that has two flashcards per page and one more that is 8 flashcards in a page. That is a lot to choose from.

Idea 1: Place all the flashcards on the board. Ask the students to sort them by food, things and people.
Then ask them to write an adjective next to each word.
Idea 2: A cheap idea for Bingo! Just place all the flashcards on the board. Tell the students to write five or more words from the board on their notebooks.  Have the words written on small pieces of paper and put them into a bag. Have a student be the helper and pull out a piece of paper with the word on it and read it to the class. Place a check mark next to each word read. If the student has the word written down he/she must cross it. The first student to cross out all the word calls BINGO!

I have seen lots of lap books but instead I created a game folder.

It has basically three resources that can be glued inside the folder. I used CD envelopes because of the transparent window. It has a board game, a Mini book and small flashcards.
I made some decorations for the folder.

The mini book is for the students to color as they read and then put it together as a book to take home and read to the parents. It has tracer sentences.
 I also made a teacher´s version of the mini book as a class reader.
 Students can look at the pictures for a clue as you read. Ask the students, which is the most common word in the reading, and what is most common color. Do echo reading, as you have students repeat after you and point out in their own mini books.
A cute board to play as many times as the students want. 

The game pieces are from the cute clip I bought. I had to include all of these animals. I used clip binders to make the pieces stand and they are easy to store.

This last resource can be used as worksheets, mini flashcards or create a mini dictionary. Students can play some games by themselves or in small groups. Here are ideas:
Game 1: The tower game. Students take a card out of the envelope and say the word and start building a tower by placing one on top of another. All the words that he can´t read have to be put aside. Students can play together by building a bigger tower with all their cards.
Game 2. Order the flashcards. Hand in a small of several flashcards and have the students order them accordingly.
Game 3. Guess the flashcard. Have several flashcards in your hand. Students should display all their flashcards on their desk. Start by describing a flashcard without showing it to the class.
Teacher: I can eat it. It is delicious. It can be brown or white. It comes in a box or in a package.
Students have to guess and turn around that card on their desks. Then, show the card to the class. Students see if they guessed or not.
From my other blog: Big and small hearts are included in the resource. Check the blog post:https://eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com/2018/02/valentines-hearts-big-or-small.html
                                          

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