Recycle your old CD cases- Food Theme for ELL

Just putting things in order in my studio I found some old Cd cases. I didn´t want to throw them up and started a Pinterest search. Teachers have some genius ways to use them and that gave me some ideas.

Link to the resources:  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Breakfast-and-Lunch-for-ELLs-2393252
Please leave a comment  when you download the product!
It comes with the resources from the breakfast and lunch blog post.Check it.
https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2016/02/brunch-breakfast-and-lunch-theme.html

The resource is also available here:https://www.bilingualmarketplace.com/products/breakfast-and-lunch-food-unit-for-kindergarten-and-elementary-efl?variant=37250563932324

My very first idea was to create a traditional Spinner, yes, not a fidget spinner, which are popular between children.

I would suggest that you use cardboard for printing the template. Use an X-acto knife to make a small cut in X on the center of the circle where the Cd inserts. Carefully grab the arrow and the template with a brass fastener, leaving a little space for the arrow to spin.

 The spinners can be used by two students. It is a good idea to laminate them. There are 32 food items for breakfast and lunch. I can add more if suggested.

Student 1: ( spins the spinners and lands on pizza) pizza!

Student 2: looks for the pizza and puts it under the word.

I am sure that the students will invent more games.

I found a second idea of making a board game. I had these food people clipart which are so nice that I had to bring them to the game.  I used colored binder clips for the food people counter and a die. The good thing is that all the pieces can be kept inside the Cd case. Students can choose the character and count in English, besides learning the phrases: miss 1 turn, go back, go ahead and roll again.

Board games are fun. Use them as a reward system or after a test with those 5 minutes left.

The good thing about the Cd case is that it is erasable. I made this shopping list template and used dry-erase markers. A baby wipe is good for cleaning. Have the students write a shopping list and then exchange with a partner. Each student has to line up the food right next to the list.

Writing skills are essential to advance in their English learning. They can make sentences or a short paragraph to finish the activity.

And if you want to role play, use the Cd case for the menu. The case can be decorate with fun foam objects, buttons or anything that you have for recycling.

And more writing practice. Tracing is a good way to memorize words and how to write them. Besides, tracing creates better writers, handwriting is still an essential skill to develop in the tablet age. Tracing is an important step when writing in another language.

I saw an idea about an accordion book in the Cd case. I grabbed a book that I had made and never included in any product. I made the accordion and a final page has to be glued onto the cd case to hold the book.

Review the vocabulary words in the book, point to them in the pictures. I made it black and white so children can color the food vocabulary and you can continue dictating how to color the children.

Teacher: Look at Pete! He has blond hair and a blue party hat.  Then have the children color as assigned.

When students move on to Elementary we stop sorting. By sorting food we are doing math in the English class. Students can identify the similarities and the differences in the food, such as, juice can be either for breakfast or lunch. Thinking skills are active while sorting and the food vocabulary will make sense to the learners.

Sort the small cards into breakfast  and lunch food items.

I used the food theme but any theme can be used with the Cd cases, let me know if you want me to create something. And ideas from you are welcome as a blog post here or post  them directly in any of my Facebook Groups.