Family & Halloween-Themed Learning Experience 🎃for Elementary ELLs

 This resource is included in the Family Unit resource:   https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Family-Activities-for-Elementary-ELL-1804475

Have fun teaching elementary English language learners with a unique blend  of culture, creativity, and language learning of Family and Halloween themes! 🎃👻 The kids are not only expanding their English vocabulary but also embracing cultural traditions.

I do have the Family Flashcards to use as Vocabulary Introduction. I am not adding them to this resource, but you can get them here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Family-Unit-for-Kindergarten-Holistic-English-Series-8-6126315

Let’s jump into the Posters for each Family and introduce them using the words, Vampire, Frankenstein, Ghost as their last name: This is Brother Ghost.

And introduce more family members: That’s Sister Ghost.

Teach or review Halloween words like "house," "ghost," "tree," "bat," and more.

Have the students describe the family members using the Halloween Family posters. Example: 

Family Small Cards.  Sort them by family members and even make a Family Tree.

Play Go-fish with the small cards. Print the set of small cards. Ensure each family member is repeated at least 2-4 times, depending on the number of players.
 Deal 5cards to each player and the remaining cards go in a draw pile in the center.
The goal is to collect a complete Halloween family.
The first player starts by asking another player for a specific card they need to make a complete family. For example, "Do you have 'Father Vampire'?"
If the player being asked has the card, they must give it to the player who asked.
If the player does not have the card, they say, "Go Fish!" and the asking player must draw a card from the draw pile.
If a player makes a family, they place the cards face up in front of them and ends the game as a winner.

Playing the game video: 

Use the finger puppets for Role-Playing where students practice conversations.

 

Print the template and have the students color and cut the Halloween Family members. Tape for securing the puppets to fingers

You can use the puppets for speaking like this.

Worksheets are a good practice.

 If you want to do a writing activity, just have the learners describe the posters.

Check this other resource using the same clipart to complement this resource at my other blog for Kindergarten English Language Learners: https://eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com/2020/10/family-theme-for-kindergarten-holistic_19.html

Feel free to reach out if you're interested in more creative teaching ideas for English language learners or want to exchange thoughts on effective teaching strategies. See you at Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-amelia-oropeza-81657829/

Sea, ocean or Underwater Animals Unit for Elementary ESL

Get all the resources here for The Sea Animals Unit :   https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sea-Ocean-or-Underwater-Animals-for-Elementary-ESL-4005250

OR here:https://www.bilingualmarketplace.com/products/sea-ocean-or-underwater-animals-for-elementary-esl?variant=37647377924260

71  Sea Life Flashcards. Place several flashcards on the board. Ask questions.

Teacher: What color is the shell ?

Students: It´s yellow.

Teacher: brown!

Students: sea lion and walrus!

Teacher: Is the sea turtle green ?

Students: Yes, it is.

Playing a game in class is an authentic taks that involve peer interaction. It is as easy as ordering alphabetically. I made craft stick puppets  with the sea animals pictures and then ordered them alpahabetically.

Place all the flashcards face down on the desk. Have a leader come to the front and grab a card and read it to the class. Students have to write the animal they hear. After the students have written the word the leader shows the flashcards and the class corrects any spelling mistake.

Use the Point finger to review this and that.

Teacher: This is an orca and that is a prawn.

Do the same by placing several flashcards of the same animal and practice These and Those.

Place more flashcards around the room and have the students say sentences using their own finger.

Numbers. Write the Numbers 10 to 100 in random order under each flashcard. Play!

Teacher: 50!

Students: shark!

Teacher: sea lion!

Students: one hundred!

                            Adjectives: long-short, big-little

Game: Guess the animal.

Play the game with the whole class as an example:

Students: What color is it ?

Teacher: black and white.

Students: Is it big or small ?

Teacher: It´s big!

Students: Orca!

Teacher: YES!!!

Students can play with the small cards. Separate the printable into cards and select the ones that you are working on. Divide the class into pairs. Hand in at least 8 cards to each group. Have Student A write on piece of paper the name of a Sea Animal. Student B has to guess which is that animal.

Student B: What color is it ?

Student A: brown!

Student B: Is it big or small ?

Student A: big!

Student B: walrus!

Student A: YES!! 

Feelings Sea animals Flashcards. I wanted to add some flashcards regarding feelings to recycle the vocabulary words.

Place all the flashcards on the board. Have students come up with a fly swatter and swat the correct flashcard. Practice listening skills as you say the sentence.

Teacher: It is an angry starfish.

Prepositions of place. Draw a beach scene on the board and place the Sea Animals in random order.

Teacher: The crab is at the beach. The crab is next to the starfish.

Have students come up with similar sentences.

You can also hand in all the Sea animals and have the students place them as you say.

Teacher: Lenny, the shark is in the Ocean. The shark  is behind the blue fish.

Or introduce more positional words such as left and right.

Teacher: The crab is on the right.

Practice more positional words with this worksheet. Have the students glue their Sea Animals in any way that they want and then have them write sentences to show to the rest of the class.

As a listening activity, dictate how to  glue the Sea Animals.

Teacher: The octopus is between the crab and the seahorse. 

Practice prepositions using puppets made out of toilet paper tubes.

Build words using bottle caps. I made this template. It´s free at the link.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Number-Bottle-Caps-2155938

Parts of the body. Place a flashcard on the board and ask questions about that specific animal body parts. Have them name the body parts they already know the word and help them with the new vocabulary.(LABELING)

And extra practice is always necessary. Hand in all the worksheets and have them work in groups completing the Sea Animals body parts. Have them research the unknown words.

Sea animals habitat.  Sea or Ocean animals live in the same place or in some other. Place a flashcard of the habitat and ask the students which animals they think live in that particular habitat to create a mind map. I have ocean, sea, beach, river and lake. Ask the students to draw the habitat and the animals that live there. They can investigate and make their own diorama or picture. Have them do a show and tell to the class.

Sea Animals also eat.Create another mind map with the flashcards on the board.

 Make a Sea Life Table. Have the students make a similar table as the one you are making on the board. Ask them questions. Students usually know details of Sea Animals, if not have them investigate before completing the table.

File folder game. I made them the size of a circle puncher.

Snapshots templates where children can draw the animals and write a sentence for each one.

Sea animals writing or reading. Have the children write sentences using the template or have them write their own sentences to complete a book. 

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Halloween Candy Corn Friends for Elementary ELL

Just reviewing some old Halloween resources, I found this book I created years ago. I added some more things and here is the product.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Candy-Corn-Friends-3424290

I have two readers for this resource. 

Present the book to the students, tell them that it is about Candy Corn Friends. Many students have not seen a candy corn. They don´t know what it is. Explain that it is a candy used in Halloween.

Read aloud the book for them.  Read using different voices for each Candy Corn. Such as a stronger voice for Frank and a different one for the witch.  After reading discuss the book. Ask them questions about the characters.

Teacher: What color is Frank ?

Students: He is green.

                    The other one can be just for reading or use it as a coloring book.

                                          

                                               Here is how mine turned out.

For introducing the story use the puppets. Show them the characters of the book before reading.  And you can use them after reading for the students to create their own story to present to the class. I made mine by gluing a craft stick but you can use a glove, felt anything to create wonderful puppets.

   

And crowns can work for retelling the story or for role play. Recounting the story is a skill to grow. Retelling using props helps the students comprehend the story. You can read and have the students come to the front one by one as you mention them  with their crown.

Here is an interesting part, an interactive book. A little cutting, gluing and putting together their book. 

I made mine using a book ring.

And then students can play in small groups. The board game has the characters. I made them stand using a clip. This a simple board game that doesn't take a lot of time to play.

And there´s another version where the students have to say a word with each letter of Halloween. Teach the rule that when a player lands on an H, a word starting with letter h must be said in order to stay in that place, if not, the student  has to stay where he/she was before.

Pocket charts are also a good way to play in small groups making the sentences. I only have this little red pocket chart. I thought that didn´t have a place in the English language Teaching, but I started doing things and they are quite useful. Besides making sentences, students can sort the Halloween Characters by color. You can use them to create the sequence of the story book. Place all the characters in alphabetical order.

And finally, make a coloring book to take home. By coloring in class, it helps to prepare students more structured lessons in the years to come. Coloring the Candy Corn characters  will motivate the students to appreciate the difference between the characters. They can come with imaginative ways to color their Candy Corn friends.

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