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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Nature or Garden Theme for Elementary ELL

And here is the link to the resource:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nature-or-Garden-Theme-for-Elementary-ELL-3339351

It is also available at this other store:

https://www.bilingualmarketplace.com/products/nature-or-garden-theme-for-elementary-ell?variant=37418809131172

                              

Use the Flashcards for Speaking activities. 

Place several flashcards on the board and write a number above each one and ask questions.

Teacher: What is number 3 ?

Students: It´s a plant.

Teacher: Is number 4 a cactus ?

Students: No, it isn´t. It´s a tree.

Have students make sentences.

Students: Number 1 is an acorn.

Have students draw the nature items and write sentences on their notebooks.

This is an acorn. This isn´t a stick.

Students can talk about numbers. Write the numbers 1 to 6 on the board. Have  2 students come to the front and place the flowers flashcards under the corresponding number.

Teacher :How many flowers are there ? Pointing to number 1

Students: one. One flower.

Have the students continue counting.

Students: Two flowers, three flowers, four flowers, five flowers, six flowers.

Teacher : What color is flower number 1 ?

Students: red.

Teacher: It´s a red flower.

Students: It´s a red flower.

 Continue with all the other flowers.

I found these great clip art for There is and There are sentences.

Place one or more on the board and model the sentences.

 Place more flashcards on the board for the students to say what they see.
 Then hand out all the other flashcards and have them make sentences on their notebooks and share with the class.

Review prepositions with the flashcards. Write the prepositions on the board and have the students sort the flashcards.

Ask questions:

Point to the first flashcard,

Teacher: Where are the flowers ?

Students: They are on the cactus.

Point to the second flashcard,

 Teacher: Is the butterfly on the flower ?

Students: Yes, it is.

Have students make and write a sentence for each flashcard.

And some Verbs related to the theme. Select the flashcards that you want to students to come up with phrases. Place them on the board and start from the picture.

Teacher: What is he doing ?

Students: He is planting a tree.

Suggest that he can plant any kind of trees. Have them think of other trees and write their answers.

Students: an apple tree, a big tree. They may come up with diverse answers.

 Here are the Verb related flashcards

With the flashcards you can have the students classify them into verbs or nouns.

Place a flower flashcard on the board, review the parts of the plant that the students remember, if not, place the flashcards on one side of the board to remind them.

Draw an arrow with the words for each part of the plant. Ask them which parts are missing, they might have to say the roots and the seed. Draw them under the flower. (LABELING)

Go to this link and download this easy worksheet made by Wendy Gilstrap.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/FreeDownload/The-Parts-of-a-Plant-1823426
As dictating all the color for each part of the plant, which is a good listening exercise. I had each word cut out and each part. Then the students had to line the words in alphabetical order and glue the part next to each word.

If you want to go further with the verb planting. I suggest you do, because you can introduce the words, first, then, next and finally that can be used for writing a text in the future.

Teacher: First, get the flower seeds.( emphasize the word first, use your finger as in number 1)

Then, bake the seeds with a little salt .( emphasize the word then, moving your hand or finger forward)

Next, put the seed in the soil.( emphasize the word next) Ask students, what does the flower need to grow. Show them the flashcards of soil, sun and water.

Finally, watch the plant grow.( emphasize the word finally by showing with your hands the end.)

And the trees change within the seasons. Remember that some countries don´t have all the Seasons. It is good to review the Seasons with the trees and see how they change.

Some games to end the theme.

First, a board game. I made one with the most common words and a blank one for your or the students to fill out with the words that will be playing.I added 8 game pieces. The students can select who or what they want to be at the game. I make the pieces stand by placing them in a binder clip.

And the other game is the traditional Bingo. I added the Bingo grid but you can do the Bingo List on their notebooks. I like this kind of game to practice Spelling.But for a twist I got a flower pot which I turned into a pocket. I used the flower template to make the flower words and glued them onto a craft stick for Bingo calling.

There is a Garden Unit BUNDLE resource here: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Garden-Unit-BUNDLE-for-Kindergarten-and-Elementary-ESL-6969853

FOLLOW ME!

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.

Education.com

Days ago I was contacted by Education.com, and I was asked to publish one of their activities that could work well 
for EFL, ELA or ESL teachers.  I am so happy for this honor.

Here is a short description of their web page.

Education.com aims to empower parents, teachers, and homeschoolers to help their children build essential skills and excel. With over 12 million members, Education.com provides educators of all kinds with high-quality learning resources, including worksheets, lesson plans, digital games, an online guided learning platform, and more.

Link to their resources:

https://www.education.com/activity/article/Rainbow_Name_Puzzles/

Here is the Activity: Practice Reading with a Rainbow Puzzle!

 Puzzles are fun, and guess what? They're also a great way to help your child learn to read! Your kindergartener is probably already learning about sight words--short words that appear again and again in our language that children should recognize instantly. With this activity, you can easily turn sight words into beautiful rainbow puzzles for your emergent reader to reassemble. It's fun for your child, and you'll rest assured that she's getting some important practice in reading!

I couldn´t help  but to get inspired by this activity and off I went to buy some things to do it. Then, I started thinking that there is no official list of sight words for EFL students. I created one for this activity:

I, am, Let´s, Yes, No, a, an , What, is, this, It, not, here, color, and, can, we, be, you, are, can, in, on, under, the, where, who, she, he, my, there, they, like, so, much, How, many, your.

I bought lined/ruled cards so the students can write the word or you, glue it onto cardboard and have students outline the word with crayons or markers. Then cut it out and place it in a bag with the word written on it as a reference for the students. I used markers that are for writing onto plastic.

And bought some 3D stickers for the students to create the word, then do the outline with crayons or markers. Continue with the puzzle.

And with big craft sticks you can make a bigger puzzle. Students will write the word, outline in a rainbow manner on cardboard or white paper and then cut it. Glue onto the lined craft sticks and then wait to dry. Cut carefully with an exacto knife each craft stick.

Loved these foil letters that are for the bulletin board. You

 can give the students all the foil letters and a list of words 

to make on a cardboard. Then, have them glue the word, 

outline the word and create the puzzle.

There are so many options for just one activity at www.education.com.

Visit them !