LINK to the Birthday Unit ESL Activities and Resources for Elementary ELLs:
This Birthday Unit brings together engaging activities, printables, and games to help elementary English language learners develop vocabulary, speaking, reading, and writing skills through a motivating birthday theme. This post shares practical classroom ideas to introduce vocabulary, practice grammar, and create meaningful learning experiences using the Birthday Unit materials.
Birthday Vocabulary Flashcards Activities
They are
still effective tools for the class. Plan motivating games with the theme for
independent learning or for groups.
Place
the flashcards on the board. Point to the cake.
Teacher: Cake. It’s a cake.
Birthday characters speaking practice
A set
of boys and girls going to a party with a gift and party hat or balloons. Place them on the
board and write any set of numbers that you want to review. I choose from the
20’s to the 40.Ask as many questions as you can.
Teacher: What does number 21 have?
Students: He has a hat.
Teacher: What color is the hat?
Students: It is red, purple and yellow.
Birthday Vocabulary Spelling.
Use
the cupcake letter tiles to build the theme´s vocabulary words and review the
ones from previous units. Each student of group of students can have a set of
letters.
· Children can line
up the tiles in alphabetical order. Make it a contest.
· Place the
flashcards in a visible place and have students build the words.
· Have children build new words in an allotted time. See which group has built the more correct words.
Birthday Cupcake small book.
Creating their own
books will develop a positive attitude towards reading. In the doing, it will
involve that children will be motivated as they will own a book that they will
be able to read at home. It will enhance their narrative skill by telling the
story to their parents.
Birthday cutouts for introducing
prepositions.
Print and cutout
the birthday cutouts to introduce prepositions. Place the table cutout in the
middle of the board.
Teacher:
What is this?
Students:
It’s a cupcake.
Teacher:
Where is the cupcake?
Students: It’s on the table.
Continue asking questions using
all the prepositions.
Birthday cake and Numbers tracing
cards.
For the lower elementary students,
these tracing cards are good for reviewing. 
Birthday cake and Numbers tracing
cards.
For the lower elementary students,
these tracing cards are good for reviewing.
Birthday Worksheets.
Worksheet 1. Students
read and color the balloons. The worksheet can be turned into a notebook
activity. Have the students glue the sentence next to each balloon.
Worksheet 2. Students
read and color the boys and girls. Then they have to cut out each person and
glue them next to the correct paragraph on their notebook.
Worksheet 3. I
couldn’t help it when I saw these Party Animals clip art and created this
worksheet that can be done in several steps or in different ways.
First, have the students color the animals as you
dictate them to practice listening. It also helps to keep the pace as students
have to color on the time that you give them such as a minute for each
animal. Teacher: Color the giraffe orange!
There is the cake that students color as in the paragraph
that you hand in. It can be done as a diorama.
Students read the paragraph and place the animals where it corresponds. I
placed an opened clip behind each item. Students can take turns reading each
sentence and another student has to place the animal.
Scene-building activities transform worksheets into dioramas or posters, promoting comprehension, collaboration, and storytelling.
I glued everything
as in the paragraph.
Birthday Pocket Charts.5 words and colors to make pocket charts of use them on the desk to make phrases.
