martes, 7 de agosto de 2018

Recycle old ESL Elementary Textbooks


As a teacher, I have had so many teacher´s book, student´s book, workbook and from different grade, levels and so on. I saw how the children threw them away at the end of the school year. I used to give them away for paper recycling but those places are not around anymore. Old textbooks are not good for donations, since the Publishing Companies come out with different series every year.
I still have several from my teaching days and decided to invent something. This is how it went with my Early Childhood and Elementary Series Textbooks.


Sorting. For the family theme there lots of pictures of family members, I just cut them out .I made a word card for each family member and had the students sort out all the pictures.



The pocket chart is another way to sort out all the pictures.



I found this old pocket folder. I grabbed clear pocket sheets, one for each family member. Students glued the word and the corresponding pictures. I used butterfly clips and made a book. Students can write each word using whiteboard markers and then erase it.

Sorting spoons in nouns, verbs, adjectives. Another sorting activity involving cups and spoons. I wrote Verbs, Adjectives and Nouns on each cup. Give the students the plastic spoons and sharpie markers. Have them write a word from the text on each spoon and have the group partners place it where it belongs.

Make a book. Many textbooks come with short stories that are  read like once in the classroom. Have the students make an accordion book.

Play Spelling Bingo. Give each child the short reading recycled page. After reading the story  using your preferred technique. Have the students select 15 words from the reading and write them down. Make your own list and cut out each word, place them in a bag. Start calling the words and the students tick them if they have that word written on their paper. The first student to tick them all off calls out BINGO!



Sort Noun and Verbs. Give the reading recycled page to each student and have them sort the words in two columns, one for verbs and another for nouns.

Write sentences. After reading the recycled story, students can write sentences in a grammar structure that you want to practice.

Match paragraph. I cut the story in pictures and paragraphs and placed them in a Cd sleeve. Students had to match each paragraph with the corresponding picture.



Sentence Association. There was this review page. I cut the picture and sentence and make a sentence association game. I glued all the cutouts onto fun foam.


Egg carton Alphabet Sort. I placed a small craft stick behind each cutout. I also glued a fun foam letter to each egg hole. Students sort all the pictures by the beginning letter of each picture.


Make a crown for each letter. With so many pictures from the book. I made a crown for each letter. Students have to find pictures that begin with the letter in the crown given and glue them accordingly.  Have the students show their crown to the class and the words that they found.

Write vocabulary words. Have the students glue each picture and write as many vocabulary words they know. The winner is the student that writes more words.



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martes, 15 de mayo de 2018

Shapes Unit for Elementary ELA

Here´s the link to the shapes resources:
The resource is also available at this other store:


Use the flashcards for chorus work. Have the students say the shape word in a different voice.
Teacher: Circle! Say Circle in an angry voice.
Students: CIRCLE!!!

Flashcards 1. Cards on the desk. Give a group of students a set of shapes flashcards to spread on a desk. The student on the turn pick a flashcard to name it. If the group says it is correct, that student can take the card, if not, the student has to return it.

 Flashcards 2. Sort the cards by color.

Flashcards 3. Sort the shapes by number of sides.

Flashcards 4. Name a beginning letter and the students have to say the shape.
Teacher: S!
Students: star and shape.

Flashcards 5. Play Bingo. Have the students draw 10 shapes and color each shape in the 11 playing colors. Start calling the shapes using the flashcards.
Teacher: gray triangle.

Flashcards 6. Charades. Have a student come to the front and pick a card and draw it in the air and have the class guess the shape. The one the guesses comes to the front to continue.


I made the set of
shape hats. One set is with the shape included and another set is with the space for the shape that the students cut and paste on each hat.

Play games with the hats.
Option 1. Have the students stand up when you call a shape, the rest of the class sits.
Option 2. At your signal students stand up and run to find a matching partner and stand together. It can be the exact same shape in color or just the shape.
Option 3. Collect all the hats and without the students seeing put a hat on each one. At your signal have them walk around finding a partner by asking questions.
Students: Am I a square ?


Shape book. An easy traceable book to review colors, numbers and shapes and to learn sight words such as I , see. I made a puppet and placed a paper clip on the back so it can stand and be a reading companion.
Watch the video:


Shape pockets. I found a similar idea on Pinterest. I made pockets out of each shape by printing them double and gluing the shapes leaving a space to insert the craft sticks.

Give the students the crafts sticks and the shapes separately and have them insert the craft stick into the corresponding shape by reading each one.
Or, hand in the craft sticks to one group of the students and the shapes to another, have them ask people in the other group if they have the match to their piece. 
Watch the video:


I have more resources for this theme at my other blog:
They will be included in this same product.
Teacher's comments on the resource:

domingo, 6 de mayo de 2018

More farm unit activities for Elementary ELL

And here is the second part of the farm theme. It will be all in a single product. Link: 

Contrast the pet and farm animals. Display the barn cutouts and the house cutouts on the board.
Teacher: What is this ?
Students: It is the barn.
Teacher: What is this ?
Students: It is the house.
Tell them to come to the front and place the animals where they belong.
Teacher: This is the cow. It lives in the farm.
Students: This is a dog. It lives in a house.
Say an animal and students say pet or farm:
Teacher: Hen!
Students: farm!
Give the students the animals to sort out on their desks into farm animals and pets.

Then, name four animals and have the students put them in the same order on their desks.
Teacher: rooster, goat, turtle, cow.
   
Have the students sort the pets and the farm animals on the worksheets. Glue them in place and then trace all the vocabulary words.
Teacher: What color is the goat?
Students: It´s gray.
Teacher: orange!
Students: the cat and the fish.

And with the worksheets, there is always something else that we do with them, what about a board game. I grabbed a file folder. Cut all the animals into squares, glued them into a path. And that´s a worksheet that has another use after it is doneI included the farmers and the all the game board pieces.

Baby animals. Display the adult animals flashcards on one side of the board and the baby animals on the other side.

Hand in all the animals flashcards in random order. At your signal have them run and find their match as mother and baby.
Teacher: mother! And the students who have the Mother farm animals show their animal. Do the same with baby.

I created snapshots! Students color all the animals and trace the words. Then, cut and paste the animals where they belong. Cut all the snapshots into pictures and have them match each mother with it´s baby. They can also join two snapshots(mother and baby) using chenille. I placed my matches in a pocket chart.

Or make a long chain of mother and baby using chenille. Or make a snapshot book ring.

Farm animals body. Place the hen flashcard on the board. (LABELING)
Teacher: What animal is this?
Students: It´s a hen.

Point to the mouth.
Teacher: What is this ?
Students: It´s the mouth.
Continue with all the known body parts and write them as the students say the word. Then go with the unknown words.
Teacher: Look, this is the wing. How many wings does a hen have?
Students: two wings.
Students can sort with you the legs of all the animals. Write two legs and four legs on the board. Place the animals where they belong.
Teacher: cow!
Students: four legs!

Give each group a poster board and an animal cutout. Have them label the body parts. Place them on a designated wall in the classroom or make a book.
Give a cutout to each student. Name a body part. The student with the animal that has the body part mentioned has to stand up and show his/her animal.
Teacher: beak! (students stand up with their cutout)
Place the missing body animals cutouts on the board. Ask the students.
Teacher: This is the horse. What´s missing?
Students: The tail!
Draw the tail. Continue with the rest of the animals.
Play the game Guess who ? with the flashcards.
Teacher: It´s pink. It´s small.oink!
Students: the pig !
Teacher: NO!
Students: The piglet!
Teacher: YES!

Label the parts of the body. I used letters from old magazines.

What do farm animals give. Here´s my list:
Place the farm animal flashcards on the board and create a mind map by placing each animal's produce under each arrow.
Teacher:   COW!
Students: milk.

I made this printable accordion book. It can be done an animal per book or join all the animals.

Farm animals eat!
Farm animals eat! flashcards activity

I added matching cards for the farm animal and the food that animal eats.
Farm animals eat! matching cards

Animal positions. Use the cutouts. Place your cutouts around the barn and start asking questions.
Teacher: What´s is this?
Students: the horse!
Teacher: Where is the horse?
Students: It´s in the barn.

I added trees, fence, silo to complete the farm scene.
Students will color the worksheets and make a 3D farm scene.
Teacher: The pig is pink. (Continue with more animals)
Have the students make the scene using toilet paper rolls and clips or play dough.

Give directions for placing the animals or farm parts.
Teacher: The tractor is in front of the barn.
 Or have the students give directions.
Farm animals preposi
                     

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