This was a fun way to start the first Friday of state testing. Within 5 minutes my 4th grade ESL class had come up with 25 English words and 3 Spanish words. I’ll admit… I let them use 1-2 letter words, too. Rumor has it that there are at least 35 English and 9 Spanish words in this Boggle board. How many can you find?
I love this poem because it is humorous, relatable for the kids, and the language doesn’t get in the way of understanding the parts of a poem. This is especially important for ELs. If the language of the poem is accessible, they are able to focus on the academic specific language of meter, stress, and rhyme scheme. They are also able to move on from basic comprehension to analysis of the text.
Notes: the shapes around the rhyming words are how I scaffold to teaching rhyme scheme. The different shapes belong to specific “rhyming buddies”. The students are thrn able to transfer this to lettered rhyme scheme.
The only thing better than teaching a class of the cutest kindergarteners on the planet is getting to sing with them. One of my goals for my ESL kindergarten class is to encourage them to talk as much and as soon as possible… without letting them know that’s what I’m doing. Songs and chants are invaluable for reaching this goal (even with adults).
So, when we were working on sight words “look”, “see”, and “me”, our weekly book activity was ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’. (As an aside, this book is great for noun/adjective order, animal names, and color word review… and questions/answers). We reviewed our sight words, then read part of the book and students read them in the text. We sang this song from YouTube, which is basically the book put to music. As a review of the story, students had to correctly color the animals on our retelling paper (available here). I modeled how to use the paper to retell the story (with a couple eager helpers) They then decorated their bear, added the googly eyes (which they loved), and mounted on a popsicle stick to make a puppet (they are almost as crazy about puppets as they are about singing). They could then practice retelling the story to each other with their bears. One child would ask the question, one would answer. Some of the kids sang the song to each other or as they were working.
This activity was a hit- all of the kids were singing, almost all were talking! And they were having fun while practicing their language skills. That makes this a keeper in my book!
Also, check out this blog post for more fun ideas and get more printables here!
This week in Kindergarten ESL class, we learned about the letter M. In prepping for the lessons, I came across several fun and educational ideas for reinforcing the letter M that I wanted to share here.
1.) Storybots letter M — a fun video series available on Youtube. Warning: these songs will get stuck in your head.
2.) Starfall — free online videos and games for letters and reading. The games can be played in small groups or whole class with volunteers.
3.) If You Take A Mouse To School — we read this book aloud to reinforce words with ‘m’ and school vocabulary for beginning of the year ESL content.
With this book, there are story sequencing activities to practice retelling stories and using school vocabulary. I found these activities on teacherspayteachers:
Story Sequencing ($1)
Emergent Reader Take-Home Book ($2) (I used this activity — great for helping students learn to read, turn pages, follow directions, use pictures to retell a story, and send home to help reinforce language skills.)
4.) If You Give a Moose a Muffin — There are several book activities to go with this one. These are my favorites from Pinterest:
Moose and Muffin with letter Mm from Diapers to Diplomas
Math and Handwriting Activities from this blog
5.) M Mask from SimplyCindyblog.com
Check out some more activities from this blog.
6.) Marshmallow M — helps with pre-writing and fine motor skills. Other M ideas available here.
7.) Macaroni M — similar to Marshmallow activity. Entire alphabet series available at teacherspayteachers from Early Learning Activities.
8.) Letter M Mouse from Oriental Trading Company
9.) Mouse Mask
I bought the supplies at Walmart – $3 for a packages of big plate and 2 packages of little plates, $2 for the Popsicle sticks, $2 for googly eyes. (because cutting holes out for eyes was hard and the mask looked creepy) The sparkly M was also a Walmart purchase — $2.
10.) This freebie from teacherspayteachers that includes writing and letter sorting practice.
11.) Everything Monster — Read a Monsters Inc. Story and make some of these cute crafts:
Monster Headband — Use lined sentence strips to write letter M words.
Monster M Craftivity from MomJunction
12.) Minion Paper Plate Activity from Glued To My Crafts
13.) Whole body response: Have students differentiate the phoneme /m/ from other sounds by having students stand up if they hear /m/ at the beginning of the word and squat if it does not. Use picture cards to help reinforce vocabulary.
14.) Playdoh M: Have students create an m with playdoh logs. They can trace them with their fingers as a practice before writing.
15.) Songs and Chants: Do you know the Muffin Man and 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed are fun ways in incorporate music and language learning.
