Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Over 60 Websites for Your Classroom

It’s time for this week’s Wednesday Website suggestion, but this week instead of one website, I Over 60 websites you can use in the elementary classroom - for free - all compiled into one free e-book by Raki's Rad Resources.have over 60 for you.  I actually compiled these suggestions into an E-Book that is available to you completely free!  This E-Book is a compilation of my “tried and true” favorite websites to use in an elementary classroom.  It has two sections, one sorted by grade level and one sorted by subject.  I hope that this compilation will be of benefit to those teachers who truly want to use websites as teaching tools, but are just not sure what sites to use.

You can download your free copy as a PDF file from Teachers Pay Teacher, or in the format that is best for your e-reader (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at Smashwords.  Either way, feel free to use and share this resource, and don’t forget to come back for next week’s Wednesday Website Suggestion!

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Free Grammar Quizzes

Parts of Speech Practice Sheets and Quizzes - Free Download from Raki's Rad ResourcesFor my English Language Learners, understanding parts of speech and how they are used in English help them to create better sentences, both spoken and written.  Because of this, I spend a lot of time working on parts of speech.  I created some simple review sheets and assessments for my students and decided to share them via my Teachers Pay Teachers store for free.  Feel free to grab your copy of these 3 review sheets with accompanying quizzes.
Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Monday, October 29, 2012

Halloween Happenings

PUMPKINThis Wednesday I will have some extra visitors to my class from Grade 2, so I decided I wanted to have some cool Halloween activities for the students to work on in mixed age groups.  Normally, I would turn around and put together some sort of packet, but I was super busy this weekend with a surprise for my wonderful followers.  (Don’t forget to stop by on Wednesday to get your copy!)  However, with a few quick surfs of the web, I found some great Halloween stuff, so luckily fellow teachers have saved the day for me!

Here are some of the things I found:

Halloween Mystery Math

Halloween Multiplication Maze

Mystery Mansion Multiplication

Spooky Writing Stationary

Halloween Editing Sentences

A Spooky MadLib Story

 

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Research the Presidents

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

Free websites to help you research US presidents, great for student projects for president's day! Website suggestion from Raki's Rad Resources


***Sorry our Wednesday Website suggestion is a day late.  We are preparing for Eid al Adha around here and I somehow missed posting this yesterday.  If you’d like to teach your kids about Eid al Adha, feel free to download my free Muslim Holiday Packet. ***

Now, on to this week’s suggestion -
With the US election coming soon, this is a great time to research past presidents.  Here are some great websites for kids to use when conducting their research.

Use this website with your class to help guide research on one or many of the US presidents
This great website, the National Portrait Gallery, is run by the Smithsonian and provides good quality information on each president from George Washington to William Clinton.

Use this website with your class to help guide research on one or many of the US presidents
On the White House’s Website, there is a page devoted solely to biographies of all of the presidents up to and including the current president, Barrak Obama.  The biographies on this site are very complete, but they are also quite long and can be complicated for younger students and weaker readers.


Use this website with your class to help guide research on one or many of the US presidents.
The Miller Center, a part of the University of Virginia, runs this great site that has a Reference page covering all of the presidents from George Washington to our current president, Barrak Obama.  The biographies give quick fast and are short and sweet, which is easier for younger students and weaker readers when they are doing research.
Use this free downloadable project matrix and the websites from my blog (Raki's Rad Resources) to help your students research the past presidents.
Feel free to grab this project matrix for your students to work on while using these websites.  It is free from Google Docs.
Enjoy the rest of your week and Eid Mubarak to those who celebrate!
Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Real Life Graphing Survey

Let kids survey each other and create graphs with this free Heritage Week Graph Packet from Raki's Rad Resources.Last week was Heritage Week for my school.  We spent the week learning about where the students in our schools come from.  We were also learning about graphing.  I decided to integrate the two topics by having my students survey the students in the school and graph the information.  They asked the students the following four questions:

1.)  What country are you from?

2.)  What languages do you speak?

3.)  How many kids are in your family?

4.)  What month were you born in?

While the students were surveying the school, they Let kids survey each other and create graphs with this free Heritage Week Graph Packet from Raki's Rad Resources.created a tally chart.  Then, the students created frequency charts, bar graphs and picto-graphs with the information they collected.  If you would like to do this activity with your kids, feel free to grab a free copy of my Heritage Week Graph Packet for free from Google Docs.

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Monday, October 22, 2012

Age Limit on Dramatic Play?

The majority of my teaching experience has been in intermediate grades, specifically 3rd grade.  In Using Dramatic Play in Intermediate Grades can increase understanding and student motivation. - Raki's Rad Resourcesintermediate, we have a tendency to focus on learning, learning, learning, with no time for play, and if we do play, it’s a game or a puzzle.  We definitely don’t take the time for dramatic play.  However, this year I am trying to change that some.  I have a third grader at home and he still spend about half of his playtime in dramatic play.  On the playground, I have watched my students (3rd and 4th graders) play out slumber parties, knights and princesses and a variety of other “dramatic play” situations.  So, I’ve decided to try to use dramatic play anywhere appropriate in my classroom.  Here are some ideas I have for integrating dramatic play into the intermediate classroom:

1.) Acting Out Stories – I regularly use reader’s theaters, but I also plan to have my students act out other stories we have read, as well the fiction stories they are beginning to write themselves.

2.) Problem Solving Skits – During our health and wellness unit on Mental and Emotional Health, we created skits to show how we would deal with problems we have in the classroom.

3.)  Be the Rock, or the Animal or the Electron Particle – Acting can help students make abstract concepts more concrete.  My students will be acting out the changes in rocks made with erosion, the animals in different stages of their life cycle and the electron particles in an open and a closed circuit.

Using Dramatic Play in Intermediate Grades can increase understanding and student motivation. - Raki's Rad Resources4.)  Act Out History or Government – With past classes, I have acted out the election process and process it takes to turn a bill into a law.  This year, my class will study Ancient Rome and I can’t wait to act out the jobs of a Roman city.

5.)  Acting Out Solves Math Problems – We always talk about the math strategy “Act it Out”, but do we ever really act them out?  Letting students play store or bank or hardware shop or restaurant can help them to solve math problems.  Give them an actual problem to work out using dramatic play and see the real answers come to life.

6.)  Use Costumes to Work on Adjectives – Let students dress up in a costume and then have their fellow students describe them using as many adjectives as possible.  Change the costumes and talk about how the adjectives change.

Do you have a great way to integrate dramatic play into an intermediate classroom?  Please leave me a comment so we can share from each other.

 Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Learning Every Second

Is it just me or is there never enough time in the day?  This year, the teachers at my school (International School of Morocco) have all decided to “buy” some more time by turning transition times into learning time.  Because we are all on board, the kids are on board, so it is easy to keep it up.  Here are the some of the things we are doing:

1.) Recite and Walk – each teacher has something that their class is working on reciting, a rhyme, a poem, their numbers etc.  So, as we transition from one place to another we recite these things.  If we are inside, we are sure to whisper these things, but outside we singStop talking in line - sing, chant or recite as a class while you walk.  This strategy helps students memorize and stops behavior issues. - Raki's Rad Resources loudly and event chant.  This week the whole school is reciting a song that we will be singing to the parents.

2.)  Count On Before You Move – While the younger students are working on basic counting and counting by 10’s, grades 1-4 are working on counting in lots of different ways like counting by 10’s from random numbers (12, 24, 18 etc.) or counting backwards by 5’s.  No matter how we are counting, we have stopping points around the school and as we walk, we stop at these points, and count on.  The first student saying 14, the next 24, the next 34 and so on.

3.)  Questions Out the Door – In order to enter or exit Use Questions Out the Door to help reinforce classroom learning and build in additional learning time. Raki's Rad Resourcesmy classroom, you must answer a question.  I generally connect these questions to what we are working on in math, but I’ve been known to throw in some grammar and science too!  I keep the questions to things I want students to be able to answer quickly, so that we aren’t standing forever.  Sometimes we work on math facts, other times we work on doubling or halving numbers (What is half of 40?), or converting within measurements (How many centimeters are in 5 meters?).  Lately my kids favorite is to give me the part of speech of a word.  I give them a sentence, (ie.  The boys ran down the hall.) and then ask for the part of speech of a specific word (What part of speech is ran?)

4.)  Talk at Meal Time – We eat both snack and lunch with our students.  During Sitting with your kids during lunch and snack can help build vocabulary and stop behavior issues. Raki's Rad Resourcesthis time, we talk to our students – a lot!  Sometimes it is just general chatter, but we also talk about food names, manners, the names of food in other languages, nutrition etc.  While this doesn’t always connect to what we are learning in the classroom, we tend to use this time to build background knowledge, and morale with our students, so that makes the teaching time more efficient too.

 

Do you have any secrets to “buying” more learning time in a day?

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Monday, October 15, 2012

Soaking Up Math

Here is a cool activity that my students did last week.  It combines science and math and it was a hit!  We got in all of our math and added in some great science observations all at the same time.

Step 1:  Collect a variety of items, including: rice, beans, corn and potatoes. Choose some items that will expand when soaked and some items that won’t.  (My class also did pasta, but it made for a stinky classroom – so be warned if you choose to use pasta, they look cool but they don’t smell cool.) Weigh food items, soak them overnight and then re-weigh them.  Work on measurements and absorbability all in one quick lesson.  Grab a free sheet to use with this activity from Raki's Rad Resources.

Step 2:  Have students weigh each item and record the weight on a table. 

Weigh food items, soak them overnight and then re-weigh them.  Work on measurements and absorbability all in one quick lesson.  Grab a free sheet to use with this activity from Raki's Rad ResourcesStep 3:  Place each item in a bowl and cover with water.  Let the bowls sit overnight.

Step 4:  The next day, strain all of the items and and have students   re-weigh the items. 

Step 5:  Talk about why some items absorb water and others don’t.

I’ve become a collaborator to a great new collaborative blog called Tips of Teachers.  Stop by there and grab this free sheet to use with your class.

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Rainbow Fish Helps Us Build a Caring Community

This past Wednesday, my school – the International School of Morocco – hosted it’s first parent workshop on character and learner traits.  While the parents and a few of our teachers were busy, myself and another teacher brought all of the kids in the school together to learn about caring, using Rainbow Fish. 

We used Rainbow Fish to talk about caring at the International School of Morocco.First, we read Rainbow Fish in 3 languages.  I read it in English.  A lovely 4th grade student read it in French, and thanks to an IPad and YouTube, we also watched it in Spanish.  This multilingual approach meant that every student in the school was clear on the message of the story.

After reading the story, we talked about the ways that Rainbow Fish was caring and the ways that we can and should be caring in our school.

We used Rainbow Fish to talk about caring at the International School of Morocco.Next, we created our own Rainbow Fish.  It was wonderful because all of the different levels of students (from 3 years old to 4th grade) worked together to create their fish.  The younger students simply colored their fish, but 1st grade and up added caring words to each of the scales on the fish before they colored.  We also glued a silver scale, which was cut from aluminum foil. 

We used Rainbow Fish to talk about caring at the International School of Morocco.At the end of the day, we hung our beautiful Rainbow Fish onto the ocean scenes that my colleague so beautifully painted and hung right at the entrance to the school building.  Now every day when we walk in the door, we have a reminder to be caring and a chance to talk to our students about what that means.Free printable template for Rainbow Fish at Raki's Rad Resources.

Grab our Rainbow Fish Template free from Google Docs if you’d like to use it with your kiddos.

How have you used Rainbow Fish in your classroom?

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cooking in Math

This week, my class was working on measurement.  One oI used this simple machine to teach my class math, language arts, science and real life skills.  We cooked muffins together and it was such a great activity.  Read more and find a free download at Raki's Rad Resources.f the things we had to work on was doubling and halving measurements – especially in regards to grams and recipes.  My students were to take a recipe and figure out how much of each ingredient was needed to make a double batch and half a batch.  So, of course this was a great time for cooking in the classroom!  There is so much vocabulary, reading, science, math, and real-life skills that can be worked into a single cooking activity.  I love to cook with my students.  Luckily, the school that I teach at – International School of Morocco – has a lot of resources on hand for projects like this.  We could have baked them in the full size oven, but it was lasagana day and I decided not to clog up the oven with our muffins.  Instead, we used my muffin-ette machine, picture above.  On Friday, my class created Carrot-Apple Muffin-ettes. (Scroll Down for the Recipe & a free, printable student sheet.) 

Here are the skills we worked on in this lesson:

Math:

- measuring using grams, milliliters and teaspoons

- doubling and halving numbers

- fractions

There’s nothing like real life math to stop the “Why do we have to learn this?” questions.

 

Language Arts:

- reading a recipe

- recipe vocabulary (ingredients, steps, food names)

- cooking vocabulary (bowl, spoon, stir, mix, grate)

For my English Language Learners, this vocabulary is priceless to them, and builds background for later literacy activities.

 

Science:

- nutrition

- chemical reactions (Why do we add baking powder?)

-  heat reactions (Why do we hear the batter sizzle?)

All of these standards will be taught later in the year, but the more background knowledge we can build, the more connections my students can make.

 

Real-Life Skills:

- cutting and preparing foods

- following step by step directions

- cleaning up after a project

Many of my students don’t work in the kitchen or clean up the table at home, so these real life skills are often very needed.

 

Bake with your students and work on math, language arts, science and real life skills.Here is the recipe we used – note as we use UK standards, all units of measurement are British.  Feel free to grab the sheet my students used to half and double the recipe from Google Docs.

 

Apple Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:

250g sugar

320g flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1tsp salt

225g grated carrots

2 grated apples

2 eggs

4 tbsp vegetable oil

230ml milk

 

Preparation:

1.) Combine sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

2.)  Add in grated carrots and apple. Mix well

3.) Add in eggs, oil and milk. Mix well

4.) Spoon batter into oiled pan.

5.) Bake until light brown.

 

I was supposed to take a picture of the finished product, but my kids gobbled them up so fast, I missed my opportunity.

How have you used cooking in your classroom?

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Friday, October 12, 2012

Talk About Math with Memory

I LOVE to play board games at home, but I also enjoying using them in my classroom. In addition to encouraging cooperation, turn taking and a variety of other social skills, I find I can often use the games to work on math and literacy skills. So, every Friday, I am going to post a Friday Game Night post, giving tips on how to use a particular board game in your classroom.

 

Memory (Math) – Often in my Friday Game Night suggestions, I have ideas for how to use a game in a new and different way in order to build math and literacy skills.  For this week, however, we are using Memory, which already has so many standard math skills built into it, that I didn’t need to add anything to it.  This of course, simplifies your life, because all you need is a good old Memory game – any version works, classic, Spiderman, Princess, etc.

The first few times you play memory, play in guided groups so that you can talk through these math strategies.  Once the game is put in an independent center, make it clear that the expectation is for these skills to be discussed while playing the game.

 

1.)  Talk About Strategy:  One of the reasons students struggle with problem solving is that they are rarely taught what they should be thinking while problem solving.  We just hand them a problem and say “think it through”.  Many kids need more than that, so as teachers, we need to model, and allow other kids to model real life problem solving.  Memory is a great place to do that, because it involves real life problem solving and strategy. 

While you are playing this in a guided group, tell kids you would like to hear what they are thinking as they make their choices.  Model your own choices out loud and encourage students to do the same.  You should say things like:

“I need to find another flower.  I know that I saw the flower in this area.  It wasn’t all the way at the top.  I don’t remember exactly how far down, but I don’t think it was more than 3 rows down.  I’ll try the card 2 rows down this time, and if it’s incorrect, I’ll try 3 rows down next time.”

 

2.)  Count by 2’s and Introduce Multiplication:  As students collect cards in Memory, they will be collecting pairs (great time to introduce that vocabulary word!).  This is a great time to talk about counting by twos and introduce repeated addition and multiplication.  For older students, this is a great time to talk about division and percentages.  (ie.  There are 50 cards, if we break them into groups of 2, how many groups should there be?  If we have found 10 groups, what percentage of the groups have been found.)

 

3.)  Pile & Estimate:  Can you estimate how many cards are in your pile?  Can you use that estimate to estimate how many cards are in everyone else’s pile?  Can you use that estimate to estimate how many cards are left?  There are so many estimation questions that can be developed during the course of a game of Memory.

 

4.)  Comparing Numbers:  “I have 2 pairs and you have 4 pairs, who has more?”  “All together we have found 9 pairs.  Are more cards found or hidden?”  There are so many ways to compare numbers when using Memory.

 

Now, if you have time, there are tons and tons of ways to create your own memory games that work on other types of math.  For example, you could have math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) on one card and the “match” is the answer.  Or you could have shapes on one card and the “match” is the number of sides, or the name of the shape.  Or you could have a clock on one card and the “match” is the correct time shown.  Or you could have a group of money on one card and the “match” is the amount of money shown.  The possibilities are endless!  Create your own memory games to fit the needs of your students with this free template.If you want to create your own memory games – feel free to grab this Template from my Teachers Pay Teachers store to help you with the process.

 

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Handy Math

This week, my class is working on measurement in math.  We are measuring using centimeters, millimeters and meters, and converting between the units, including fractions of a unit.  For example, we have talked about 1/2 of a meter = 500 centimeters and 400 centimeters = 4/10 of a meter.Measure your children's hands, or any odd shape with a damp string.  Then, let students stretch the string out and measure it.  Find more details at Raki's Rad Resources

One of the fun activities we did was to create these cute hand measurements.  They were super simple.  Here are the steps.

1.)  Students traced their hand.

2.)  Students used a damp string to trace their drawing, and we cut off the excess string.

3.)  Students stretched out their string and measured it to the nearest centimeter.

4.)  Students wrote their measurement on their paper (the 4th graders included a conversion to meters).

5.)  Students colored their hand and glued the string back around the outside.

Measure your children's hands, or any odd shape with a damp string.  Then, let students stretch the string out and measure it.  Find more details at Raki's Rad Resources.

This could be done just as cute around the edge of any drawing, of a student’s foot, or any other “odd shaped” item.

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

True Facts About Native Americans and First Nations

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.


It is important to teach students about the past and present lives of Native Americans.Native American cultures are still alive and well and kids need to understand this. Use this website to teach students about native americans and first peoples. Suggestions from Raki's Rad Resources.


With Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, I often see and hear a lot of insensitive displays regarding Native Americans.  While it’s great (and often required via standards) to teach students how Native Americans lived during the times when settlers were just arriving in America, too often we leave students believing that this is how Native Americans live today.  We also often leave students with an inaccurate pictures of Native American cultures overall. 
When I taught this topic a few years ago, I stumbled along a wonderful website called Native Languages.org.  This site gives students (and teachers) a clear idea of good, solid facts about many, many Native American and First Nation tribes from North America (US and Canada).  It includes general questions about Native Americans, as well as specific information about over 100 specific tribes.
Native Languages - A wonderful website resource for teaching students about many different Native American and First Nation tribes.
Native Languages - A wonderful website resource for teaching students about many different Native American and First Nation tribes.
All of the information is written in kid-friendly paragraphs that can be easily understood by my third and fourth grade students.  In addition, there are reminders to students that although the Native American people may have lived one way at one time, that has changed now.
Native Languages - A wonderful website resource for teaching students about many different Native American and First Nation tribes.

This site does not have many graphics, but to have all of this quality information available in one place makes this a truly wonderful resource. It was a great resource for my students when they were completing thier Native Americans Internet Scavenger Hunt.

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Monday, October 8, 2012

Make Good Choices–A Free Sort for Mental and Emotional Health

My class is just wrapping up our first unit on Mental Sort good and bad choices in regards to Mental and Emotional Healthand Emotional Health.  It was so nice to start with a unit like this, because it lends itself so nicely to the things we discuss in the beginning of the year: getting along, working out your problems, being a good community etc.  For our assessment activity, we completed a sort of good and bad choices that can be made, in regards to your mental health.  You can grab this sort free from my blog – Google Docs.

 

During this Unit, we talked about how to keep ourselves Mentally and Emotionally Healthy.  Here are some of the things we talked about:

1.)  Spending time on things you enjoy.

2.)  Being unique and enjoying it.

3.)  Being kind to others.

4.)  Having a balance between work and rest.

5.)  Appreciating what you have.

6.)  Spending time with family and friends

 

Some of the books we read are:

 

 

Some of the activities we did were:

- Create skits about common problem solving issues within our class.

- Create class agreements to keep each other mentally healthy.

- Create a list of different ways to rest.

- Discuss how to find balance and appreciate what we have.

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Discover the Butterflies

Using Butterflies to Understand Life CyclesThis area looks like just another passageway.  Through that blue door is the business office of the International School of Morocco.  However, the area with the grass, leaves and trees is a sanctuary of real, every day, child centered learning.  Every morning and afternoon recess, there is a gaggle of students in this area, feeding the rabbits and tortoises, watering the plants, and most recently watching the caterpillars.  There is milkweed planted at the far end, near the blue door, and it is literally covered with caterpillars.  There are about 30 – 40 caterpillars eating every leaf they can get to.  The plants aren’t so pretty these days, as they have been stripped of their leaves!  Now, we are seeing chrysalises forming everywhere.  The 3 year old class literally stood and watched a caterpillar shed his skin and become a chrysalis.  Each day the kids sit and watch Using Butterflies to Understand Life Cyclesthe caterpillars, watch the chrysalises, watch the butterflies and learn first hand about life cycles, respecting animals, observing Using Butterflies to Understand Life Cyclesnature, etc.  We don’t actually teach these skills until our life cycle unit at the end of the year, but the kids have learned during recess, this “down time”, “non-teaching time”, this time that many teachers, parents, and school officials feel is “wasted” than we could teach them in months and months of intense teaching.  Recess is definitely not “wasted” at my school!
A few of the chrysalises have been “rescued” from falling off of dead leaves and are now residing in our classrooms, where students can watch even more intently as the chrysalises become butterflies.  Once the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis, we will bring them out to this garden, release them, and hope they come back to plan more eggs so that the students have this joyful real life learning every year.
What do your student “discover” at recess?
Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Language Arts Notebooks

Even my “native English speakers” all speak, read and write in another language.  With a class full of students who speak, read and write in at least one language other than English, teaching the rules of English is extremely important.  So, for the last few weeks, we have been creating our Language Use English Language Leaner's home languages to help them understand EnglishArts Notebooks in order to help us truly understand vocabulary and grammar.  My students have separate Reading Response Journals for reading comprehension and Writing Journals, but all of the reset of our Language Arts goes into this notebook.

[I meant to take pictures of their actual notebooks, but in the excitement of taking pictures of our butterfly chrysalis (check these pictures out tomorrow), I forgot.  Check back Monday for these pictures.]

 

Here’s what is in my student’s Language Arts Notebooks:

1.) Vocabulary Reference Sheets – Each week, my students complete a vocabulary packet.  The whole class is on one “theme” – this week was emotions – atUse English Language Leaner's home languages to help them understand English differentiated levels.  We glue our first, “learn the words” sheet in the front of this notebook.  On this sheet, students have a place to write their words in another language, giving them a good reference clue to the meaning of the words.  Of my beginning English students, I have 2 who speak Spanish, 1 who speaks just French and 1 who speaks French & Arabic.  We have fun comparing how the French & Spanish versions of the words often look similar, but sound different.  It’s a great time to look at cognates, and how languages are connected.  These Vocabulary Reference Sheets stay in their notebooks, so that they can continually reference back to words we have already practiced.  (The rest of their vocabulary packets are stapled together, worked on pretty independently, and sent home graded each Monday.)

2.)  Grammar Songs with Notes – I use Shurley English grammar jingles with my students.  I’ve typed up the words for each song.  They glue the words into their notebooks, and then write their notes for each part of speech next to the song.  Each day, we practice singing these jingles, and use the information to help us remember the information about different parts of grammar.  Where necessary, I give students a word in French or Spanish to guide this process.  For example, we used the words for verb, noun, adjective in all 3 languages: English, Spanish and French, since many of my students already know part of speech, as well as how to conjugate verbs etc. in their home language.

On Thursday, we worked on pronouns, which sounds like it should be easy, but I decided to give students these little words in French or Spanish.  I’m okay enough in both languages that I figured this shouldn’t be a problem.  But, I didn’t take into account “it”, which barely exists in French and Spanish, as all inanimate objects are distinctly male or female in these languages and so you would say “him” and “her” when talking about them.  This lesson turned into a wonderful, although complex, conversation comparing and contrasting languages!Use Verb Conjugations to Help English Language Learners Better Understand English

3.) Sentence Diagramming and Verb Conjugations – Each day, after Daily Language Review, I write a sentence on the board to be diagramed.  My students copy the sentence on the board, diagram it, and then we identify the verb in the sentence and conjugate it.  The amazing teacher who started International School of Morocco has a form she uses with her first and second graders to make Use Verb Conjugations to Help English Language Learners Better Understand Englishconjugations simpler.  I made a smaller copy of this verb conjugation form for my kids to be able to glue into their notebooks each day.  (Feel free to grab a FREE copy from Google Docs.)  Believe it or not, my kids love this process.  They love connecting what they already know in their home language to help them decipher English, and they love using the songs to help them figure out what each word is.

 

What do you put in your students’ Language Arts notebooks?

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

TESOL Teaching Tip #39 - Who Are Jack and Jill?

As a teacher at an International School, many of my students are English Language Learners. Even my native English speakers are living in a non-English speaking country. Due to my unique teaching position, I have had some readers ask for tips on teaching English Language Learners. Here is this week’s Tuesday TESOL Teaching Tip:


TESOL Teaching Tip #39 - Teach students common culture ideas like nursery rhymes and fairy tlaes. ESL or ELL students often do not know these US and UK stories and miss out on understanding and inferring when they reader harder texts because of it. For some great techniques on how to teach common culture, stop by the blog - Raki's Rad Resources.

ELL Teaching Tip #39: Teach Nursery Rhymes and Folktales
Nursery Rhymes and Folktales are the kinds of background knowledge we often assume our students come to school with. Of course they’ve heard of Jack and Jill, who hasn’t heard of Jack and Jill – right? image_thumbWrong. Many of our English Language Learners are not familiar with common rhymes and stories in English. While this doesn’t seem like a big deal, many books, poems, movies, t.v. shows and songs make references to nursery rhymes and folktales that are part of the English speaking culture. Think of the Shrek movies. If you aren’t familiar with common nursery rhymes and folktales, you won’t understand the jokes in these movies at all, and while understanding this movie isn’t vital to learning English, there are many other examples of important texts that rely on this “assumed” background knowledge. These texts are common on standardized tests because again it’s an assumption that most students will have familiarity with these themes and stories.

Here are some suggestions on ways to include nursery rhymes and folktales into your classroom in order to give your students this background knowledge that the native English speakers are more likely to already have. (As a side note, I have had many native English speakers who lack this background knowledge as well, often depending on their home life and socio-economic status.)
TESOL Teaching Tip #39 - Teach students common culture ideas like nursery rhymes and fairy tlaes. ESL or ELL students often do not know these US and UK stories and miss out on understanding and inferring when they reader harder texts because of it. For some great techniques on how to teach common culture, stop by the blog - Raki's Rad Resources.
- Choose a nursery rhyme a week for students to memorize. Print the rhyme, let students glue it into a notebook and illustrate it. Talk about words and phrases that aren’t commonly used anymore. ie. Why did Jack “plaster his head with vinegar and brown paper?” Recite the nursery rhyme each morning, or as you are lining up or during other transition times. Nursery rhymes are a great way to work on fluency and vocabulary. In addition, I've put together these free Nursery Rhyme Response Sheets which will incorporate reading strategies and vocabulary.

- Do a unit on folktales around the world. Start by choosing 2 or 3 common folktales from the English speaking cultures (Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, The Three Bears etc.) Find, or let students find, other stories with the same common themes from cultures around the world. Encourage students to find a story from their own language/culture which has a common theme. Create graphic organizers to compare and contrast different folktales.

- Use Aesop’s Fables – Many cultures use Aesop’s
TESOL Teaching Tip #39 - Teach students common culture ideas like nursery rhymes and fairy tlaes. ESL or ELL students often do not know these US and UK stories and miss out on understanding and inferring when they reader harder texts because of it. For some great techniques on how to teach common culture, stop by the blog - Raki's Rad Resources.
fables, so these many be familiar to your students. Take the time to see if students are familiar with these stories. Encourage them to read a fable to the class in their home language (or find a video for younger students). Then read the fable in English. Talk about the vocabulary that can be pulled from the fables. (ie. race, trick, moral etc.) Feel free to grab my Tortoise and the Hare Reader’s Response Packet for Free from my TPT store.

How do you use nursery rhymes and folktales in your classroom?

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