This website provides resources that provide the first steps in building a partnership with English language learners (ELLs) families. This is to make sure that they feel welcome at their child's school. This resource section includes ideas that all members of the school community can try!
Material Type: Primary Source
This lesson introduces Family Message Journals - a teacher-tested tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and to learn.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This website provides interpretation resources included below that are not necessarily endorsed by the U.S. Department of Justice or the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP. Still, they are suggested for supporting English learner families. Here you will find videos, Federal resources, and other resources that will guide you in seeking interpretation services.
Material Type: Primary Source
This guide is found on the Colorín Colorado website. This guide shares twenty big ideas to help school leaders build a strong home-school partnership.
Material Type: Reading
When students are studying or being taught, and they learn by engagement, they display a high level of attention, enthusiasm, optimism, and passion, which extends to the level of desire they have to learn and improve in their education. It stimulates them physically and mentally to be active learners. This motivates them more than their learning in lectures or textbooks. They become part of it. Attached are some of the student engagement activities. Classroom Screen Common Sense Quizziz Kahoot Quizlet
Material Type: Assessment, Homework/Assignment
In this strategy guide, you’ll learn how to use kidwatching to track and support student learning. Teachers observe and take notes on students’ understanding of skills and concepts and then use the observations to determine effective strategies for future instruction. Yetta Goodman popularized the term kidwatching, the practice of “watching kids with a knowledgeable head” (9). In kidwatching, teachers observe students’ activities, noticing how they learn and what they do to explore their ideas. Teachers then examine anecdotal notes and other evidence to see how and when students engage in learning. After this review, teachers use their observations to differentiate activities to meet the needs of individual students. The strategy is based on “a seek-to-understand stance by attempting to look at life, literacy, and learning through the children’s eyes” (Mills 2). By discovering how students learn, teachers are able to choose the most effective strategies for each pupil.
Material Type: Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy
Google Docs is a great word processor, but is much more than just that. Although we can certainly use it to type up a report, take notes, or write a story, we can also get creative with the features and functions built into the program to make some fun learning activities. Recently I did a video training webinar where I took a look at four creative ways to use regular Google Docs features in new fun ways to practice and develop literacy skills. These include: The highlighting tool for the activity "Improve Reading Comprehension with Google Docs Black Out" The special characters tool for the activity "Emoji Learning Activities with Google Docs" The word count tool for the activity "Have Students Write Better by Writing Less with Google Docs" The header tool and hyperlink tool for the activity "Choose Your Own Adventure Stories with Google Docs" See below for the full 1-hour training video, as well as resources, ideas, and templates for each of the four activities. Session Resources Session Agenda - Google Docs link Training Video (1 hour) 1) Improve Reading Comprehension with Docs Black Out Description: In this activity students use the highlighter tool to black out any text that is not critical, leaving behind just the main ideas. Resources: For full details and resources for doing this activity, see my original blog post "Improve Reading Comprehension with Google Docs Black Out" Below is the portion of the training video that covers this specific activity: 2) Emoji Learning Activities Description: In this activity students use special characters to insert emojis to summarize stories, write creatively, and explore character emotions. Resources: For full details and resources for doing this activity, see my original blog post "5 Emoji Learning Activities with Google Docs" Below is the portion of the training video that covers this specific activity: 3) Have Students Write Better by Writing Less Description: In this activity students use the word count tool to write within a character limit or word limit. Resources: For full details and resources for doing this activity, see my original blog post "Have Students Write Better by Writing Less with Google Docs" Below is the portion of the training video that covers this specific activity: 4) Choose Your Own Adventure Stories Description: In this activity students use headings and hyperlinks to create interactive stories in Google Docs. Resources: For full details and resources for doing this activity, see my original blog post "Choose Your Own Adventure Stories with Google Docs" Below is the portion of the training video that covers this specific activity: Post by Eric Curts. Bring me to your school, organization, or conference with over 50 PD sessions to choose from. Connect with me on Twitter at twitter.com/ericcurts and on Google+ at plus.google.com/+EricCurts1
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Students increase their understanding of alphabet books by participating in a variety of reading and writing activities.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
This video presents a Classroom Close-up lesson that helps English learners develop their language skills in a meaningful way. English learners will be provided with an autobiography assignment that gives ELs the opportunity to research their family histories and hone in their writing and speaking while encouraging and building their confidence.
Material Type: Lesson, Teaching/Learning Strategy
In this ELL lesson, students read an interactive recipe from Martha’s True Stories and then create their own recipe.
Material Type: Lesson
Learn how an early childhood education program uses dramatic play and storytelling to help pre-K students learn English with this video and educational resources from PBS NewsHour from November 23, 2015.
Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy
In this lesson, students examine and create holiday/event cards, analyze holiday elements, and create their own. The activities help students focus on the reasons for composing messages as they do.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Members of the Islamic Center of Washington, DC discuss the religious and spiritual significance of Ramadan and the celebration that concludes it, Eid al-Fitr, in this video segment from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.
Material Type: Lecture
One of the most difficult aspects of writing is keeping audience in mind throughout the writing process. Developing lessons that support this strategy for writing is essential in the elementary classroom. This lesson supports first-grade students in learning about audience. Through interactive writing, students work together to create a genuine invitation letter for a group of their peers. In addition to the interactive writing experience, students work independently to create invitation letters for their families. Extension activities include conducting additional interactive writing experiences, reading books with samples of letters, and creating invitations at a learning center.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
This series of activities is designed to teach research strategies. Students use KWL charts to guide their inquiry and publish their results in a collaborative question and answer book.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Cinderella stories and graphic organizers help students with their reading, comprehension, and oral presentation skills.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Three simple and age appropriate activities on Spanish language and culture which focus on the family and the Spanish names for various family members.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
As some of the foundational texts for beginning readers, fairy tales are a staple of many classrooms. This lesson allows students to engage with fairy tales from different regions around the world and compare important cultural elements of these stories.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Folk tales and fairy tales are of interest to and part of the language arts curriculum for young learners. This lesson supports the study of this genre and the study of irregular patterns and letter-sound relationships related to decoding and spelling. After reading the folk tale Jack and the Beanstalk, students discuss the word giant and its beginning sound. Students then create their own lists of words that begin with the same sound. Then, students are introduced to words with the soft g sound and create a new list of words with this beginning sound. As a culminating activity, students work individually or in groups to categorize animal names into groups according to their beginning g sound.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
According to MKEwithKids, "There are literally thousands of educational websites and online resources, covering a multitude of subject areas, but it seems impossible to know which ones are high-quality AND fun enough to keep your child’s attention for awhile. (So you can, achem, work or get something done around the house.) Whether you need interactive games for your little ones, math skills help for your elementary aged children, educational videos for older kids, or academic help for your high school student, these websites will definitely help. Some of the websites even offer lesson plans for homeschooling parents and teachers. And all of them (except ABC Mouse) are completely free!"
Material Type: Interactive
