Frazzled Friday Freebie

Hi Everyone,

This week has seriously been a whirl wind for me. I can't tell you how many things I had on my plate. I tried to get on here yesterday for a Thursday Resource but never made it. So I decided to give you a freebie for your to use as a resource. :)

This week my 2nd and 3rd grade ELL kids have been working very hard to make sure they have complete sentences in their writing. On a side note, at the moment we are writing Personal Narratives. We talked about the 2 parts to a sentence, the subject and predicate. We discussed what each part means and finally we practiced separating and putting together some sentences until they were "complete". 

Because my kids are very visual I wanted to have something up to help them. I didn't make anything fancy because I didn't have time, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Plus it matches all the other things I have up at the moment. :)

I loved how it turned out and took more pictures. :)

I decided I wanted them to practice this skill a bit more, so I made more sentences for them to use at our pocket chart workstation.

And you get them as a freebie. :)

Subject and predicate heading and definitions

Practice Sentences

With that said, I will get back to trying to make it through the rest of the day. I will leave you with some VERY late working Kinder kids.

Rainbow names from the first week of school.

 (Obviously this friend didn't understand.)

 Who says tape can't fix anything? :)

Teacher Tip Tuesday: ELL Levels

Today's Teacher Tuesday is courtesy of my schools Curriculum night.

 

All students in the English Language Learner program study speaking, listening, reading, and writing throughout an integrated approach that uses content as the vehicle to meet ELL language goals and standards.

Level 1

Student with no or very limited English language skills.

Students use observational skills and are dependent upon visual cues, and simplified language for comprehension. Level 1 students function well when following a routine. They may feel safest in the ELL environment and take more risk practicing language amongst their peers. They can easily feel overwhelmed with the language and should participate in varied activities that allow them to manipulate objects with their hands and change activities often.

Level 2

Students at the beginning level of English language skills.

Level 2 students rely heavily on visual cues and non-verbal language but are more confidant in their social skills. They will often imitate conversation to meet personal needs or get information. Level 2 students feel the importance of needing English to learn social language and academic content.

Level 3

Students at the intermediate level of English language skills.

Level 3 students gave a strong command of conversational English. This may give students and/ or staff a false sense of language proficiency. Social acceptance by peers and participation in popular culture is very important to students at this level. Students often have a limited awareness of the skills needed to acquire academic language. However, they possess skills and language structures in English that are much more advanced than the previous two levels. Teachers play an important role in motivating these students.

Level 4

Students at the intermediate-advanced level of English language skills.

Students in Level 4 will find school more challenging as they discover the academic demands placed upon them. These students may become frustrated and require support with skills and strategies to help them in the classroom.

Level 5

Students at the advanced level of English language skills.

Level 5 students may read and write at or near native level but require refinement in these areas. These students are confidant in their ability to compete with native-English-speaking peers. They perform very well on daily assignments and projects in the classroom but may have difficulty performing well on

Map it out Monday???

I've noticed that several of you have been sharing your lesson plans. It made me want to share mine too. I wanted to post them on Sunday so you could take a peek before the week started. However, you know when I got my plans done? Last night at midnight. :/ So Sunday was out of the question. I thought of Monday but not sure about it. Also I don't know if it is anything you all are interested in. So again not sure how often I will post them. If you like them and find them valuable please leave me a comment and/or feedback in the comment box below.

Not gonna talk much about them. Again if you have a question feel free to leave it below and I subscribe. I promise I will respond.

Here are my Kinder Plans...

Here you can find my First Grade plans...

Can't post my 2nd and 3rd grade ones this week, but maybe next week. Feel free to click on either one to get a PDF download of them.

Resource Thursday

Welcome to...

Today I want to share two wonderful new books I am using with my ELL kids. I gave you a sneak peek at one of them on Tuesday.

Here is a shot of the front covers.

 
 So far I have been using them with my Kinder and 1st grade kids and they have been great! They both books from CTP.

I am currently using the Sight Word Sentences with my Kinder kids. The sentences are WAY too hard for them at the moment, BUT I wanted to introduce them to words and complete sentences early in hopes that it won't be such a weird concept and monumental task later. It practices all the necessary Kinder skills, cutting, pasting, coloring, writing and reading. The picture directions are great too.
Take a peek.

Did I share that CTP has an 8 page free Sample page preview. Click here.

The Sight Word Phrases book is just right for my 1st graders who struggled with their sight words last year. It gives you 3 activities with the same sight word phrase. I am using them on Mon, Wed and Fri.

On Monday, I introduce the phrase.

On Wednesday, practice using the phrase in a complete sentence with some other vocabulary.
 
On Friday, we review with a mini book that they get to take home and share with their family.

Again CTP has a 9 page free Sample page preview. Click here.
 

Hope some of these are helpful to you.

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Visual Directions

Back for another addition of...

This week I am here to share a wonderful tip several of you already know about. Picture icons!

For several years I struggled with this objective on the ELL rubric/exam...
-Student can read and follow directions.
I always thought they have to read the sentence that tells them what to do on a particular assignment. Sooo, umm, if you don't know I teach K and 1 ELL kids. Several of which are straight from the jungle in Burma. Many of them have trouble still writing their names at the end of the year. This is a big thing for them to be able to do. Now I don't want to give you the wrong impression. My kids eventually can read and perform at grade-level or above but it takes some time.

Let's set my struggles aside, because I really want to share these picture icons. You can use these picture directions with not only K and 1 kids but students of all grades who struggle to read. Actually, it is helpful to ALL students. Like I was saying I thought it meant the students had to read the WORDS, but another teacher clued me in, a few years ago, that reading picture cards was totally ok.

A few years ago several of these "Visual Materials Cards" popped up. I just love them. I first saw them on Hadar's blog, Miss. Kindergarten Love,back when she was Outfitted and Inspired. You can read about them here and here.

 This one is actually Angelica, from Extra Special Teaching, creations.

They are all freebies.

What I love best is that all I do is put up the cards on the board and my kids can just look up real quick to see what comes next. For my older kids I am adding the word next to the picture so that they can associate the two and hopefully build that text language. (Is text-language even a word?)

I even bought this wonderful sight word book this summer for my kinder kids that ALSO has the picture directions included.

 That is all for Teacher Tip Tuesday. I want to share some resources with you tomorrow. Let's see if I actually get to do it.
Hope this helps!

Student Work with Names

This should have been my Wordless Wednesday post, and it was. BUT, I tried to post from my iphone and failed miserably. Soooo, here you go on my Mindless Monday. I have to share that these activities came from Deanna Jumps Literacy and Math Fun with Names.

Here is where I display all of my students work for the whole school to see. They are so proud of their work. I get so excited when they are in line and are whispering to their friends, in their Gen Ed class, to check out their wonderful work. Obviously we have out Surfing theme going on. Though I am not sure I am done decorating this wall yet.

We start the year with some school vocabulary and learning our names and this Names Phoneme Substitution activity is just perfect for getting us listening to the sounds in our names.
Wheels on the bus fun.

We continue our name exploration as we breifly introduce the letters of the alphabet. These Chicka, Chicka Name Tress are just the right thing to help my ELL friends learn the letters in their names.

Chicka, chicka, boom, boom.

That's all for today.
Hope to be back tomorrow, crossing my fingers, to share again for "Teaching Tip Tuesday". Now I am off to a Professional Development for an hour and 45 min. Let's see what I learn tonight.
Have a great Monday!

A new Etsy shop...

Hi Everyone,

A friend of mine just started selling hand made, one of a kind cards on Etsy. So many of you are crafty or like crafty things so I wanted to share. Her shops name is Otherworldly Cards.

Here is my shop review...
"Intriguing, unique and colorful cards. Hand made w/ quality, 3D embellishments, paper & card stock. Built to last for all occasions. Will bring a little bit of enjoyment every time you look at them on your desk/table. They make wonderful additions to any gift."

Take a look...

(Click on the image to go to the card on Etsy.)

Click here to visit her Etsy shop.

Hope you go take a look around. As she says... "I love it when you visit. Thrilled, when you buy." Have a great weekend.

A helpful tip: Serious Vs. Silly

Happy Tuesday! 

I hope all of you that started work today had a FABULOUS day.

I had some ideas to share with you all and I thought why not give it a name and make it a LINKY? Soooo...

Thanks for stopping by for...

This year I had a student who was having trouble during our whole group lesson time. Part of the problem is that he has quite a bit of language already. He still needs some ELL time, but he is more advanced than the other kids in his group.

I understood that he required more of a challenge during his work and I gave it to him. However, during instructional time I still wanted him to sit quietly and listen to what I was demonstrating. I didn't want him to continue to get in trouble and miss out on valuable instructional time. PLUS, and this is the more important one, I wanted him to stop disturbing his peers, who DID need every little bit of what I was teaching.

He was basically being VERY silly and giggly all the time. When I discussed him in my PLC group, another teacher suggested I make a Silly/ Serious sign so that the expectation was clear. This was brilliant!

The next day the class discussed what silly and serious meant. What it looks like and sounds like to be silly and what it looks like and sounds like to be serious. We talked about why it is important to be serious during whole group lessons and about how sometimes it is ok to be silly.  Demonstrations are VERY important for ELL kids, so we practiced this.

I let them know that I would help them learn when it was ok to be silly and when when have to be serious. Then I took their picture. Now, I don't know if you know this, but Kinder Kids LOVE to have their picture taken. We took several pictures with silly faces and several more with serious faces. I took the picture as a whole group because I did not want to single this particular student out. Not to mention that it is good practice for all my kids. 

So here is how it turned out.

I printed it up as two separate whole sheets. Then laminated and taped them together. Inserted a Popsicle stick and Tada! I added the word up top because I wanted to connect it to print, but you don't have to.

Best thing is that now all I have to do is show the sign and they know right away what kind of behavior is expected of them.

Just in case you were wondering we used our silly voices and faces to sing and echo. Occasionally when we share, I allow it to, but the rest of the time we are serious.

Because I love to share you can pick up a Serious or Silly words to go with your sign. Click here for your freebie.

Have any Teaching you wanna share? Feel free to link up below or share via a comment box. 

Currently: September

Hi everyone,

This is a quick post today, cause even though I have a day off, I am still crazy busy. Here is my September Currently.

A colleague shared this with the staff and I thought I would pass it along.

You Might Be In the First Week of School If...

That is all for me for now. However, I had a stroke of genius and I have lots to share later in the week. Don't forget to stop back. Now off to work on my plans for this week.

Now off to
To link up too!