Our Soup project is coming to an end. First grade students will be bringing home their class recipe books today, and Kindergarten students will be bringing home their mini-book version of the story Stone Soup. Talking and learning about recipes, vegetables, healthy vs. unhealthy foods, and reading relevant fiction and non-fiction books provided us with lots of opportunity to read, write, listen, and speak in English. I encourage you to ask your student to tell you about the story of Stone Soup. If you've not heard this story before, it is an old story about a hungry traveler who tells the people he meets that he can make soup from a stone - fancy that! There are many versions of this old story and it teaches about the importance of working together and sharing. If you know a version of this story, please share it with your student. It is fun to see how two versions of a story are both similar and different.
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We have been talking about vegetable soup recipes. If you have a recipe at home, please send a copy with your child so we can talk about it in ESL. You can also send me a picture of a favorite soup recipe and email it to me. Students thought about soup today and wrote about which ingredients they would want to put in their soup and drew a picture to go with it. In their writing they had a practice using commas to accurately list the ingredients they wanted to use.
(while Students are beginning a unit about food that will provide a variety of opportunities to engage in rich language. For students that are new to the country, this unit will also introduce them to the names of foods, colors, plural vs singular nouns, and how to describe different foods. This week we are focusing on vegetables. We read a book called "Growing Vegetable Soup" to introduce this unit and posed the question: Can you grow vegetable soup? Students have just begun sharing which vegetables they would want to put in a soup and have been practicing some reading skills through a chant (see picture below). We have had fun inserting students names into the chant: Sara put the carrots in, carrots in, carrots in. Sara put the carrots in, we'll all stir the soup! We will also talk about the language used to write a recipe. If you have any soup recipes that you would like to send to school with your child, we would love to read them as a class! You can even email a picture of a recipe your family loves and I can print it for your child at school. The below chant also let us practice the prepositions: on and in We have been responding to the question: What will the weather be like today? Students have gone outside to observe the weather, and researched the weather forecast on the computer. Some of the sentences we created as a class are below.
If you have access to a weather app, a weather forecast on TV, or a weather section from a newspaper, you can ask your student each morning: What is the weather going to be like today? After looking at a weather forecast, your student can respond using the future verb tense. You can also ask them to explain the clothes they will wear based on the weather.
During ELD class on Mondays I like to have students talk and write about what they did over the weekend. I begin the lesson by asking student what today's date is, and then what yesterday's date was. Writing about their weekend gives students a fun opportunity to learn about past tense verbs (went, played, watched, cooked, bought, rode, etc) while sharing about their family's weekend activities. Some past tense verbs follow a familiar -ed pattern (walked, listened, jumped, visited, talked, etc.). Some other past tense verbs are called irregular because they don't follow an easy spelling pattern. Students will have to memorize these past tense verbs (went, brought, told, ran, made, won, slept, drove, said, etc.). Other verbs don't change when used in the past tense:
You can help students at home by asking them to think about what they did on Saturday and Sunday so they have some ideas of what to write about. I usually ask students to tell me one thing they did on Saturday and one thing they did on Sunday. As the school year continues, I ask students to include more details about their weekend. Students will have a chance to read their writing and ask each other questions about their weekend. In English Language Development, we have been talking about the importance of calendars, how to use them, and how to read them to gather information. Students have been practicing asking and answering questions, using ordinal numbers (first, second, third...eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, etc), the days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.), and using computers to research school related dates that they wanted to include on their calendars.
Students can add information to their calendar about family activities when they bring these home. Parents can encourage student learning by asking what today’s date is, when an activity is happening, or what information they want to add to their calendar. Examples of questions to ask students:
(Note: This calendar activity was inspired by Mrs. Sonnen at Hiteon Elementary School) The first few weeks of school can be a challenge for students, and especially students that know multiple languages. It can be exhausting for students to be back in an English speaking school environment for 6+ hours a day. It is normal if students have forgotten some of their English and literacy skills over the summer, and we understand that. Their brains are working very hard when they are at school and it is normal for them to feel exhausted by the time they get home. To help your child through this transition it is important to make sure they have a good breakfast in the morning and get plenty of sleep at night. They may also need some down time after school to play outside, relax, or eat a snack before starting any homework they might have. You know your child better than anyone though, and if you're worried about their transition back to school this fall, don't hesitate to send myself or their classroom teacher an email. We are here to help! Warmly, Mrs. Burton Bethany ESL |
AuthorWelcome to Mrs. Burton's Kinder & 1st grade ELD blog! Come learn about what we're doing in the classroom and get suggestions on how you can support students at home. Archives
November 2016
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