Monday 30 December 2013

Winter Wishes

The end of the year celebration at school usually includes all students at all levels. The teachers tap into their creativity to meet the needs of the learners. This year, our students ranged from Literacy Foundation to CLB 6. To start off our morning, we designed an activity that included some student collaboration, speaking, fine motor skills, following instructions, and writing.

We started by having students put together a puzzle.


I designed the puzzle in Word, saved it in Adobe, and printed it as a poster. I enlarged it to about 375%, so it printed off into sixteen squares. The images I chose were not distinct enough, and we decided to add colours. Students used the colours to determine how the lines matched up. I gave them some clues such as that the puzzle was 4 x 4 squares. I also put up squares six and seven to get them started. Students of all levels participated in this.

This puzzle had the question for our next activity. First, each student expressed their own answers. Some students required a sentence starter, and others said a few sentences.

Then, we moved on to writing our sentences and decorating some winter-themed images.


Teachers and higher level students assisted lower level writers by writing down the learners' sentences or words. Students then copied their message onto the paper.





  
Happy new year to you all! I hope your winter wishes come true too!

Monday 14 October 2013

On-going project: Binder Organization

For many of my students, binder organization is a big challenge, or quite low on the priority list. I have promised myself that this will be the year that I incorporate binder organization into the daily lesson plan. And actually be consistent with it!

Some things I have observed about student binders and binder organization:
1. Some students have no binder at all.
2. Binders are often a place to place papers, but generally not securely within the rings.
3. Some binders are organized from back to front, not front to back.
4. Some students do not like to carry binders back and forth from school because of the size. (There were three binders left in my class over the summer vacation!)
5. Most papers are not dated.
6. Separating papers from the morning class and afternoon class is challening.
7. It takes some students a long time to find their homework.

Our tools:



My plan:
After a month or so in school, students will have a sense of what being in my class is like - routines, style, approaches, and types of papers I give out. Students will brainstorm and decide upon categories for binder division so that they are in control of it and remember how to organize it. Students write on the labels, and organize all the papers according to section and date.

The results:

Headings chosen by the class.





So tidy!

The final test: Hold the binder up and see if any papers fall out.

  
Success!


Routines, Activities and Strategies for Literacy Learners
1. Binder Organization - organize it together and maintain it together
2. Respect learners' knowledge and experiences in having them list and decide on the categories as a group.
3. Provide learning strategy instruction. Now that the binders are labelled, teach them how to use this system. This can help them in class and at home.
4. Play a game. Once the binders are organized and the papers are all dated, have a scanning game. For example, find the grammar handout from September 27. Find the citizenship paper from October 10.

Sunday 13 October 2013

TESL Ontario: I'm Presenting!

I am getting very excited to have the opportunity to do two workshops at the up-coming TESL Ontario Conference. My workshops are on Thursday, October 24. I will be doing one on my own, and another with two of my colleagues.

Here is the link to the conference brochure: http://www.teslontario.net/uploads/conference/conf2013/Brochure%20100713%20Reduced%20Viewing.pdf 

My first independent workshop is called LINCs to Literacy (code TPM). The description is as follows: Do you have literacy students in your LINC 2/3 classes? Not sure how to begin meeting their needs? Join this workshop to understand how the CLB and Literacy Phases align. Look at and apply ways of incorporating literacy outcomes, approaches and activities into your classes using mainstream LINC resources.

My second group workshop is Multilevel Group Activities for Holidays and Special Occasions (code TQP). The description is as follows:This interactive workshop will provide participants with creative activities to teach and celebrate Canadian holidays while incorporating language outcomes.Presenters will share their experiences of combining classes from Literacy to CLB 5 to mark special days and holidays. Participants will take part in adaptable sample activities that are low budget, low prep and can be used across the levels.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

A blog by any other name...

... would still be my blog.

As I mentioned in my interview on the ESL Literacy Network's blog, I wanted to keep myself open to adapting my blog any way I see fit to maintain the on-going and changing vision I have of it. As time passes, I meet new students and occasionally get transferred into other classes. Based on where I am now, what I want to do with my learners and my blog for the upcoming year, I have decided to take the word "Projects" out of my title. I have done a few projects with my learners, but many of the features in this blog are not true projects. To read about projects in ESL check out this site: http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/projbase.html. To be more reflective of what I am showing you here, I have changed the word "Projects" to "Activities" in my title.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

TESL Ontario ESL Week Contest - Blog Runner Up Winner

My blog has won a runner up prize in the TESL Ontario ESL Week Contest, 2013. I am very excited to have been acknowledged by my peers. Thank you very much!

Click here to see the grand prize winners and other runner up winners: http://www.teslontario.net/esl-week-contest-winners-instructors-activities-0

Saturday 29 June 2013

Pioneer Food Preservation

My class recently completed a unit on pioneer life. This unit included several readings, watching a film about Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail, going on a field trip to a pioneer village, and reading the graded Penguin reader of Anne of Green Gables.

Connecting the unit to horticulturally-related activities and topics was quite easy if you consider food and its preservation.

The following reading was challenging for my CLB 3, and 4 students among whom almost 40% have literacy needs. However, through a variety of activities, students can learn new vocabulary, practice and develop reading skills, and work collaboratively to share their own experiences. I have noted some activities and strategies that could be done with this reading.

Pre-Reading Strategies:

1. Activate background knowledge and build vocabulary
What are students' experiences with preserving food? When? Where? What? How? Who worked together to preserve it? Students can orally describe their own experiences.

2. Teach vocabulary
Select key vocabulary from the passage. In the reading below, I selected the words "pickled, salted, smoked, dried". Students will likely be able to relate some of the above experiences to these new words. The teacher could create a chart on the board and make a list of students' foods.

During Reading
1. Scan for vocabulary
To build scanning skills, students could use a coloured marker or pencil to underline or highlight the new vocabulary (e.g. "pickled, salted, smoked, dried").

2. Identify new vocabulary
It is important for students to be able to locate words that they do not understand. One strategy is for students to read quietly and underline or circle any new words for them. From this point, different options are possible for vocabulary development. Students could use dictionaries, guess the meaning based on the context, or ask a classmate or teacher.

3. Read Aloud
To practice pronunciation, word stress, and rhythm, students can read the story aloud to a classmate or the whole class. 



After Reading

1.  Review Vocabulary and Build Categorization Skills
Students could use a chart like the one that follows to review the key vocabulary, scan the text for details, and use a chart. This chart reinforces the one used at the beginning of the lesson that was based on student experience.  These two charts could be compared and contrasted.


2.Write About Their Own Expereiences
Students could select one food that they preserved and describe it in a few sentences or a paragraph (depending on student level). Students could also write down a recipe for preserving their selected food.

3. Hands-on Practice
Connecting to the above activity, the students could do a demonstration of their selected recipe, or the teacher could lead a lesson on following recipes. For example, the class could simply make strawberry freezer jam or pickled yellow beans. 

This kind of activity could be photographed for an LEA activity that could incorporate sequencing photos, writing a narrative and making a book or poster.

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Bread and Butter

Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables.

I have observed a trend in my friends, and my on-line friends, to try to go back to a simpler time. Grow your own food, use cloth diapers, make bread from scratch. I admit that I enjoy being caught up in this trend as well.

At school, we just completed a unit on pioneer life. We studied this in preparation for a field trip to a local pioneer village.



As a follow up to the trip, we made two recipes: handmade butter and Irish soda bread.




If you use these two recipes, make the butter first. That way you can use the buttermilk and the butter in the bread recipe.

The Butter



Students enjoyed making the butter, and noting three different steps of turning whipping cream into butter. First, it was all liquid. Second, it was all solid. Third, it was half liquid and half solid: the buttermilk and the butter.

  



The Bread

The first step, if you are not using buttermilk, is to mix milk and vinegar. I asked the students to predict what would happen. Some ideas were that they would bubble, separate, and have no change.




Students took turns reading out the steps, measuring, adding, and mixing in the ingredients.
We had the extra challenge of doubling the recipe to make two loaves of bread. This was great numeracy practice!



  
 And finally ... the soda bread! If you haven't tasted soda bread before, it does taste like the baking soda / salt. One person spit it out, but the others enjoyed it.




We especially enjoyed it with the handmade butter!





Other activities: Start the unit with a KWL chart, read short stories about different aspects of pioneer life, read Penguin Reader level 3 of Anne of Green Gables using the great activities provided in the book to build a variety of reading strategies, and go on a field trip to pioneer village.

Saturday 8 June 2013

Saturday 11 May 2013

Life Cycles

Spring is here! 
New life abounds. 
Fresh scents, and many shades of green. 
Rain, frost, and sun. 
Introducing biology basics.
Life cycles.


Activity Steps for Students
1. Sequence cards of the life cycle of an animal / insect / amphibian / plant. (I used http://www.enchantedlearning.com/sequencingcards/)
2. Research the life life cycle on-line. Create a simple handout.
3. Find a youtube video that shows the complete life cycle.
4. Present the information from the handout and show the video.



Ant

Student selected video:



Butterfly 

Student selected video:


Frog 

Student selected video:


Mosquito 

Student selected video:


The addition of the youtube videos added a greater dimension to the presentations. During the videos, I heard students say the following: "Wow!, I didn't know that!, Two tongues?!, Whoa!, So many eggs! Where do all the eggs come from?!".
 Furthermore, during the research part of it, some students read and understood a lot more information. Students had many questions about each life cycle, and some students were able to answer the extra questions. Another student actually researched the answer on-line during class so she could share the information with the class.


Follow-up
1. Students can write questions about their handout for their peers to answer.
2. Make a class booklet.

This unit includes the following key approaches and strategies for Literacy learners:
work collaboratively, plan time to complete the project within the deadline, ask for help when needed, use technology, use pictures and format to understand text,  follow directions, identify the main idea and supporting details of a text, plan a presentation, and copy information.

Additional Resources
http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/topic/living/life-cycles.html#.UXm9iMrm86r

Thursday 25 April 2013

Beautiful Things - Spring Bulbs

Morning Warm-up: 15 minutes

Brainstorm descriptive words for the daffodils and hyacinths using the senses of touch, smell and sight.



How does it feel?
soft, flat, squishy, smooth




How does it smell?
nice, fresh, fragrant, strong, sweet





What do you see?
purple, yellow, ivory, green stems, jar, water








Wednesday 17 April 2013

Hug a Tree! or Just Paint One for Earth Day!

Concentration and creativity joined hands this Earth Day as students tried their hand at painting trees inspired by the late Emily Carr. My peer, B.B., guided the learners through Emily Carr images and noted how the painted lines showed movement. She found the idea for this project here: http://www.kinderart.com/arthistory/emilycarr.shtml.

The learners did 'air writing' of the movement, just tracing the shapes and lines in the air. Then the students got to it.


What really amazed me were the different interpretations of what a tree is.




 We then made a tree of all the trees.



It was interesting to see how people from different areas of world painted different styles of trees. The 'tree' in their mind was certainly not from the same corpus as Emily Carr's! What beautiful designs!

Amazingly, at our local art gallery an Emily Carr exhibit was showing at this time. This show was also featured in the local newspaper. A few teachers and a few students ventured out after school hours (during the free hours at the gallery) to visit the exhibit and experience Carr's art work in a new environment.  

Two of my colleagues, B.B. and A.B., entered this project into the TESL Ontario ESL Week Contest and won first place in the Photo/Collage Category! Here is a link to their outstanding work: http://www.teslontario.net/sites/default/files/webform/eslweek_instructors/Immigrant%20Women%27s%20Centre.jpg

Follow up activities can be found here:
Best of the Reader: Aboriginal People (graded stories of adults): http://www.bestofthereader.ca/Ebooks/Canada%27s_Aboriginal_People.pdf
Vancouver Art Gallery Educational Resources (may need to be adapted): http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/emily_carr/en/index.php 

Sunday 7 April 2013

Teaching ESL Literacy Foundation and Phase I Webinar

Check out my Teaching ESL Literacy Foundation and Phase I Webinar posted in Tutela.ca at http://tutela.ca/ViewContentItem?itemId=5206. Tutela is a "National Online Repository and Community of Practice". Free membership is required, but it is a wonderful resource for all ESL teachers. I fully recommend it!

Monday 18 February 2013

Beautiful Things - Roses are Red

What do you see?
How does it smell?
How does it feel?





A student surprised me this Valentine's Day with a rose!
What a great teaching gift to work on describing things!




Follow up with colour and rhyming practice:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
and so are _______.


Roses are red,
Violets are grey,
When I am with you,
I have a nice ________.


Roses are red,
Violets are plaid,
When we are apart,
I feel _________.

Outcomes: express spoken and written descriptions, fill in initial consonant sound in rhyming word groups

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!


Make your own snowflakes using templates!






Great for practice following directions, folding paper accurately, using scissors, and being creative!




Great for multilevel groups.




There were a few originals among the templates. Can you spot them?