School Theme for Preschool ELL

    Link to the resource: https://www.bilingualmarketplace.com/products/school-unit-for-kindergarten-ell?variant=36128821215396

Trace words: Tracing increases memory and retention. Have children experiment with writing words in English. Have children trace each word and read it. You can also create a word wall with them and play some games, such as identifying the words. But just limit it only to the words you are teaching on this specific theme.

Use the trace the word cards for the Guess Game. Attach a picture to a student´s back (player) . Don´t show it to that player. Display all the playing vocabulary flashcards on the board as clues, keep them no more than 6. The player has to find out which picture is on his/her back. The player has to ask questions:  Is it a book? Is it blue?. The class will shout YES or No. 

Make Take-home books  with the tracing cards. Children can assemble an accordion book. Make a large strip of cardboard .. .   

Fold the strip into equal sections.  Decide how many words the book will have. Glue the title of the book on the front.

Make enough copies for each child to take home a book. Have them write their names on the cover. Send a note home to the parents about the book. Do group reading in class. Use your teacher´s version. Have the class name each picture and read each word with them.  By sending the book home you are supporting parent-child reading time. Reading will enhance oral language development.

Posters: most books come with huge posters that we hardly use.  Here´s an idea with the small flashcards or word tracers.

Hand a small flashcard to a student  asking:

Teacher:  What´s this ? ( a book)

Student:  a book.

Teacher:: Go to the poster and find another book. Show me a book.

Class: a book.

Repeat with other vocabulary words.

Another idea:

Have a student pick up a small flashcard and ask the class.

Student: What´s this ?

Class:  a pencil

Another student walks to the poster and finds the picture. You can also label all the pictures in the poster.

Have the children draw as a way to stand for writing. The drawing will have a communication purpose. Give each student the classroom  frame.

Ask them to draw their classroom with furniture, classmates and school objects, anything they want.

Have a student come to the front of the class and point to objects in the picture.

Teacher: Point to the door.  Continue with all the other school objects in the picture.

Games with cutouts. Remember to laminate them with contact paper.

Even though times have changed this game never gets old. They have fun while they play and want to play more.

 - Show me game. For this game try to print a set of card for each child . Name a card and the students show the card to you.

-   Place the school objects cutouts on the board. Have students name the different objects. This is a crayon.

 - Place the cutouts in different locations around the classroom. Give students commands for pointing to different cutouts.

Bingo.  This activity helps children identify school vocabulary words.

There are 20 cards, in a colored and a black and white version. I usually print 2 sets , each one in a different colored paper. I glue one set onto a file folder and place an envelope outside the folder for the other set which are the cards used to call out the school words. Provide  the children the grid where they can draw 4 vocabulary words. Call out the school word and have the children mark off their drawing if they have the word. Have them cross out all the grid to call out BINGO!

School theme book. Read aloud to the whole group. Reread using charts or enlarge the book pages and make a big book.

Worksheets that be transformed into more activities.

Worksheet 1. Use the school cards as puppets. I glued them onto empty toilet paper tubes. They can be prompts to answer simple questions or to start a small conversation in class.

Worksheet 2. The worksheets can be approached creatively and from different perspectives. I just propose an idea but you do a completely different thing and I´d like to see that.

Worksheet 3. Think of more creative ways to use the worksheets. I turned these school items into craft stick puppets and then had the children sort them into the toilet paper tubes puppets from the first worksheet.

 Worksheet 4.  This is a tried and tested worksheet.

More Worksheets but related to the School Furniture.

As always my first worksheet is to be used as flashcards. I added the letters. I printed them out in colored paper and glued them onto wood clothespin. It might have been nicer to paint them in a bright color. The goal is that children rewrite the words using the clothespin letters.

This other worksheet is a color by number. It is fun way to review colors and color words. It does benefit children as they have to read or listen to the instructions in order to color, I make them underline the phrase in the corresponding color.  The number will represent color not just quantity. The children will have to go through the 6 numbers to see the finished drawing.  After finishing the worksheet I was wondering what else to do, so I thought that cutting each instruction phrase and gluing it on each number would be a good idea.

Before working on this worksheet, mime the prepositions. It can be in, on, under. Use your actual board, chair, and table. Make larger copies of the glue, pencil, crayon and demonstrate placing the glue on the chair.

Give the children their worksheet. Assign the color if you wish.  Then have them cut the  glue, pencil, crayon.  Have the students practice some actions, without using glue.

Teacher: The glue is on the chair.

Give more examples to do.

Finally, children glue their objects on the school furniture either as you assign them:

Teacher: The crayon is on the board.

 or color as they want and then present to the class.
Student: The pencil is under the table.

A creative worksheet, where students have to draw the school´s front door and themselves going to school.

As I have seen some of these puzzles, I gave it a try and created this one. I added the words so children could paste them on the puzzle. It would be a good idea to paste the sheet onto cardboard or fun foam before cutting it. The puzzle is a manipulative to work with as they will arrange it as they want before putting it correctly using the number order. As we work with the vision of the whole child it develops hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, it gives the opportunity of problem solving as they put all the numbers in order. Memory is also involved as they will remember how the actual drawing was before cutting it.

Shopping List: Hand in a shopping list to each group of students in the class. Have them find the object and place them in a bag. There are 10 shopping lists , all of them are different. You can give the group that finishes first a sticker as a prize.  

Letter arts and crafts for the School UNIT. It's either that you do them and use the letters for reviewing the vocab or you have the students do one letter and then display in class. It is here in this product.

I have more school theme posts with activities, ideas, resources.

http://eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com/2013/08/school-theme-2nd-edition.html

http://eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com/2010/07/school-theme.html

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