Family Theme Resource for ESL

Link to the Family Theme resource for Kindergarten English Langauge Learner:   https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Family-Activities-for-Preschool-ELL-1804127

     Watch the video of the complete resource:

Provide an environment with lots of exposure to the family theme. Students should be able to say the family members words.

1  Flashcards are useful to review family words. You can start using only a few cards not the whole set, introduce more as you see progress.

Family flashcards Activity 1: Place the  flashcards around the room

                            Teacher: sister. Point to sister.

Children look around and point to the family member. Repeat with more family members.

Family Flashcards and Numbers review.

Preschool Activity 3: Give students a flashcard and have them stand in line.

Name a family member and instruct that students to step forward and spin or turn around in place.

Teacher: baby! Where´s baby ? Turn around , baby!

   Family Unit Puppets: Make some puppets with the family members. Dramatic play helps with learning new words and expressions, while enhancing the skills of  listening and speaking. Make puppets part of your routine.

 Puppet activity 1: 

Have the class greet the puppets:

Teacher: (showing the dad puppet)Hello , students!

Class: hello, dad!!

Repeat with all the other family members.

Puppet activity 2 to introduce the family members:

Teacher: (Point to daddy). Who´s he ?

Students: He´s daddy.

Puppet activity 3: 

Hold up a family member puppet.

Teacher:   Is this mother ? Students have to nod or shake their heads or hold up the yes or no puppets. (available on my TPT store)

Students:if the answer is YES, have them wave and greet the family member.

 Hello, mother!

  Puzzle:  Cut the family members cards into 4 pieces. Show one piece to the class and have them guess the family member. Place on the board. Have the children come up to the front to put the puzzle together, or have them do it on their tables.

 Family Shapes. There are 2 versions for this game.

a-    The family members are in each shape. Have the children say which family member is in each shape.  Name a family member and have them say which shape that person is in.

Teacher: Where is Mother?

Students: In the triangle!

I created a flannel board out of an old file folder, by pasting felt directly to the file. I also glued some velcro on each shape.

b-   Blank shapes and separate family members. Place the shapes on the board.

Have the children place a family member where you indicate.

Teacher: Grandpa is in the circle.

            Baby brother is in the oval. 

            Baby Girl is in the rectangle.

  Family drawing: have children draw their families and describe them to the class.

Family draw in: I made all these family members without face parts. The chidren will have to draw them and make them happy, sad or angry to review emotions and parts of the face. There are also big faces to do the same, but with pink or red yarn paste on an emotion to it.

Animal family: I ran across these animal families and made them as into matching cards. Students can read and understand family vocabulary.

Awards: put a safety pin behind.

Family Halves Game: give students all the halves and have them sort the people by family members. Also, give each student a half and have them get together by finding a partner with another half. Then, have them get together by family members.

 Family Album: have the students cut and paste family pictures in each space. Then can also draw each family member.

Family Domino: paste your domino onto old files or scraps of old cardboard. Give them free play time with the dominos.

And continuing with my collection of worksheets for Preschool English Language Learners, here are some more.

Worksheet 1. This is always the worksheet to use as flashcards and more. Keep them for all the classes to revise vocabulary.

Tell the students to color each family member in different color hair and eyes, to make different combinations.  You can make a class graph or a table graph with the hair color and eye color.

 Students will demonstrate understanding by reading and matching the word that can be taken off each card and having students match the word to each picture. 

Worksheet 2.  Blank faces for children to make a happy, sad, angry face.  I also added the color splotches and the numbers.

Instruct students to color their family members in any color combination they want. 

Colllect all the color splotches in a bag. Take one out at a time.

Teacher: What color is this ?

Students: Red.

Teacher: Who has red hair ?

Student: My sister ! ( Answers may Vary )

Teacher: OK. Bring me your sister.  ( place the red splotch on the board next to all the family members that have red hair.

Continue with all the other color splotches.

Then place the numbers next to each family member.  Say a number and have the students say who it is and describe the person.

Teacher: Number two ! Who´s number two ?

Students: It´s mommy !

Teacher: What color is mommy´s hair ?

Students: It´s black.

Teacher: What color are mommy´s eyes?

Students:They´re black.

Teacher: Is she happy or sad ?

Students: She´s happy.

Worksheet 3. Have students trace each mouth with a red crayon.

                           Teacher: Look at brother! He is happy. Trace his mouth.

 Students trace the contour of each family member. There are the numbers 1 to 4.

Have the students place a family member next to each number.

Teacher:  Number 4.

Students: daddy!

Teacher: happy, sad or angry?

Students: happy !

Worksheet 4. The classic portrait.  It´s so much fun to see how the show their family members to the class.

And There is the letter arts and crafts for the family theme resource: Link:https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-arts-and-crafts-collection-3378536

This resource is part of the Family Unit BUNDLE:   https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Family-Unit-BUNDLE-for-Kindergarten-and-Elementary-ESL-6704385

Insects - Bugs for Preschool ELA

Link to complete insects or bug resources: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Insect-or-Bug-Theme-for-Preschool-ELL-1217575

                                     

Insects or bug Paper Bag Puppets: use them to animate your students. These are easy to make with paper bag and attaching the cut outs provided. Interact with the puppets by asking questions to the students, use them to read a story or sing a song/chant. Many student would like make their own bugs. To get the files, please write to my email.(ei98srl@gmail.com)

Insects or bug Cutouts: Have the children identify the bugs and name/count the body parts.

Activity 1:Hold up each bug cutout:

Teacher: It´s a bee.

Students: It´s a bee.

Teacher: What color is the bee ?

Students: It´s black and yellow.

Teacher: Look! it has two antennae.( showing them)

Teacher: Look! it has two wings.( showing them)

                What color are the wings ?

Students: They are blue.

Activity 2: Use the cutouts as a memory aid for drilling vocabulary words.

Put all the bug cutouts in a bag. Invite a student to pull out a bug cutout and identify it. Have the class say YES! If the student is right or NO! if the student is wrong.

Insects or bug Super Bug Student Badge: I created this cute badge to enhance motivation in class, just print and put in the badge clear device.

Here´s a link to read more on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in young learners.http://www.nasponline.org/resources/home_school/earlychildmotiv_ho.aspx

Insects or bug Memory or Matching Game:  all these games help increase the short-term memory in your students. They are fun for those last minutes.
                                                                                        

Insects or bug Draw the favorite bug. These activities help:
-develop prewriting skills 
-  develop hand coordination
-  develop vocabulary

Insects or bug Vocabulary Word Wall: Place the cards and words in a word wall in the classroom. Use your pointer to review the words.

Then have children play with another set of cards and words and matching them. Also the cards can be transformed into  wipe-off cards by using contact paper and white board markers so that the students can trace each bug word.

The bug crowns can be a follow up activity.The crown can serve as a coloring page and as a confidence booster.

I

nsects or bug Graphing: use stickers, student´s name, bug drawings, ,m&m´s , cereal, beans, gummies, mini erasers, clothespins and much more. And always analyze the data.

Bug Book: This is a bug fact book. It reviews body words and actions. 12 bugs . It comes in color and a black and white version.

Insects or bug Flashcards: Bring some students up to the front and hand in a flashcard to the first one.

Teacher: a bee. (pass the flashcard to the first student)

Student: a bee ( passing  pass the flashcard to the next student)
Continue with all the flashcards

Insects or bug Math: Use these math flashcards to count the bugs up and down to 10. Have the students respond to the spoken number using the cards or have them say a random number when shown the card.

Insects or bug Worksheets. Engage students in different tasks with these worksheets with an art based view. Children always get excited when they see the scissors, glue and markers. They will create a product from the worksheets. It is not the worksheet by itself.

The worksheets can encourage student to communicate in English, as they listen and color, as they repeat directions to other students, as they give the directions for completing the worksheets. Share more ideas here to improve the use of them.

Use your valuable class time wisely when having the students create their worksheets.

All the worksheets have the words to trace, but you can make them write the words instead of tracing and gluing as in my examples. It depends on the group that you are teaching.

Worksheet 1. This first woksheet is to introduce the vocabulary. The students color is designated colors and trace the corresponding words. Then cut into cards to play games as I have along this blog.

Worksheet 2. after you have played with the cards have the students cut the animals. Tell them that the animals live in different places. Ask questions.
Teacher: Where does the bee live?
Students: beehive. 
Have the students glue the bee at the beehive.

Worksheet 3. Tell the students that there are bottle jars for the insects, Have them draw the insects in the jars. Or cut the jars and have the students draw all the insects they want in each jar.

Worksheet 4.And review with the students the parts of the body. Ask questions.

Teacher: Look at the butterfly. What is missing?

Students: The head!

teacher: draw the head.

Worksheet 5. Sort the insects according to their body parts, the ones with legs and the ones with wings.

Teacher: Which insects have wings?

Students: butterfly and bee.

Worksheet 6.Have the students draw their favorite insect and graph the result on a wall or door.

Worksheet 7. Make a Scene using the first worksheet.

Insect Garden Scene. Children can use the garden template and draw all the insects. They can use all the templates and write the words. Vary the scene as much as you like.

 I´d love to see what you come up with. You can also go outside and have them draw the insects they can see.

Display the scene on the board. Hand out the insects cutouts to several students.  Name a cutout and have the students come to the scene and place them.

Teacher: Butterflies!

Students place the butterflies.

Teacher: How many butterflies are there?

Students: One ,two, three, four butterflies.

Insects eat ! Here is a short list.

Snails: plants, fruits, vegetables,leaves

Spiders: insects,flies,mosquitoes,cockroaches

Bees: pollen, honey ,nectar.

Butterflies: nectar.

Ladybugs:  other insects, mushrooms,leaves ,some plants.

Ants: fruit, meat vegetables ,fruits, spiders,insects.carrots, apples ,lettuce.

 I glued the spider onto a box flap and cut a slit on the mouth so I could fee the spider. Use it as a speaking opportunity.

Teacher: What is this ?

Students: It´s a spider.

Teacher: What color is the spider ?

Students: It´s green.

Teacher: What is this ?

Students: It´s a butterfly.

Teacher: The spider is hungry. The spider is eating the pink butterfly.

Students: The spider is hungry. The spider is eating the pink butterfly.

Insect book. There are many variations to the book. You can print your own book. I can make a larger version if you need one. ( email: ei98srl@gmail.com)

Children can cut and paste as I did, they can read and draw the corresponding bee.

Art helps children to develop mentally and emotionally.  Children will have to analyze on how to put together the letter. Give them different materials to add on each letter, such as glitter, buttons, yarn. Let them experiment into making their own letter. There is no right or wrong. I made an example and so should you, but it´s their choice on how to turn a B into a bee.

Dice. I made two of them, one with numbers and another with the insects. Just as in the farm theme. Throw the dice and have the students either draw the insects or place them on a paper plate or on the board. You can use the worksheets and have each table place the corresponding amount of insects on a plate or the garden scene.

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