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

Halloween Unit Resources for Kindergarten English Language Learners

Culture learning is the process of acquiring the culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures. It is a dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which engages the learner cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively.

http://www.carla.umn.edu/culture/resources/litreview.pdf

                                        Link to this resource:            http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Theme-Packet-for-English-Language-Learners-927211

                                           
These flashcards are great for teaching Halloween vocabulary.
I made the big cards so it is easy to introduce the new words to the whole class.  I also created the medium size cards which are a god resource for smaller groups. All visual learners can benefit greatly from this classroom tool.

Content: 20 vocabulary words (black and white and colored version, big flashcards and medium size) vampire,  Jack o' lantern, bat, witch, witch's hat, broom, haunted house, spider, Frankenstein, ghost, mummy, cat, skeleton, candy , broom, cauldron, candy corn, tombstone, bag, Dracula.

All Flashcards and all theHalloween resources portrayed here are sold at the Teachers Pay Teachers Store, a packet of 107 pages, everything comes in the black /white and colored version. 

Decorate the classroom! If you have your own classroom, hang up some Holiday decorations that your students can make using their creativity. You can hang a clothesline, or hang them up from the ceiling. These crafts can be used a learning opportunity as you can review the vocabulary words just by pointing to the crafts every day, instead of always reviewing with the flashcards.

As with technology evolving so fast, parents and teachers forget the benefits of coloring pages, so here´s one that I created. The coloring page will assist at having students focus on the task and concentration. Use it for reviewing colors by giving directions: The bat is black. Color the bat black. Then, have students give the coloring direction to the class. Don´t miss the practice of the hand eye coordination. Besides, psychologically speaking, the way the students color their page, can express how they feel.

Halloween Dominoes: play this game in class and have them participate in groups of 4 so they have to set the rules in English and practice taking turns .Many mental skills are at work when they have to find the correct piece to continue the game.

Practice patterns now , and later on the students will be able to identify the variety of spelling patterns in English.

Flap book. I was inspired to create this Halloween flap after one that I saw on the web many years ago. It is easy to make and adapt to your color word needs. Print out all the pages from the file and used them accordingly. I made the black and white version and the colored one.

LINK: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Bat-Colors-Flap-Book-927222

Read and read to your students. Their ability to read in English in the future will greatly depend on these reading  sessions during the preschool years that will build up their efficiency by  finding the necessary connections between the words , sentences and concepts .

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