Quote of the Day

Student reading from textbook: "Protein builds muscle, skin, and international organs."

Only in the ESL room do students have "international organs!"

ESL Family Literacy Nights: Round 1

While I was at Butler University for a class on writing this summer, I decided to drop in on a graduate student's presentation on Family Literacy Nights. She totally sold me on the idea, and last night, several months (and tears) later, we held our very first one! Three Wednesdays this month, we will be hosting these classes for parents AND kids to come together, learn a new technique, and take home some tools AND books! We have classroom teachers leading the first two lessons to help make that connection between ESL and the mainstream classroom. Below is the outline for the month.

 Oct 6: Making Connections (Aynsley Small: 1st grade teacher)
    - send home magnets with the 3 types of connections and illustrations of them all
    - one culturally-relevant bilingual book per child
Oct 13: Asking Questions (Sarah Ashton: 5th grade teacher)
    - send home bookmarks with brief notes on when/how to ask questions
    - one bilingual English classic per child
Oct 27: Reading in a Foreign Language (Sarah Steele: ESL teacher)
    - send home something with elements of a story on it
    - one English-only book per child
    - give each family photo of them happily reading together


Here's what each night looks like within itself:

1. Explain focus literacy skill and procedures.
2. Have parents observe a teacher modeling that skill to their children.
3. Split into family groups and practice the skill.
4. Regroup to review the process and discuss any remaining questions.
5. Pass out tool.
6. Give one book per child to practice this skill at home (each of the 3 nights!).
7. (The following week, we would start with a recap of the previous skill and what parents noticed as they practiced that skill with their children.)

Now that I've bored you to tears with all the gory details, how about some photos (almost 50 ppl last night!)?

One of our middle schoolers joined her family for this night!

Somehow, I think one of these kids is not an actual member of this family!

Aynsley Small and Imelda Salyer made a dynamic presentation team!
(P.S. Can you see the screen? Hurray for doc cams!)



Modeling

Practicing making connections

 



Choosing free books--provided by
the Warsaw Education Foundation!

The magnets they got to take home

A Formal Debate

This week's topic was Child Interpreters. Of course, we read from Jorge about his experience being a child interpreter. Then we split into two groups and played "Fact & Opinion." Both groups read an article about the topic--one stating why it's so important and the other discussing a law about barring children from interpreting for their parents (specifically in medical situations). Then we had a word war. (Boy, were the kids excited about war!) Each student read one fact from their article and then stated their opinion about that fact. It was quite the heated debate!

My Name is Jorge

Jane Medina is an author--one of my favorite bilingual authors! One of her books is written from the perspective of an elementary Mexican newcomer named Jorge. Of all the characters in all the books in all the world, Jorge is my all-time favorite.

We begin each week with some Jorge Time. I always start with "My Name is Jorge," as names are a great place to get to know kids. During that same week, Imelda and I read "T-Shirt" (they both deal with mispronouncing names). We do lots of different things involving these poems, but this year, we also decided to have kids do some recording. Here is "T-Shirt" in English and Spanish.

JorgeName_English.wav
JorgeName_Spanish.wav

(Try hitting "play" first before downloading. If that doesn't work, you can download them for free; you just have to sign up. I've previously used a website that had the player right in my blog post, but I can't seem to find it right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!)

Hank's Tattoos

Welcome to Hank's Tattoo Shop!

I'm Miss Star, one of the artists here.

And this is Senorita Estrella, our other artist.

Here's our design process:

Step 1: Take notes on another person's values.

Step 2: Design a tattoo uniquely for that person.

Step 3: Write a paragraph describing how this tattoo "represents" (key word!)
your partner and present it to them in front of the class.

Goodbye, Reading Buddies!

What a great relationship we had between Lakeview's 8th grade Reading Buddies this year and our 4th grade ELLs! Here are two final letters from our 8th graders to our 4th graders.

"We found it in the text!"

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest places--like reading comprehension texts, for example.

As we're preparing for ISTEP (yes, we're doing ISTEP prep :-/), one of our main foci is reading comprehension--understanding what you've read and what they're asking. This particular article was on Sammy Sosa's life in the Dominican Republic (before he signed his contract) and in the States (after he signed his contract). The prompt was to compare and contrast his life before and after. Here's what I got the first time around:

"He was poor. He was unlucky. He wasn't famous.

He was rich. He was lucky. He was famous."

Okay, all right, um...not good enough. In fact, downright BORING!

We went through the article again, this time equipped with a highlighter (the ISTEP-approved kind, of course). I asked them to read it to themselves and highlight any words or phrases that described Sammy's life before, and then after. What a different response I got! We ended up just listing them at first because there were so many!

"Hungry. Poor. One-bedroom apartment. Dirt floor. Sold oranges. Rocks=baseballs; sticks=bats; milk carton=glove......Lots of money. Generous (gave $ to mom). New bicycle. New house. Famous. Hero." Etc.

Every time they came up with a new one, I would ask them: "Did you just make that up??" And I forced them into this response: "No, Mrs. Steele. I found it in the text!" Then I let them autograph my Sammy Sosa paper. Everyone was able to find at least one thing. I took it home that night and framed it. It was too good to just throw away. It's on proud display in my classroom right now. And every time a child asks what it's about, one of my boys proudly explains their first step to comprehension fame. :)

Hey, we know that!

We have Guided Reading groups with 4th, 5th, and 6th grades, and we love them! With my 5th graders, we are reading a young adult version of Benjamin Franklin's biography. Our vocab word yesterday was apprentice.

I'm also in their social studies class. Their textbook vocab word today? Apprentice! On the same page as the word was a mini bio on Ben Franklin, and on the next page was a photo of candle-making, which Ben helped his dad with as a child!

I look around the classroom during social studies to see if any of my students make the connection. They do! Diego makes a signal to Alejandro, who then turns around and points to me. I look at Hector who is smiling at the other two boys. They were so excited to already know what the class was just discussing! How cool!

Poem for Two Voices

Went to the Intesol Conference in Indy this weekend. Was phenomenal! Best one I've been to yet! One great activity that we did was in Katie Brooks and Maggie Robillard's presentation--we wrote a poem for two voices. While I'm an avid poem writer, I've not yet tried this type. I worked with two inspirational writers/teachers; here's what we came up with:

Social Studies Class

by Denise Anderson, Ana Arroyo (both IPS School 15), and Sarah Steele

I sit every day                                    I stand every day

listening                                                talking

                                                                 About American ideals

About America's ideas

                                                                 The Founding Fathers

They found padres?

I'm lost                                                  My students are lost

Here we go again                               Let's try again

I have a question                              Shh!

                                                                 We have to get through this lesson

But, but who are the padres?      THE   F OU N D ING  FAA THERS

But                                                          You're interrupting

Stop!                                                       Stop!

3rd Grade Has a Love of Reading!

Our 3rd graders have been practicing their fluency, expression, and voice with one book-of-choice this whole week. Today was the culminating event. They read their book to a captive audience (one to two partners). We had laughter, magnificent reading, and beautiful smiles all around!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6th Grade Gives an Award!

The 6th graders recently finished reading Mary McLeod Bethune, a book about a first-generation free black woman and her mark on how the United States of America treats other black people. Very inspiritational! So much so, in fact, that we decided to each honor one teacher with the Mary McLeod Bethune Award. Mrs. Ingold (now Sasso), Mrs. Nash, and Mrs. Wade were among the honored recipients!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I honored my 6th grade math teacher from Otsego Baptist Academy.

4th Grade Play!

Our 4th graders put on a play called Clever Ana and the Giant. It's about a giant who demands certain parts of the crops and how Ana tricks him every time. Pretty soon, he gives up and goes away! Here are some pictures of the event.

REHEARSING WITH THEIR GROUPS

"Hee hee!"

PERFORMING THE PLAY

listening

THE BEAUTIFUL TEACHERS :)

Hope you enjoyed the pics! I know we enjoyed the play!