Grade 3 EAL Support

All my Grade 3 ELLs had to focus on practicing writing their persuasive argument piece. In all three classrooms the homeroom teachers and I prepared a lot of prewriting activities for our students. With the help of videos and songs we introduced the structure of the persuasive argument:

·       Both sides of the argument

·       Clearly stated opinions

·       Reasons for holding that opinion

·       Examples to support the reasons

·       Alternative view

·       Conclusions that are restated with enthusiasm

Our students had to practice oral debates, give various reasons for their opinion and share their thinking with the rest of the class. To scaffold the debates and persuasive writing I used opinion words and phrases  as sentence starters and introduced easy - to - read opinion pieces.

In Miss Lisa's  and Miss Michelle's classrooms we practiced giving reasons for opinions and again used our decision wheel while playing this game.

Final sharing of challenges the students had to face and decisions they had to make.

In my EFL class I supported my students in constructing their understanding of the persuasive argument and gave them time to practice providing reasons for their opinions. 

Samir shared his reasons for liking pizza.

It has also complemented the development of reading comprehension skills. We had practiced always supporting stated opinions with evidence from the texts of the stories.

After discussing with their partners the pros and cons of whether wild animals should be performing in the circus, my class took sides. With students divided into two groups, they took part in a spirited  Visible Thinking  debate called Tug of War .

Grade 1 In Class Support

Our students had a great week cooperatively developing their reading and comprehension skills in Grade 1. 

We read a book about moods and feelings with Miss Corey's class. After reading the story the students shared how they felt that day and continued creating  mini-books about their feelings.

In Miss Kelly's room we had a very productive home reading session. The students were supposed to reread to me the book that they had read at home and then choose a new one. It was exciting to listen to young readers and have brief conversations about the the characters, favourite parts, illustrations, etc.

After the books were read the children had to practice the word and spelling tasks related to their readings.

One of the tasks was to read "in their minds".

In Miss Rachelle's room we continued reading in groups. We used our mind maps that we created last week to scaffold the retelling of the story from last week. After that we reread the story and talked about the main character and other characters. I asked the children to choose their favourite character and explain their choice to me.

Miss Rachelle's boys felt very enthusiastic about our reading session.

Grade 1 In Class Support

We had a busy week in all three Grade 1 classrooms.

In Miss Rachelle's room we were testing our students and doing some reading activities. With my groups I read a big book "All Through the Week with Cat and Dog". I chose this book to revise the days of the week. After reading and discussing the book we played a memory game. All the students had a great time and were very enthusiastic about the story and made interesting connections.

We also read a book about after school activities and discussed what the children like to do after school. Working in small groups of 4-5 students gave each student a chance to share their ideas and opinions. 

I also used this time to give my grade one students a mini lesson  and talked to them about books with information (non-fiction) and books with stories (fiction). We shared our ideas about how we interact when we discuss stories. We practiced giving reasons for our opinions and listening actively to our peers. 

Miss Rachelle's students are discussing the story.

In Miss Carina's class I supported young writers. It was exciting to see how Miss Carina's students were experimenting with words, while attempting to explain why they like to do certain activities.

Kasper took time editing his writing and correcting his mistakes.

In Miss Kelly's class I observed lots of happy learners being very engaged in cooperative learning. The children had to work with partners and create faces with various facial expressions (happy, tired, sleepy, angry, surprised, etc.) out of play dough. When the face was ready they had to share with the teacher. The children were very creative and were making tears to go on a sad face and wrinkles to go on an old face.

Miss Kelly's students enjoyed this creative activity.

Grade 3 in Class Support

All my Grade 3  EELs practiced reading and thinking about the text this week. My students employed various reading strategies such as look back through the text; identify what the difficulty is; etc in order to complete the comprehension assignment prepared by the 
classroom reacher.

It was Jennifer's turn to read during our guided reading session.

When it was writing time Miss Claire's students were learning about speech marks and direct speech. 

It was raining the day before and all the paths in ISPP were full of creepy crawlers. 
Miss Claire thought it would be a good trigger for our kids' imagination and asked our students to create a dialog between a worm and a centipede. Needless to say the students had to practice using speech marks.
The plan worked and Mollymoon and KimVeng eagerly imagined the creatures and came up with a dialogue.

We all had lots of fun creating dialogues!

Grade 3 EFL Class

All this week we talked about our home reading programme with my Grade 3 ELLs. We discussed the importance of reading in their languages and in English. Together we shared strategies that my students employed to construct the meaning of the language and understand the main idea of the story. We read a Chinese story and I modeled thinking about the story and answering questions. I hope that after this session it will be easier for my students to create their home reading written responses independently.

 

Grade 3 EAL 

Team - Building and Problem Solving

I was thinking of a way to make it obvious for my students that it is easier to problem solve collaboratively. My idea was to adapt well-known team building games like Zoom or Go for Gold in such a way, so that my students will realize the benefits of cooperation with friends during decision making.

In the Go for Gold game traditionally teams have a common objective but different materials for building, creating, etc.

My goal was to make sure that my students are actively involved in the decision-making process. To reach this goal I modified the Go for Gold game by giving my students 4 different cards with a problem scenario as they worked in 4 small groups. However, the idea of the game was the same: they all had the common goal of solving the problem/making a decision, but they all had various resources as they had to work with different people. In the end, each group had to share their solution and explanation of the choice.

In order to scaffold this activity I did three things. First, I made sure that the scenario was described in easy language, as I wanted everyone to be able to participate. Second, the cards with the guiding questions (such as - What makes a decision necessary?; What are my options?; What are the consequences of each option?;etc) were on each table. We also discussed the language of the questions prior to the activity. Third, I prepared a Decision Making Wheel  to guide my students through the process and explained how to use it before the game.

I was closely observing my kids moving from table to table and was excited to see how they were feeding ideas to each other, thinking collaboratively and how it affected the final decisions in a creative way.

At the end of the class we traditionally shared our outcomes and reflected on the process in general. I was glad to hear some of my students saying that it was easier to make a decision with friends!

Jiun enjoyed participating in the group discussion and shared his choices.

After sharing some ideas and opinions in their small groups of three students, Maly and Tony enthusiastically started the conversation between the groups.

Grade 3 EFL Class

All my students were pretty enthusiastic about our decision making discussion.

To trigger their thinking we watched a video and discussed what was new for us in the video and what we learned.

After that we read a story that gave us some food for thought and discussed the decisions and actions of the main character. We talked about how one decision leads to another and why it is so important to think before we act and others are affected. 

Since moral values dictate our decision making process, I also thought that fables could be excellent to provoke discussions as the "moral of the story" is stated there very clearly. I may try to use fables next week.

In order to summarize all the thinking my students created a concept map that would show how one decision triggers another. My students had a choice of using the story we read for creating the concept map or they could use their own life experience as an example.

The bell rang when our concept maps were mostly ready. Next week we will share and discuss our maps. I am really looking forward to this class as I observed some of my students using their own life experiences and I can’t wait to hear their stories.

Kim Veng  and the  concept map he created. We will learn what it is all about on Monday.

Welcome Back to School!

I was looking forward to seeing all my students! 
Our first English as Foreign Language class on Friday with Grade 3 was truly special. All my students were bubbling with enthusiasm and eagerly shared their summer experiences and plans for the new year. We all met the new students and participated in fun team building activities. My kids had to draw their self portraits, describe themselves with 3 words and share what their favourite activity is.

The End of the Year Celebration

We had a fabulous year! Our learning journey with Grade 2 and 3 was full of wonderings and discoveries, challenges and fun. We learned about the world and people around us. We became better friends, effective communicators, principled and caring community members.

With every learning curve we realized that life is full of amazing and wonderful experiences and our learning adventure is never-ending and fascinating!

We will continue our inquiry process during this summer and then later in Grades 3 and 4. The best thing is that we are not alone in exploring the world around us - we are together with our parents, friends and teachers!

We are ready for Grade 3!!

Yes, we are a fantastic team!

Jade's chocolate cake was definitely the highlight of out  Gr 3 EAL party!

ENJOY YOUR SUMMER HOLIDAYS!!!