This week in ELL!

The weather is now cooling down, Winter is slowly coming upon us!

It was wonderful to meet so many parents who have children in the ELL program at conferences last week! Although I was not able to attend every conference, I enjoyed the time that I had attending as many as possible and  meeting all of you :)

As we head into Thanksgiving week, here is a look at what the students have been doing in ELL:

Kindergarten: Kindergarten has been working on the Five Senses. We have done various activities including listening to sounds and responding to what we hear, playing I spy games to identify what we see around is and using our sense of touch to guess what objects are without looking.

First Grade: 1st Grade has been reviewing their Rocks unit. Last week, we discussed characteristics of rocks. This week, we sequenced the layers of the Earth and described characteristics of each layer. We are finishing this week by becoming geologists or "Rock Hunters" and identifying where our mystery rocks come from in the Earth! We also created a graph that shows where most and the least of our rocks come from.

Second Grade: Second grade has been differentiating between what is a fact and what is an opinion. We have used their reading anthology story, Johnny Appleseed to guide our discussions about facts and opinions. We have worked on identifying keywords (I feel, like, it seems, etc) to provide our opinions and stating them in complete sentences.

Third Grade: 3rd Grade has been discussing key terms related to government and has started to identify three key components of our United States History. We have been diving deeper into the Declaration of Independence, Revolutionary War, and Constitution and identifying how these three important events have constructed our History. This week, we read stories in partners related to these events and created a foldable that identifies at least one fact about each event.

Fourth Grade: 4th grade is also studying Rocks and Minerals. We have been reading stories and watching video clips that describe ways to test characteristics of rocks (hardness, streak, luster, color) and have identified what each of these properties represents. We created a foldable activity identifying facts and have also read different non-fiction stories to describe igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.

Fifth Grade: Mrs. Bennick and I have been working with 5th grade flex on fictional stories. Earlier this week, we read aloud a story and had the students fill in a graphic organizer identifying key elements to show understanding. Later this week, we read stories in small groups and discussed narrative elements within the stories (plot, setting and characters)

Next week is a very short week of school! May Watts will be off of school Wednesday, Thursday and Friday due to the Thanksgiving holiday!

As always, please feel free to contact me with any comments or questions :)

Happy November!

Here's a look at our first week of November in ELL!

Kindergarten: We have been working with the letter "t" and identifying words that begin with "t". Through various activities, we have also worked on identifying things that are "real and not real" (For instance, looking at real pictures of turtles and not real pictures of turtles.

First Grade: We are starting to talk about describing characteristics of rocks. Students have been working on singing songs that describe characteristics of rocks and also exploring rocks to identify their characteristics (shiny, sparkly, shaped, rough, smooth, etc) using their senses of sight and touch. Throughout the week, we will be working in partners to explore and describe the characteristics that we see in different kinds of rocks.  

Second Grade: We will be working on defining what a synonym means (same) and orally explaining different examples of synonyms. Students will be working in small groups to read, write and share their words with their small groups.

Third Grade: We are working on identifying and describing homophones, homonyms and homographs. Students have been working on developing their own vocabulary to differentiate between the spelling of words and their meanings. We have been working in partners this week to develop words and illustrations that connect with the meanings of each pair of "homophones, homonyms and homographs"

Fourth Grade: As we conclude our study of the American Revolution and the Northeast region, we are writing our own Immigration stories. Through discussions about immigration, fourth grade ELL students discovered that they are all immigrants from different countries including; Korea, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and different areas of India. Each student will be thinking about their immigration experiences, writing their story using visuals on a poster, and sharing it with the rest of the group!

Fifth Grade: With Mrs. Bennick's flex group, we have been working on studying the life of Roberto Clemente. We have discussed different aspects of his life and will be concluding this week with a timeline of major events that occurred throughout his lifetime.

Conferences are next week! Due to the large amount of students in the ELL program this year, I will be unable to meet individually with all families of each student due to the limited amount of available time slots. I will be trying to push in to as many conferences with general classroom teachers and will be available throughout various times of the day on Wednesday and Thursday. If you wish to have a meeting to discuss the progress of your student in ELL, please contact me as soon as possible to schedule a time to meet. Thank you for your cooperation!

Miss Lundeen