Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog

April Listing Prompts April Slide Deck for Teachers to use with students  (slide deck template from Canva) Things I do pretty well: Ways I can be a good friend, classmate, or teammate: Things I’m thankful for today Questions I’d ask the moon or the sun: Current favorite songs My To-Do list for today: My current favorite colors: Common fears that people have: Small things that bring me joy When I feel overwhelmed, I usually… When I am in this room, I usually feel…: Colors I might see in a forest Adults I feel comfortable with: Modern inventions I’m thankful for: Something I’ve learned in school that’s still on my mind: Questions I have for the universe: I enjoy learning about these things: Small moments that are BIG for me: My favorite parts of spring: My best habits are: Little mini-goals that I have for myself for the next 30 days: My favorite words or phrases: Things/moments/people that make me laugh Things I might see on a beach: I feel excited about…

Curious about the #EduListers Challenge? Click here to check out the first post in this monthly series ! March Listing Prompts March Slide Deck for Teachers to use with students Foods I enjoy: Characteristics in a friend that are important to me: Things I’m thankful for today Questions I have about the world Current favorite songs My To-Do list for today: Animals I’d like to snuggle with if it was safe to do so Things I am afraid of: Things that make me smile Things I need to remind myself of when I’m stressed My comfort shows/movies Colors I might see in a sunset or sunrise Places around the world that would be cool to see A list of celebrities/famous folks that I’d like to meet Things I love to talk about with my friends A list of folks that I’m happy are in my life today I enjoy learning about these things: Sounds that I am loving right now Ways I celebrate myself  Ways I celebrate others When it’s raining outside, I can… Things I know about myself Things I can do well: Things I’d l

 For information about the #EduListers Challenge, please check out the first blog post with a description of what this is, and how to use it for either yourself, AND/OR how you might use it with your students! So far, teachers have shared that they've done these either before/after test sessions, as a classroom warm-up, or for early-finishers for other content tasks! Keep it up and please keep sharing your ideas with me at carlymspina@gmail.com. Without further adieu, here's our list of 25 prompts for February!  February Listing Prompts February Slide Deck for Teachers to use with students  (pop this up on the screen for your students- one slide per prompt!) Things that Energize Me Lately Reasons I’ve Laughed Recently Things I’m thankful for today Things I did today Current favorite songs People who may need extra kindness right now Things I really love and appreciate in nature Fun words or phrases I like to say Ways I help people I love I feel most comfortable when… Things I

 If you know me, this may come as no surprise that I LOVE THE PUPPY BOWL. I have fostered puppies with my family for about ten years, so this televised event is one of my personal favorites every year. It may also come as no surprise that I designed an activity for students to accompany the puppy fun!  Check it out linked here!  It gives students the full lineup of the puppies, with a space for them to write a one-sentence bio. Of course, mix it up by going to FILE and MAKE A COPY and you can edit it to meet your needs! Working on descriptive language? Change it up so it's about listing unique adjectives as a language stretcher to describe each puppy!  Other possible variations:  *Pick 5 puppies to write a one-sentence-bio and pick one puppy to do a full paragraph biography!  *Pick one puppy and create a flyer to help this puppy get adopted (even though, in reality, by the time of the airing of The Puppy Bowl, all puppies will go home to their furever families)!  *Create their own

Schools are required to provide annual language testing. If you're in IL, we belong to the WIDA Consortium, so we take the ACCESS Test. This is time-intensive as it spans across 4 assessments, one each in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Your school's Multilingual (or EL, ELL, or ESL) Teacher is busy with scheduling each of these assessments, often across multiple grade levels. They have yellow boxes all over their spaces and testing tickets and student rosters and angry emails and tired students and they're just trying to keep their heads above water!  What really makes this season extra difficult is when teachers are trying to do all of this- plus their other duties - and their school is not supportive of the time, care, and energy needed. This is inequitable. ACCESS is a schoolwide assessment. It is a districtwide assessment. It is a school and district assessment, even if there are only a handful of students taking it! This means it must be supported by the wh

  One way to advocate for multilingual students and their families is to check in with your public library to see if they offer bilingual/multilingual story times! For some public libraries, they may have never been asked this question or even considered that this is a need. For public libraries that are doing this already, GIVE THEM A SHOUT OUT! Let them know how much you appreciate this offering!  You can even drop the above graphic into a DM or email, and keep it as simple as that!  For a quick script for this, consider this message (and just edit to suit your style/message)!  "Hello! My name is _____ and I teach _____ at _______. I love that our local library does so much in our community. I serve students across __(#)__ languages and I think it would be really great to offer a bilingual story time in _____ or ______. This came up in a conversation online recently and I think it would be a great addition to what our awesome library offers! I would be happy to promote it and sh