Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog

Many of y'all know I'm a huge fan of dollar stores and finding little tools to invite into our instruction. Students love the novelty, and honestly- we need it, too! I love being able to walk through the dollar store and finding one random item- a pool noodle for example - and trying to figure out a fun way to bring it into the classroom to create an engaging learning experience! On a recent trip to Party City, I found this pack of " mini 3-in-a-row games " as party favors. I threw that in my basket SO FAST. It comes in a pack of 12 for only $4- which I thought was a great price! Kids of all ages love "mini" things - have you seen those "Mini Brand" toys at Target, Walmart, and Amazon? They're all over the place! It reminds me of my Polly Pocket days, and I know I would have LOVED those mini brand toys as a kid!  My brain started swirling with ways to bring this into classrooms, so here are a few that I thought of immediately!  Conversation Cat...

I know, I know. Skills are important. We worry a lot about the "summer slide" that researchers always want to warn us about. I get it. I used to spend a lot of time developing "summer packets" full of reading, writing, and math practice. Over the years, I started to shift a little bit in my mindset. So... If you MUST send home a packet this summer... please be sure to check out these touch points!  *Keep it optional, not mandatory: While skills practice is great, not all students will have the resources to be able to complete the whole thing. Plus, summer is long and packets get lost. We also don't want any students to panic during their final days of summer and sunshine and have to spend hours upon hours completing a packet to turn in, only to get a sticker or a paper certificate. Oof. We also don't want to punish students who are starting a brand new school year for a packet they didn't complete over their summer months. *Include blank paper to write, ...

 It's MAYYYY! This means a lot of different things to students and teachers. As many of us are starting to receive preliminary scores back from annual language assessments, I wanted to share a few templates that you may wish to use with students you serve! For any of these templates, they're all viewable. If you would like to EDIT any, please go to FILE & MAKE A COPY so you can tweak these to meet your needs!  Stems & Frames Goal Settin g: This doc has stems that are tied to Conditions Needed to learn, Goal Setting, and Action Steps. Celebrations & Reflections     This doc has stems for Celebrations, Maintenance, and Reflections Interpretive & Expressive Goals     This doc has stems and frames to set goals for interpretive & expressive language skills. Simple Template by Domain     This doc is a very simple template for a goal by domain. Last Year/This Year Simple Template by Domain     This doc looks like the one abo...