Related to their social studies unit on Governments, 5th grade EAL students have been reading biographies of two different leaders who have had major political effects, Thurgood Marshall and Barack Obama. They have been making connections between the lives of these two influential people and discussing cause and effect - how their actions affected others, and how the experiences of their early years affected their decisions and actions later in life. Students have been examining important academic vocabulary such as affect, effect, cause, experience, reason, and evidence through discussions of these biographies and by giving reasons and evidence for their opinions.
Related to their social studies unit on Governments, 5th grade EAL students have been reading biographies of two different leaders who have had major political effects, Thurgood Marshall and Barack Obama. They have been making connections between the lives of these two influential people and discussing cause and effect - how their actions affected others, and how the experiences of their early years affected their decisions and actions later in life. Students have been examining important academic vocabulary such as affect, effect, cause, experience, reason, and evidence through discussions of these biographies and by giving reasons and evidence for their opinions. 4th grade is working on their Medieval Times unit, and in EAL class we have been reading and writing non-fiction texts about Castles. Students collaborated to read about medieval castles and learned how to take notes while reading. Then they learned how to use their notes to write a summary of what they read. Come by our hallway to see our castle display in progress with students' summaries and captions about various important aspects of medieval castles. We have been reflecting on our learning and setting goals for ourselves; thinking and talking about where we are now in our English language development, and where we want to be; setting up plans for how we are going to get ourselves there. In our goal-setting conferences, we took a look at the WIDA EAL framework - the basis of our EAL program - to help us to think about where we are now, and where we need to get to. In class we are having discussions about this question: What do successful language learners do? Ask your child to tell you about our 'Chalk Talk', below. Here is a useful resource for adults: The Keys to Good Language Learning. Here is a kid-friendly version: The Keys to Good Language Learning - Kids |
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