The Fly Swat Game
The fly swat game is very versatile. You can use it for spelling, academic vocabulary, math and just about any subject that requires students to identify a word, sentence, phrase, number or equation.
I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this game.
Here’s how we play it in my classroom. First, I divide the board up into two sides, a side for the boy’s team and a side for the girl’s team. Next, I assign a score keeper. The score keeper sits on a little stool off to the side and keeps track of the points.
On the board, I put up the vocabulary words we are studying or short sentences that focus on the grammatical skills we are building. I’ve even put up clocks to reinforce time-telling skills.
This is also a great game to play for test reviews and reinforcing vocabulary.
Literature Circle Response Cards
Literature Circle Reading Response Cards divide and chunk down the roles, so English Language Learners (ELL) can participate in Literature Circles in an authentic and meaningful way.
Literature Circles can be overwhelming even for native language speakers, but there is a way to get ESL students interacting with the text without having them freeze up in a panic.
Literature Circle reading response cards chunk down the roles in to manageable bite size pieces. I wish I could take credit for this one, but I happened to stumble upon it while browsing through the teacherspayteachers.com website.
While some of these TPT free worksheets may not be exactly broken down into chunk sized pieces, you can be the judge as to their usefulness in your classroom adapt them to meet your student’s needs.
Non-Fiction Reading Response Cards
Free ESL Simple Sentence Writing Worksheets
Sentence paterns make writing English a breeze.
Below are two free down loadable worksheets I put together for my first grade class. They are a mix of the three sentence patterns we have been working on this unit.
- _______ can ________ , but he/she can’t __________.
- Do you like _________________?
- Can you play________________?
Classroom Surveys
Classroom surveys are a great way to get your students speaking "authentic" English.
Amazingly enough, for the first time this year my first, second and third graders are all working on the same theme at the same time.
The worksheets I created are available for download. Just right click your mouse and click “save as.”
Fruit and Vegetable Class Survey – use this Word document to get the students speaking and writing English. Class surveys are always a hit. Just be sure to monitor them closely, to make sure everyone is using English. Typically, I have them write the sentences and that usually generates spontaneous conversations about spelling and grammar.
What Do You Want To Eat? – use this Word document to get students used to using new food vocabulary. You decide on which vocabulary words you want your students to focus on – the worksheet is divided up into categories. The students ask their classmates a simple question and they fill in the blank. I deliberately doubled it up so you can cut the paper in half and then have the students use their own notebook paper to write the sentences.
Free Prediction Worksheets
Prediction is a skill that every student needs to master.
Prediction is a skill that is on most standardized tests.
You can download a copy of the prediction worksheet that I whipped up for my class, below. I saved it as a Word document, so you can add additional columns/rows. It is best to use with picture books that are light on text. You can adapt it to go with any book you choose.
Below you will find links to other resources that contain lesson plans and worksheets all geared to mastering the fine art of making predictions.
Have Fun Teaching – links to a website that has some worksheets.
The Teacher’s Corner links to a page with a lesson plan that reinforces prediction skills.
Reading Rockets – links to a website that lesson plans and anticipation guide templates.
Making predictions about pictures – links to a pdf file.
First Lines- explains when and how to use this strategy.
The Reading Lady – links to a page with a list of PDF worksheets and Word documents you can download for classroom use.
Free First Grade PowerPoint
Students practice writing simple tense sentences using short, tall, fat, thin, young and old.
I’ve created a simple PowerPoint that focuses on constructing simple sentences. Click the link below to download. As always, all my PowerPoints are free.
Free Conjuction PowerPoint
Conjunctions are like box cars that link phrases, clauses and words together.
Below is a short PowerPoint I put together for my primary students on the proper use of using the conjunctions and, but, and or.
I created it specifically to compliment my Conjunction Junction mini-unit. You can check out the details here.
Conjunction Junction
Using School House Rock's Conjunction Junction is a really clever way to teach your students how to use and, but, or and nor.
Here’s a great little activity you can do with your intermediate level speakers.
Divide the class up into boys and girls. Teach them the lyrics to Conjunction Junction from School House Rock’s classic animated short video. It’s only about 2.14 minutes long, so it is totally doable, especially if you have to fit it into an assembly or some other school production. Since I’ve already divided the script up for you, all you need to do is teach them the song. It is a bit fast in some places and the girls seem to get all the easy parts, but if you closely work with the boys, I’m sure they will catch on quickly.
Be sure to coach them on the subtle intonation and inflection found in the song. Really have them listen carefully to the lyrics and encourage them to mimic the singers. Trust me, you don’t want them singing in a flat monotone voice for this production.
It’s lots of fun, especially when it comes to the part where the boys get to bellow out Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
You can download the video here.
School House Rock – Grammar – Conjunction Junction – this is the link to the song only.
An alternate source for the video can be found here.
An alternate source for the lyrics can be found here.
Mixed Up Sentences
Students learn how to unscramble sentences with these fun PowerPoint games.
Below are a couple of fun little PowerPoint games I put together.
It was written for students who struggle with sentence construction.
Since the mixed up sentences and answers are animated, you can stop and teach the grammar and/or reinforce proper sentence mechanics, but the main thing is that the students have fun learning English!