The Mitten – Activites, Lesson Plans and Ideas
The Mitten, by Jan Brett is an excellent book to read with your ELL students during the long Winter doldrums that continue on after the return back to school from the long holiday break.
I’d like to give my friend Miss Christie a special shout out for reminding me about what a fabulous resource Jan Brett’s book, The Mitten is for ELL students.
The main reason I like The Mitten is because it’s the perfect Winter themed activity that is great to use during the January/February doldrums.
The sites I’ve included below, contain lots of activities, lesson plans and ideas that you can use in your classroom.
Jan Brett’s Site – Includes some really cute PDF printouts that you can use to have the children retell the story while they “tuck” the animals inside the mittens.
The Animals that you can tuck inside the mitten.
Vocabulary Director & Word Detective Literature Circle Response Cards
Literature Circle response cards help students focus in on their task without overwhelming them.
I cruised through my little stash of literature circle resources and decided to condense them into a mini version of some of my favorite literature circle worksheets.
It’s a work in progress…
Vocabulary Director and Word Detective Response Cards - This page contains two vocabulary cards.
The first one is for the Vocabulary Director job. The instructions are below.
While you’re reading, write down at least four words that are new to you. Write down the page number, the paragraph and line you found it on. Write the word and the definition that best fits the sentence. Record the information in the space provided on the cart below. Your next task is to come up with a presentation plan. How will you present it to your group? Will you challenge your group mates to a race to see who will find the word first? Be creative!
The second one is for the Word Detective. The instructions are below.
While you’re reading, write down at least four words that are new to you. Write down the word and the word origin. Does the word contain any Greek or Latin root words? What is the meaning of the root word? Find the definition that best fits the sentence. Record the information in the space provided on the chart below.
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 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.