Penguins and ELD

     This week I was teaching an ELD lesson that I wrote up after taking a Systematic ELD class. I was evaluated one day from my coach and it went well.  I wasn't able to teach the whole 5 day unit because I ended up getting sick.  I'm home sick today.  I went to work on Wednesday with a fever.  I don't know how I did that .  It helped that I had 7 kids absent.  It was more like a regular class with only 23 kids.


     The ELD lesson was using the book Penguins by Gail Gibbons as my mentor text.  I taught them about verbs looking at the action that penguins do when they move or do other things.  This was our first introduction to verbs.

     We continued a chart that we started on what we know.  This week we added what new learnings we knew using verbs.  Those are in pink on the chart.  I took pictures from a book called Busy Penguins that showed penguins doing things.  These were great illustrations for the students.  There were examples such as penguins bumping, penguin sleeping, penguins sliding, etc.  

     We used sentence frames to have the students partner up and share.  This is so good for the ELD students, as well as, the English students.  I think the students learned a lot about verbs.  

Penguins:  What We Know and New Learnings using Verbs

Sentence Frames using verbs
and adjectives

Since I've been out sick, I haven't been able to finish my 5-day plan.  It appeared the substitute yesterday didn't teach the writing part, which is the next step.  Today, they should have done a shared writing using these sentence frames and using verbs and adjectives.  Next week, we will finish by having each student write their own paragraph and putting it into a class book.

     Now, I need to start thinking about my next ELD lesson.  This quarter we are to teach Realistic Fiction.  I think I'll start an author study on Tomie dePaola, one of my favorite authors.  My third graders last year just loved learning about him.  He has so many wonderful books.  I think the first graders will like his books, too.  We read one book a week ago called Stagestruck.  It was great because Tomie got in trouble for not listening, a problem many of my students have.  I'm not sure which book we'll do next.  Maybe The Art Lesson.  That's always a good book!

     Well, I better get ready to go to Urgent Care.  My doctor is in Portland, an hour away.  I called yesterday and she told me to go to Urgent Care since she doesn't work on Fridays.  I hope they can give me some medicine.  I have a 3 day weekend and I don't want to be sick the whole time.