Spring into ELD!!!

Spring is just around the corner so I thought it seemed fit to share a couple of ELD strategies focusing on our next blossoming season. An ELD strategy that I find extremely powerful and can be used at all grades is a pictorial input chart. A pictorial input chart is a chart that the picture has been already lightly drawn with a pencil. This can be done by hand, with an overhead projector or an Elmo. In my class we are learning about the parts of a tree. During the course of the lesson I use a darker marker to trace the picture as I am discussing the parts of a tree. This strategy provides your English language learners with hearing the words as you are giving them a visual by tracing the picture. Display the chart so the students can refer back to it when journaling or discussing the parts of a tree. The picture can be as simple or as detailed as need be. 

Another ELD strategy that I use is a T chart. In my class we are learning about living things vs. non living things. I make a huge T on a piece of chart paper. On one side of the T chart the students glued pictures from magazines of living things and the other side they glued pictures of non living things. These are also our essential science vocabulary words so I display the chart so the students can refer back to it when necessary. 

                     HAVE A GREAT SPRING VACATION!!!