EL Happenings
Volume 2 Issue 2
STEM- High School Level 1
Mrs. Chance-Cook, Ms. Mayorga, and Miss Harmon all teamed up together for a week to bring the Maker Space movement to our ELs at Perry High! We used the Lego Education Curriculum to learn new content concepts and practice our oral language skills. This unit really reinforced the SIOP component, Practice and Application. The students had hands-on materials to practice their newly learned concepts and the time spent building and working with a partner required the students to speak, listen, and read.
Are you interested in how the Maker Spaces might work for your sheltered or EL classes? Reach out to the District SIOP Coach or to Jen Chance Cook, Technology Integration Specialist at jchancecook@perryschools.org
2nd Grade Reading
Mrs. Laptiste is an EL teacher at Clinton Young. Today students were working on reviewing story summaries by focusing on the parts of plot. After reading their own stories students were able to write on post it notes on a graphic organizer that helped them organize their story elements and flip them up to draw a picture. Using the post its as a foldable to organize their thoughts really highlights the SIOP component, Practice and Application. Students were given hands-on materials to apply the practice of their new content knowledge.
6th Grade Language Arts
Students in Mrs. Harper's Language Arts class at Southport Academy are getting ready to read a non-fiction text over Bats. Before reading, Mrs. Harper had the class review their predictions about the pictures and how the pictures can help them understand the text. Students used evidence from the pictures to complete their predictions. Then, students got into groups to preview the vocabulary of the article. Mrs. Harper sat with a small group of students who were using English and their first language to help them make sense of the new words. This type of support is the SIOP feature, Opportunity for Students to Clarify Key Concepts in L1 under the component, Interaction. Incorporating their first language is a celebration of linguistic diversity and their linguistic diversity is an ASSET in her classroom and across our township!
WIDA Access Test Prep
WIDA is committed to providing resources and support that will enable students to be comfortable with their ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 testing experience. They've developed documents and resources to help educators prepare students for testing. You can find all these resources and more by clicking this link. WIDA Preparing Students
EL Celebrations
Many teachers across our township went to the Wabash Valley EL workshops. Thank you for continuing your learning and supporting our EL students!
A small cohort of teachers across the township will be coming together to read Refugee by Alan Gratz. We will be discussing and exploring topics inspired by the book, how this impacts our classrooms, and how we can spread the good news in our buildings. Look and listen for these kind of opportunities in the future as we pilot this book club.
Georgina Mayorga- District SIOP Coach
Thanks for letting me learn alongside you! HAVE A GREAT FALL BREAK!
Email: gmayorga@perryschools.org
Website: http://www.perryschools.org/ell/
Location: 6548 Orinoco Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, United States
Phone: 317-789-3783
Twitter: @gschneidercoach