It’s important to be prepared ahead of time to meet the needs of all learners, right? Before I get any further with this post, I know what you are thinking. It’s “That’s all well and good but I just got a student in my class who speaks x, y, z and I have no clue what they can do!” How do I know this? It’s because I’ve been there myself. I never want a student to put their head down because they don’t understand what’s going on and I feel overwhelmed. And obviously utilizing some Google translate services to be able to communicate with a child who doesn’t speak English is kind of essential. Be prepared ahead of time with an app or website. See the resource list in the last post in this series!

      It’s a good idea to keep a set of picture cards with clues for things like bathroom, water, hungry, and sick that the child can point to as well. At a former school the ELL department had newcomer kits ready with English dictionaries and some basic phonics puzzles. Those picture cards would be a perfect addition to a kit like that. You have to make sure the whole child is cared for before you get into academics.

Newcomer Kit Ideas

  • Basic Dictionaries (such as Spanish/English or one with lots of pictures)
  • Phonics Puzzles
  • USA Map Puzzle (Check Dollar Tree)
  • Set of Communication Cards with picture cues for basic needs
  • Math manipulatives such as tangrams and templates for them
  • Tablet if possible, audiobooks, etc.
  • Basic reference sheets with colors, numbers, days of the week, and months (if possible with the translations)
  • Basic Sight Word Printables
  • Pictures of people, animals, etc. the student could write about in their native language
  • Bilingual Books
  • Basic School Supplies
  • Coloring Sheets

     I have some suggestions for basic anytime activities that English Language Learners can do. Therefore your “in case of educational emergency, saving grace.” I’ve even got a way to relate them to general social studies standards in case anyone asks. There are general mapping, citizenship, geography, and timelining (may not be a word but is now) skills that are an embedded part of anybody’s curriculum.

     If you need to have something as an assessment, guess what you can use for anecdotal evidence? Whip out that phone and snap a picture. Boom. Create a Google Drive folder with the child’s name on it and just start snapping pictures of the child performance tasks as a form of assessment or even videos of them speaking. Assessments for ELLs, or any child, do not always have to be paper and pencil. This is especially true for Level 1 students. Listening and speaking skills develop first in a new language.

    1) You could start with having the student draw a picture or write in their native language about their home country as a way to teach you and the class. If the child speaks a language that none of the other children speak, nor do you, just have them draw.   *When you get a student who is new to the country you never know what their background is like. They may be coming as a refugee, therefore you need to be especially sensitive and follow up with an expert at your school. In this case having them communicate about their home country may not be a good idea.

   2) Now let’s move on to another anytime idea. The first thing to know if you’re new to a country is to learn the land itself. So why stress? Factor in some very basic puzzles! You can get United States puzzles at the dollar stores or a garage sale. Even if your curriculum is world history, learning basic geography is going to help the child.

Extend the puzzle idea (especially for younger students) and have them do a world continent puzzle and help them find the U.S. in comparison to their home country (or family’s country of origin). Start with a wooden puzzle and then move on to paper/pencil and having the child copy the names of their country and the U.S./your state.

3) More basic U.S. Geography ideas: Take a printable map of the US and cut out the shapes. Have the child glue the states in the right place. I have included a blank printable map and one in color in case you need it with the extra resources! It’s located with the bonuses. Get a set of States and Capitals Flash Cards (or just states, make them self-correcting or let child use with an answer key). I have seen these in the Target Dollar Spot. Geography Games online/apps are always a good option. My students loved the Stack the States game especially! I have LOTS of sites and apps pinned on my geography board on Pinterest. Click here to check it out: https://www.pinterest.com/runitrunnels/geographymap-skills/

4) Now let’s get into U.S. landmarks. Obviously students who are new to America aren’t as familiar with the iconic landmarks we all know and love!  Find coloring sheets, puzzles, books, etc. about them. The Statue of Liberty would be a great place to start. Each landmark has a link on the National Park Service site: https://www.nps.gov/index.htm.

One year I made an interactive bulletin board involving landmarks. I ended up turning that into the Landmark iSpy series of resources in my store. I found a really helpful website when I was making the bulletin board and iSpy cards. It’s called Amerifo, which took me a few minutes to process was America+info.

 5) You know that stockpile of holiday worksheets and filler activities you have? Well, guess what? You can bet come February 2nd, lots of kiddos are a little confused about the little rodents we call groundhogs and why we have a holiday for them! Even if students celebrate Christmas in their culture, the way it’s celebrated in America is unique. So teach your newcomers about American holidays, both patriotic and not! 

6) Another idea would be to give the student a primary source picture and have them describe it in their language orally or write about it depending on their level and literacy skills in their home language. As their acquisition level increases, you can give them a word bank or sentence frames.

7) You can also find audiobooks or even a recording of your textbook for the student. There are also multiple websites with interactive books online. While they are listening  have them draw a picture about what they hear or write down words they know. If they are a higher level ELL you could have them write a few sentences.

8) Another idea would be word searches. Even if they cannot read the words they can still recognize the letters and match the letters from a word bank into the word search. You could give them 3-5 words to find to start with. Build one using vocabulary of it’s appropriate for the child. You could even create one with classmates’ names because being part of a community is part of citizenship, right? I always used Puzzlemaker to create word searches. It’s free and you don’t even have to create an account. You could even get a responsible, detail-oriented kid (spelling is rather important in this case) to create them.

9) Dot to dot pictures of landmarks or historical figures would also be an “anytime” idea. There are sets of these with American history themes available on Amazon. I did find a website where you can create them yourself, too! Haven’t tried it out myself too much.

10) I created a differentiated set of activity sheets for English Language Learners about some of the founding fathers. It essentially goes from a basic coloring book to having kids write a few sentences. This is a way that the child can get involved and not feel excluded, no matter what age level. I have had several high school teachers purchase this resource.  You could make these for your content.

Here is a link to the resource: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Differentiated-Book-of-Important-Early-Americans-for-ESOL-2347414

    If you want to use this idea and create your own look for black line clip art images on Teachers Pay Teachers or on Google images (personal use only of course) to use as coloring pages. I made my set in PowerPoint. Help the students search through a book or online to find an actual photograph of the figure when they are coloring so at least they’re putting that into context and it’s somewhat historically accurate.

Check out the rest of the blog series here:

This blog post is based on the ideas from my e-book! Check it out by clicking the picture.

ebook cover image