EL Support Lesson
All About Flowers
Objectives
Academic
Students will be able to write and/or illustrate informational sentences about flowers.
Language
Students will be able to identify and describe facts about flowers using visual and written supports.
Introduction
(2 minutes)
- Gather the class together for a read-aloud.
- Display a flower bouquet or picture of a flower. Display a visual of an eye with a sentence stem such as: I see________.
- Have students turn and talk to a partner to share their thinking.
Building academic language
Sentence
(5 minutes)- Explain that students will now get make observations, or look closely to see what they notice as they explore flowers with a peer.
- Model how to use sentence frames to share observations with a peer.
- Pass out 1 flower per two students and have students spend time using magnifying glasses and close looking to observe their flowers.
Word
(10 minutes)- Create a classroom anchor chart titled "Flowers" and post it on the board to add to and reference.
- Read aloud the text The Tiny SeedBy Eric Carle, pausing as you read to define new vocabulary words (using vocabulary cards and glossary) and placing the words on the classroom anchor chart.
- At the end of the book, use the Complete the Flower Fill In worksheet to review the parts of the flower.
Discourse
(10 minutes)- Bring students back together and show them the Jump Into Writing worksheet. Model how to choose one of the observations or facts from the book and either draw a picture of or write a sentence about flowers.
- Have students turn and talk to a partner to share the fact or observation they are going to write or draw about. Pass out the vocabulary cards for students to use as reference.
- Pass out worksheets for students to complete independently.
Additional EL adaptations
Beginning
- Work with a small group of students to use shared writing to create sentences about flowers.
- Read aloud an additional book about flowers to identify more facts about flowers.
- Provide access to vocabulary cards and a bilingual picture dictionary and have students label the different parts of the flower in English and their home language (L1). Record the parts of the flower as students say them aloud.
- Provide students with a partially completed worksheet during the discourse activity.
Advanced
- Have students work on the Complete a Flower Fill-In worksheet to practise identifying parts of a flower.
- Ask students to share their flower worksheet with a partner and quiz their partner on the names of different parts of the flower.
Formative Assessment of Academic Language
(5 minutes)- As students are making observations and sharing with their partners, assess how students are using the new vocabulary words. Are students able to connect the vocabulary words with their observations.
- Collect work samples and assess how students shared their information, were they able to stay on task and focus on relevent information about flowers?
Review and closing
(3 minutes)- Display student work samples and the visual of the eye here again and the sentence stem: "I see________." Invite 1–3 students to share their facts or observations with the class.
Related learning resources
Glossary: All About Flowers
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Vocabulary Cards: All About Flowers
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Vocabulary Cards: All About Flowers
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