St. Patrick’s Day is coming up quickly and you’re probably ready with empty shoe boxes, gallons of glue and green glitter and STEAM ideas to share with your young students. It is a magical day or week filled with wonder and hopes of catching the sneaky little mister making a mess of the classroom and maybe finding his pot of gold too! What a fantastic and whimsical day!
But, you know me…I’m always trying to find another way to add in a language focus to help English Learners build vocabulary and language structures to participate in class and move their skills forward. So, of course St. Patrick’s Day wouldn’t be any different!
One of my favorite activities is drawing and labeling- seriously, draw it and label it. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s impactful the three “big components” in every lesson. And, it can be taken from a whole group activity, and reprocessed individually in a journal and even used alongside a presentation. My students love this language practice activity, no matter the theme.
In this case make a drawing of a leprechaun or a leprechaun trap like the one below and have your students label it. If you are in distance learning they can record a video presenting their work and showing their diagram on Seesaw, Flipgrid, or other.
It is simple:
- Draw as you talk
- Label your pieces as you go
- Have student repeat the labels/ vocabulary words
- Have students create their own or give them a copy of your drawing without the labels- allow them to label and color and present to their team, Seesaw video, class or to their parents as homework.
Students can use the language and diagrams from speaking and writing. The words can be used in sentence frames to support those with more trouble grasping the language or how to use it correctly. It a simple and yet immersive way to add in language focus to your themed lessons. It also leave plenty of room to expand it to future writing and speaking for example, If you were a leprechaun what would you look like?” Draw, label, and record yourself explaining your diagram.
Enjoy this activity,
Lizzy
