4H) Hands-on, inquiry-based experiences
Strategy Overview: Math Activities/Actividades for Teachers
This website offers twelve instructional activities for small group work or centers, across multiple domains of math. For example, opportunities for engagement with pattern-making, analyzing data, and creating and sorting with manipulatives. An English/Español tab at the top of the page provides access to all content in both languages.Read More
Video: Counting
In this videoclip Gustavo counts and organizes colored block manipulatives during play-based activity time in the preschool classroom.Read More
Video: Barrier Games
This video shows PreK students engaged in barrier games, a fun activity that builds speaking and listening skills.Read More
Strategy Overview: Conducting a Family Oral History—K-3rd
Everyone has stories that are worth sharing! This strategy deepens a child's knowledge about their heritage, makes use of their home language, and opens opportunities to share their stories with their peers.Read More
Video: Our Chicks Have Hatched!—A Home School Connection
The first clip of this video is a conversation between a parent and a child as they discuss a school project about chicks that have been sent home. The second clip shows how the school project was made in the classroom. Children interact with live chicks in the classroom while the teacher helps them identify and write the language they want to use to express what they have learned.Read More
Video: A Felt Board Story
This video clip shows two Multilingual Learners practicing content vocabulary in both Spanish and English as they reenact a chant they have learned in class. The peer interaction provides an authentic space for them to support one another with language development in a fun, meaningful hands-on activity.Read More
Video: Toy Animals
This video clip shows both English and Spanish-speaking teachers developing student content knowledge about animals through oral conversations. Students then paint animals using toys as examples and share knowledge about their paintings so teachers can write down what each child says.Read More
Video: Talking Together
This is a montage of songs and chants that multilingual children sing to practice the English language. Hands-on experiences help focus children on the meaning of the words they are learning.Read More
Video: Soyul & Teacher Yvette—Beginning a New Language
This video is a series of excerpts from the first months of preschool for Soyul, a Korean-speaking Multilingual Learner. The video showcases instructional moves that the teacher, Yvette, makes to teach English language development during Soyul's initial silent period.Read More
Early Childhood Examples and Definitions for Multilingual Learners
This document illustrates how to integrate concrete representations, realia, and objects from home to support oral language and vocabulary.Read More
Resource Guide: Barrier Games
This is a list of resources for barrier games to use in the classroom. These games are designed to encourage oral language practice since one student is given information that another student needs.Read More
Digital Book: Developing Oral Language with Barrier Games
Barrier games are designed to promote oral language since one student is given information that another partner student needs. The lesson design encourages students to ask information of one another. This resource provides many example barrier games.Read More
Curriculum Units: Mosaic Integrated Science, Math, and English Language Development
These are example curriculum units that integrate content learning with English language development. The units offer many instructional ideas to help teachers plan authentic, hands-on tasks for Multilingual Learners, and provide intentional context to practice content-based English language.Read More
Strategy Overview: Fractions, Factors, and Functions, Oh My! Are My ELs Attaching Meaning to Math Words?
This guide helps teachers plan meaningful activities to make math accessible, hands-on, build on students' prior knowledge, and be language-focused. In these resources, teachers can read about the dos and don'ts of math vocabulary instruction for Multilingual Learners.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Integrated Thematic Unit – 3rd Grade
This video provides a rich opportunity to look inside a classroom and note the intentional supports for English language and literacy development embedded in a thematic unit of study. The teacher implements a Daily 5 structure, which allows Multilingual Learners to learn both academic language and content across multiple modalities and learning activities. The accompanying guide suggests moments in the video to pause to notice teachers’ practice, along with prompts for reflection and discussion.Read More
Strategy Overview: Dramatic Play & Researcher Center
This resource describes how to implement dramatic play and researcher centers in classrooms with Multilingual Learners. Centers are tied to the thematic content of a unit and provide children with the opportunity to engage in hands-on, inquiry-based experiences that give content and language meaning and purpose.Read More
Strategy Overview: Gallery Walks
In this culminating activity at the end of a thematic unit, posters and student work are displayed around the classroom while children guide family members, teachers, or peers through the room, explaining the concepts they've learned. The opportunity to explain concepts to visitors gives children an authentic purpose for using language and demonstrating their knowledge.Read More
Video: Home-School Connection and Projects
Opportunities for curriculum-based learning at home help build relationships with families and support language development for Multilingual Learners. This video showcases an example of a home-school project presentation in a preschool classroom where educators provide high-quality extended talk in multiple languages and provide hands-on, inquiry-based experiences.Read More
Video: When and What to Support in Home Language
This resource discusses how to reinforce target words and provide language-rich experiences to help give language meaning and purpose. Teachers can support content learning throughout the day by previewing concepts in the home language to activate and build background knowledge.Read More
