We just finished a unit on Sharing the Planet in Grade 1, where we basically focused on mini-beasts (invertebrates). One way we integrated science with literacy during this unit was by writing a pattern poem about a chosen mini-beast. I knew that my little ELLs will need a lot of scaffolding, so this is how it all went:

​1. We read a book about snails.

2. We co-created a mind-map to show what we learned about snails after reading the book. We used verbs to make sentences.

3. We summarised our learning individually.

4. We each chose a mini-beast and we brainstormed adjectives, adverbs and verbs that were describing our chosen mini-beasts. We created a mind-map for each part of speech. The names of mini-beasts and the parts of speech were colour-coded to match each other. Adjectives, adverbs and verbs were introduced through questions. 
Adjective: How are...?(Look)
Adverb: How do... move? (-ly)
Verb: What can... do? (-ing)

5. We introduced the poem pattern.

6. We drew our mini-beast. Then, we selected adjectives, adverbs and verbs that best described it, using a graphic organiser. Then, we wrote one or two poems following the pattern. We also edited them.

7. Finally, we published our poems.

So proud of my kiddos! 

I started the Grade 1 ESL unit on narratives with a visible thinking routine. At present, I am enrolled in the Visible Thinking course from Harvard's Project Zero, and I felt inspired. I wanted to bring the culture of thinking more visibly into my writing lessons, therefore I thought I would use the thinking routine See/Think/Wonder, as it is straightforward enough for my Grade 1 ELLs.
I chose a picture from the PM Readers book The Three Little Pigs, retold by Annette Smith to trigger observations and to help my little learners to generate thinking.

​See/Think/Wonder was a success with my little learners. Their response was enthusiastic and the depth of their thinking and questioning increased as the activity progressed. I scribed, and the fact that I added their names after each "I think..." statement or "I wonder..." question made them try harder and think deeper, in order to share more with their classmates. They made connections and shared many relevant comments as we were progressing through the activity, and their level of interest increased considerably as the activity unfolded. I was most pleased to see that all the students were very engaged and used English successfully to participate and to share their thinking. 

We read the story of The Three Little Pigs and The Gingerbread Man together and we looked at the elements of a narrative more in depth. We realised that each story has different characters, settings, problems and resolutions. We also learned that stories begin with Once upon a time... We wrote our own version of The Three Little Pigs during a session of shared writing. 
The excitement grew when it was time for each student to start writing their own narratives. I used The Storyteller's Writing Box from Lakeshore and each student got to choose 3 characters that were going to appear in their narratives. I did this to ensure that they were not going to re-write or copy a story or a fairytale that they already know, but to help them create original narratives. The Storyteller's Box is a a resource that I used many times and I highly recommend it for various learning situations, with different age levels.

I used the first graphic organiser to allow students to plan their narratives using pictures, and the second one for them to write the first draft of their stories. We edited them together for punctuation.

The process finished with the publication of our very first narratives in English! 

Very proud of my young authors!

In Grade 1 ESL we started our unit on Narratives with a thinking routine. We used I see/I think/I wonder to analyse a picture depicting the beginning of the story The Three Little Pigs. The kids showed great engagement and amazed me with their observations and their wonderings. I guess we're never too young for awesome thinking!

Chinese New Year is an opportunity for creation. We took advantage of this celebration to write poetry using our senses. It's amazing to think that these tiny English learners have never written a poem in their own language... Little minds are awesome!