Fall is a great time to teach about changes. If you live in an area where the leaves change colors during the fall, this might be a new experience for English Language Learners that are new to the country. Apples and pumpkins are also popular fall themes. Here are some ideas for teaching about the fall to ELLs.

Study How Leaves Change

For young ELLs of all levels, and older newcomers they can practice colors, answering questions, and describing words as they study how leaves change color.  You can set up a simple science experiment to demonstrate why leaves change colors.

Study Apples and Pumpkins

You can integrate math and science topics by measuring, cutting apart, and weighing apples, pumpkins, and other fall foods. Students can practice using describing words, making predictions about the number of seeds or if the food will sink or float.

Read Fall Themed Books

You can use fall themed books for read alouds/mentor texts or highlight a section in your classroom library for students to read. Check out my recommendations for fall themed books for ELLs.

Integrate Fall Themes into Your Content

Here are some ready-made fall teaching ideas you can use with your ELLs.

Picture Writing Prompt Task Cards Fall

Looking for more writing prompts? Each photograph on these task cards is about a fall topic. There are three levels, with writing prompts, sentence frames, and a word bank.

Sight Word Practice

Help students practice basic sight words with a spring theme. They can practice reading sight word fluency strips. With the sight word puzzles, they match sight words with a sentence that uses the word.

Spring Parts of Speech Color by Code

Practice parts of speech with these spring themed color by code sheets. They come with illustrated vocabulary sheets which can also be used for speaking or writing about spring topics.

 

Picture Matching

Help early readers practice matching words and sentences using fall-themed sentences and vocabulary.

 

 

Context Clue Task Cards Spring

Practice using context clues with these fall-themed task cards. Each card has a simple sentence and a focus word.