
Fall Teaching Ideas for MLs
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.
Create text sets with longer articles and books that you read to students and short passages and books that they read independently or in groups. Having a theme will help students learn new vocabulary words. They will hear the words in the more complex text that is read aloud to them. Then as they are reading independently they will have background knowledge of the topic.
Study How Leaves Change
Students 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.
Why Do Leaves Change Color and Fall in Autumn?– Kid News
So Colorful Time for Kids
Study How Animals Change
Animals begin preparing for winter in many parts of the world during fall. Students can read about individual animals, write about animals, and compare and contrast different animals or animals and people in the autumn.
Articles
A Fox for all Seasons– Ranger Rick
Autumn Animals– National Geographic Kids
Animals Prepare for Winter– Forest Preserve
How do Animals Know What Season it is?– Ask a Biologist
Fascinating Ways Animals Prepare for Winter– National Geographic
A Time of Change– Time for Kids
Animals Get Ready– Readworks
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.
From Seed to Fruit– Time for Kids
Amazing Apples– Time for Kids
Fall Harvest– Time for Kids
All About the Apple Emergent Reader and Decodable Books
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 activities 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.
Fall Bingo
Practice autumn vocabulary and letter sounds with this fall bingo game.
Fall Parts of Speech Color by Code
Practice parts of speech with these fall themed color by code sheets. They come with illustrated vocabulary sheets which can also be used for speaking or writing about fall topics.
Fall Picture Matching
Help early readers practice matching words and sentences using fall-themed sentences and vocabulary.
Compare and Contrast Task Cards Fall
Give students practice comparing and contrasting with autumn-themed topics. The fall compare and contrast task cards are a fun way to introduce comparing and contrasting before practicing the skill in books.
Context Clue Task Cards Fall
Practice using context clues with these fall-themed task cards. Each card has a simple sentence and a focus word.