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.