SUCH an important unit for ELL kiddos! I was shocked to see how little English Language Learners could express about the weather around them. Even the word "rainy" (as an ajdective) was a new one. As students in Washington State, they NEED to be able to talk about rain!
Here's our colorful weather word wall. Although the words are bigger than the kids can read, the realistic photos say it all. During Choice Time, the kids liked to use a whiteboard and copy the words down.
We had weather books where we wrote down the weather of the day for a week. We also recorded the types of clouds we saw outside on another page. We learned cumulus, stratus, and cirrus.
It's not a GLAD unit without chants! We did this to the tune of the Addams Family. Since the kids really couldn't snap, we clapped instead.
Little Big Book: A Cloud Story. I invented a story about a cumulus cloud who was lonely. He meets up with his friends and they party. But when they get close together, they get cranky, so they rain. Then the rain goes into the rivers, etc. Finally, the sun helps the tiny cumulus cloud suck up the rain again, and he gets big and fluffy again. It was short, sweet, and I drew all the pictures myself (nice thing about Kindergarten!) On the second day, I reread the story, but passed out Smart Cards. The Smart Cards were identical pictures from the book AS WELL AS vocabulary words from the story. Even if the words were too big for the kids, they had to listen to me read to figure out when they had to put their word up. It helped them practice their first sounds!
Here is the Narrative Input Chart on Day Two of the Cloud story. The kids all have cards and have to listen for their part of the story. They come up and stick their cards on the butcher paper quietly. After this is all done, they have to retell the story using the chart. WONDERFUL strategy for my ELL kids!
We also had an ENERGIZER to go with this! Every day, we practiced being fluffy cumulus clouds bouncing around the carpet. Then we would bunch together with our friends and rain. Finally, we stretched way up high to join the clouds again. Took about 1 minute and it bought me about 20 minutes of lessons!
Last, but not least, our cloud project. Students cut out clouds, stuffed them with crumpled recycle paper, and hung streamers from the bottom to look like rain :) Very cute all over the classroom.
