This week I helped out with the preschool lesson taught by Julia and Kayla that wrapped up the five senses that were being taught in depth in the weeks prior. I was in charge of the station that reviewed the sense of hearing. I had a computer with many different sounds and I played them for the small group of students that I had that came to my station. I then had the students guess what sound they heard. Some of the students were able to get it and others were a little clueless. I think that these teachers did a wonderful job of reviewing the five senses for these students and they were able to understand the different senses that they have and can use for different things.
My goal for working with ELL students is to be able to successfully accommodate ELL students while working with them. During this lesson while I was working with them, when they were struggling with the different sounds that might have been unfamiliar to them, I provided them with some hints as to where they might hear these different sounds that they could make connections to or might even be familiar with. I know that even though they should all know what the sound of thunder sounds like a lot of them thought that it sounded like a train! This could be due to the fact that the students could live close to a train and hear it all the time because they do sound similar. There was also the lion roar that they struggled with. In order to help them out with this one, I had them think of a time they were at the zoo or maybe say a video or picture of zoo animals. This way they could make connections even if they have never seen an actual lion or heard it roar before. I was also able to accommodate some of them by using the Spanish word for some of the sounds that I knew and I was able to use the help of some of the students to help out the other students who were struggling. While the teachers did not plan it this way, most of the time there were students who were more dominant in the group and liked to talk more paired with a student who either did not talk as much or did not speak a lot of English. This way the students were able to help each other. I tried to make them feel welcome as well because this should be another great goal of working with ELL students. In order to accomplish this I made sure that each of the students knew what my name was and I asked that theirs were. I also tried to use their names during the small amount of time that they were with me. This might be good to do with pictures that were native to the students so that they were able to choose the picture that goes with the sound they hear, they might be able to get these better than if they just had to come up with the name of the sound. Being able to accommodate these students and make them feel welcome even in the small group that they are in is also bringing me closer to becoming a more culturally responsive teacher.
Overall I think that both the students and the teachers did a wonderful job with this lesson. They were able to learn from this and interact and keep the students engaged well. They were also able to utilize the extra teachers that were in the room to have them help teach, monitor and observe the students.
Here are some different activities that can be done with students to help with learning about sound (since that is the station that I was at) especially ELL students:
http://www.prekinders.com/what-makes-sound/
http://mamierecette.canalblog.com/archives/2010/02/13/16894850.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Five-5-senses-foldable-science-station-center-cut-paste-sort-kindergarten-ESL-448670
Exceeds: I wrote over 500 words and I included helpful links.
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