ESL Nonfiction Bundle - History, Independent Reading and Powerful Paragraphs!

Treat your students to an in-depth dive into the story of The Mayflower, the complex history of the first Thanksgiving and the mystery of Roanoke.

Improve their writing skills, with the Powerful Paragraphs bundle of five lessons designed to get them writing at a higher level.

Let them loose with a versatile nonfiction independent reading project, and a super fun series of projects for beginners on clothes and food.

All of these activities are designed to be fun, engaging and make a meaningful difference to improving your student's abilities and knowledge.

This bundle contains many weeks of high quality materials. Check out the detailed previews for a full overview. Note all materials are for PDF/paper/TPT Easel and a few are for Google Drive.

__________________________________

US EARLY COLONY HISTORY UNIT

This is perfect for any time of year, but will be especially good as a multiple-week lead into Thanksgiving! Treat your ELLs and lower level readers to the story of early settlements in the U.S. in these colorful accessible units.

Around Halloween experience the spooky mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Then take your students on board the cramped conditions of the Mayflower. Finally experience the tragedy and triumph of the Pilgrim's colony at Plymouth and witness the majesty and help of Squanto that led to the first Thanksgiving.

The Mayflower. ESL Beginner Plus Unit. Lesson Plans. Reading. Fun!

Introduce your ELLs and lower-level readers to the incredible voyage of the Mayflower in this colorful, fun multi-part text. Perfect for the 400-year anniversary in November 2020! And a great lead-in to Thanksgiving!

This key moment in social studies, prior to the establishment of the Plymouth Colony, is brought to life with an accessible illustrated text that clearly explains the core ideas including:

• Who were the Pilgrims?
• Why did they come to the New World?
• What made their voyage so difficult?
• What was the Mayflower Compact and why was it important?

In addition to the text, you get a ton of activities, including a timeline, a vocabulary quiz, writing exercises, analyzing primary and secondary sources, a story grid, and even a word search. You also get five days of lesson plans, with standards.

Check out the preview to get the idea!

The PDF can be printed, or works on the TPT digital platform for sharing via Google Classroom.

Total Pages - 27 pages
Answer Key - Included
Teaching Duration -1 Week

Pilgrims, Plymouth, The Last Patuxet & The First Thanksgiving. Full ESL Unit.

Introduce your ELLs and lower-level readers to the incredible story of Squanto, the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims in the New World in this colorful, fun multi-part text. Perfect for the 400-year anniversary in November 2020!

This key moment in social studies details the establishment of the Plymouth Colony. It is brought to life with an accessible illustrated text that clearly explains the core ideas including:

• What was the Mayflower Compact and why was it important?
• Initial explorations and encounters with Native Americans.
• The Patuxet Tribe.
• The legend of Plymouth Rock.
• Difficulties in settling, given the winter and unexpected conditions.
• First contact with Native Americans.
• Massasoit and Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe.
• The peace between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans.
• The First Thanksgiving.

The text is carefully researched and written to be accessible to beginner ESL students and up. Please check the preview to make sure it looks right for your students.

In addition to the text, you get a ton of activities, including a timeline, a vocabulary quiz, writing exercises, analyzing primary and secondary sources, a story grid, and even a word search. You also get five days of lesson plans, with standards.

Check out the preview to get the idea!

The PDF can be printed, or works on the TPT digital platform for sharing via Google Classroom.

Total Pages - 32 pages

Answer Key- Included

Teaching Duration -1 Week

Roanoke, The Lost Colony Mystery. ESL Social Studies. Vocab. Activities. Fun.

Voyage to The Lost Colony of Roanoke with your class! Build background knowledge in ESL or ELA class or give your ELLs something exciting to do in Social Studies!

Product Description

Beginner English language learners are crying out for stimulating texts to develop their reading and language skills. These texts are hard to find. 

This story is part of a collection of high interest material specifically designed for ENL, ELL and ESL students. It is short enough for beginners (at a two page reading) yet contains meaningful content and exciting activities that are sure to provoke discussion.

Note: There is also a specially formatted Google Classroom version of this resource.

This Article
It starts with a mystery -- what happened to the colonists. Then it describes how the Roanoke colony was founded and why John White needed to leave his family behind to leave for England. It ends with the famous perplexing clue left on the tree and asks students to inference what could have happened.

It contains images by John White, allowing you to teach primary and secondary sources.

You get:

• A five page base handout for students (not including additional graphic organizers and activities).
• Activities based on the reading, including multiple choice, drawing pictures, sentence writing, skits, timelines.
• Ideas for teachers — what to do before reading, during reading and after reading, including suggested aims.
• Two graphic organizers for retelling the story as a comic.
• A portrait frame graphic organizer (to teach people from history) with text detail boxes.
• A t-chart graphic organizer.
• A setting film strip to teach setting.
• A timeline graphic organizer.
• Answer keys and rubrics.

Further details:
Social Studies = Colonization, Roanoke Colony, Primary/Secondary source

Grammar = To be, past tense, sequencing
ELA = Nonfiction
Grades = 6+
ENL Level = Beginner (plus)
Estimated length = At least two hours. My students took a week, without doing all of the extra activities.

All graphic organizers can be reused for any text, as they are intentionally not text specific. They make a great addition to your teaching resources.

Answer key and rubrics included.

_____________________________

POWERFUL PARAGRAPHS

Do your students struggle to write a powerful paragraph? Mine too! I made this series to help them master writing a simple paragraph. I saw real improvements when I started using it once a week.

The series "Powerful Paragraphs" is designed to boost your students' writing skills. It was made for both ESL students (English Language Learners), and native English speakers who need help structuring a powerful paragraph.

The process is simple. For each activity, look at the image together and brainstorm some fresh vocab. Read the sample text, and teach the writing focus.

• Capital letters for Powerful Paragraphs 1
• Topic Sentences for Powerful Paragraphs 2
• Detail Sentences for Powerful Paragraphs 3
• Concluding Sentences for Powerful Paragraphs 4
• Bringing it all together for Powerful Paragraphs 5

Each week, students then write their best paragraph (either about the image a personal prompt). You give feedback, for them to incorporate in their writing next time. The series introduces a meaningful writing reminder or new knowledge each week, but not too much that it is overwhelming.

Each product includes an extension activity and lesson plan. They work on paper, PDF or Easel for digital learning. Check out the previews for a full overview.

It's hard to genuinely improve a student's writing. I found this really does help students succeed in writing a powerful paragraph.

_______________________________________

Versatile Nonfiction Independent Reading. Logs, Graphic Organizers & Project

This easy to assign non-fiction book unit is designed to work for any nonfiction book -- giving you a great tool to keep in your teaching chest. You can use individual pages as separate graphic organizers or give students the whole package to work through. It takes them from selecting a non-fiction book, to assessing it and finally creating a project to share with other students.

It works on paper or for distance learning, to be shared via Google Classroom, Easel or Kami.

Take a look at the preview to get a full idea of what you get.

Overview:

Day 1 is about selecting the book.

The Reading Log covers a single week. It is supposed to be very easy to fill in so it does not feel like a chore after reading. Use the duplicate page for a second week.

The Questions Pages are designed more as a menu - you might want to encourage students to answer say 10 questions rather than all of them.

The Assess section comes after reading and gives students a chance to process what they have read and design a new book cover for it.

The Project page also includes a menu of suggestions. You might want to tell the students to select any five or six for their project. They can create a project on paper or on a computer.

___________________________________________

CLOTHES AND FOOD PROJECTS

You already know your beginner English Language Learner (ESL) students can do great things... Now unleash their creativity with 8 pages of engaging and fun drawing and writing projects based around clothes and food. They just need color pencils!

Following presenting them with food or clothes vocabulary (not included - I use the Oxford Picture Dictionary for this, but any translated word list should do) let their imagination fly with these projects.

You can pick and choose which of the eight pages you give them. Each page stands alone, so choose the ones you think they will enjoy the most. My students spent about a week in total on this work, and they produced really beautiful art work, and strong, powerful writing.

Please do check out the preview before you buy. And then imagine what your students could do with this. If your students are anything like mine, their finished product will make a really excellent, colorful wall display.

Have fun!