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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Lessons & Classroom Games for Teachers

Outdoor Lessons for Pre-K ESL Students
By:Fiona Miller

Taking children out of doors can help them focus and enjoy lessons, especially if the weather is nice. When teaching children English, especially in a country where it is not widely spoken, it is important to help the children see how they can use English in their everyday lives.

Games
Take sports games into the great outdoors. Divide students into teams and play simple games like dodgeball or T-ball with your students, encouraging them to use English as the only form of communication. Before you begin your lesson, go over the English words for each item you will be using in your game. Children can also play games such as Simon says and duck, duck goose, which incorporate both movement and simple English commands.

Nouns and Vocabulary
Encourage children to learn the vocabulary associated with the outdoors. Write down the names of many different things the children find on their playground or at a local park and ask them to take labels with tape on the back of them. Have the children tape the labels to trees, the grass, playground equipment and anything else they see. When the children finish, correct them and help them find the words they were unable to on their own.

Grammar
Help children with simple grammar by incorporating movement with learning. In addition to games like Simon says, children can stand in a circle and one at a time ask one another to do different movements. For example, the teacher can ask one student to kick his legs, which the child then has to comprehend in order to do the motion. As he does so, the children will repeat the conjugation, such as "Johnny is kicking his legs." Have the child then conjugate the verb in the "I" form as well.

Music and Drawing
Bring in popular music or music geared toward preschool children in English. Play the music and have the children listen to it and memorize the words. Dissect the sentences indoors so the children understand what they are singing and then have all of the children sing together. Bring the children outside on a nice, sunny day and have them sing outside. You can also play music while encouraging the children to draw with chalk on asphalt and then describe their drawings to you and one another in their best English. Additionally, you can draw a hopscotch "court" and have the children play hopscotch in English.





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