So the today was my first day back at work this week after a 2 day ESL training.  Although this training was mainly preparing me to take the test to become ESL certified, I of course like always came back with new and better ideas.  I have always labeled items around my room.  I do my best to make my students environment rich with text and pictures.  This year I stepped it up by adding the spanish word along with the English word to help my spanish speakers become more fluent.  After my training however I have decided that just the word is not enough.  This is my new spin on labels in my room.  The picture, the word, the spanish word and a student friendly definition including pics.  I used pixwriter for typing my definitions and I got the pictures from the ULS program that we are using in our classrooms.

Of course I laminated these after piecing them together.  Now I can use these for years to come and not have to make new classroom labels each year.

We have tried some new things in our class this year.  We have made a functional word wall.  The kids have been helping to save their food labels to add to the wall.  We have everything from sight words to pictures to Spanish words.

For our learning centers we have placed pictures on the buckets so that the students can easily identify their center work.

For the center board I have placed the student's picture along with the three centers pictures that they are suppose to do.  They remove the pictures as they do that center and then place it in the finished envelope.  The top envelope is for the extra center pictures that are not being used.

For the center directions I had my daughter take pictures of each step that the students are suppose to do in order to complete their work.  It is a great visual for them.  I paired it with words for the exposure to words.

Making Connections for our students

Giving the students visuals about what they will be learning is a great way to draw them into the lesson.   The pictures grab the students attention and immediately they want to know why the pictures and what they mean.

Not only does this help the students but it also allows others that visit your classroom know what your students are learning.