I Teach Bilinguals: Bilingual Teaching Resources: Landforms Mrs. Nicolau

Hello!!! I am Mrs. Nicolau from Brinca Into Bilingual and I am so happy to blog today to " show-n-tell" you what I have done with my students when teaching about Landforms!! :)

We studied them for so long that we were able to do several activities with them and my students knew the types of landforms so perfectly that it made me even more proud of them!! :)

We first did our vocabulary words in our journals with the Frayer Model. After we discussed and review our words, we create a landform a foldable with the different types of landforms. My students and I were so happy and proud of their work!! :)

In my school, we have an early exit, so by 3rd grade, science and math is taught mainly in English, that's why you can only see English words. However, I had newbies in my classroom that needed material in Spanish. So even if you can't see the Spanish version, please know this also comes in Spanish :)

Click HERE to get your FREE copy (English and Spanish)!!!

Then we worked in cooperative groups to create our own sketch of landforms. We used play-doh and some thick foam poster as a based. I honestly did not give any instructions to my students. I just asked them to grab their vocabulary words and create a scenario that had all the landforms that we have been studying. You could hear all kind of good conversations around my room!! Isn't it what we all want to happen?!!? It was an amazing experience, and the kids did sooo well!! :)
They would come to show me their work and I would ask them which one is the hill? mountain? Valley? and they would explain which one it was and their characteristics!!
Here are some pictures of them working and creating their project.

We also incorporated a graphic organizer; we used a Venn Diagram to compare a hill and a mountain. This was the hardest for them though. They would come up with "A Hill is green, a mountain is black"; I had to check their work individually. I had to explain over and over again that they needed facts and not only their color; HOWEVER, it was a great learning lesson because it made them think hard and check on their journal to come up with valid comparisons.

Last, but not least, we had some fun with food and learning!! Any time I can use food, I try to do it!! Until I was told schools are getting very strict with what you use as a snack. My principal let me do this activity at the end of the day and on a Friday, so students could just take it home at the end and not tempted to eat it in class or at lunch.
As the play-doh activity, I let them do their work in partners and without any instructions. I gave them 4 Hershey kisses, green and blue frosting, a Graham cracker and some fish sprinkles. They had so much fun and were so engaged that I would do this activity over and over again!!!