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The environment can be a third teacher in the classroom alongside the primary classroom teacher if the layout is meaningful, inviting, comfortable, and engaging toward each student. A popular seating arrangement is known as flexible seating. In this, students sit in pairs or small groups. A crucial advantage to this style of seating is the fact that students can openly communicate efficiently and easily. This seating plan is also student centered and empowers increased student talking time. This prevents too much teacher talking time and leads the teacher to accept the role of the initiator. With small group or cluster seating, peers can act as language models, and help build students’ confidence, while giving ELL’s a chance to practice their new learned language skills in a low stress setting that is most comfortable to them.

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Lang Aqu Devlp - Cluster Seating Picture

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While learning about the Functions of Language, the concept that left a deep impact on me was the importance of Imaginative Language Function. As children develop and practice using vocabulary, they need time to create, explore, and use language in a low-risk atmosphere and setting. Several readings mentioned the benefits of dramatic play and role play in the classroom. Currently, in my classroom, my co-teacher and I have an area of the classroom designated towards the dramatic play area.

Currently, we have a pretend child-sized stove, oven, and sink, complete with shelves my co-teacher and I rotate various materials on every so often, depending on our students’ interests. We set out various materials and props that are ‘real-life’ objects such as potholders, plates, cups, utensils, pots, pans, bowls, baking sheets, pretend fruits and vegetables, and pretend bread and pretend pizza. We also have themes we rotate every few weeks, depending on our students’ interests. Some of these themes are pizza parlor, picnic, bakery, ice cream parlor, grocery store, doctor’s office, and gardening.

By all students and ELL students using Dramatic Play to gain self-awareness, build relationships, make connections, and gain self-confidence, it also allows students a chance and choice to act out someone’s writing, act out a chapter in a book or visualize history. It also allows each student a chance to use their imagination to bring authentic learning into the classroom.

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I have always wanted to add a world map to my Pre-k classroom! After taking this class this semester, I realize I need to make this happen, not only for myself, but for all of my students, and my ELL students as well. I want to add a world map to the area by my bookshelf so that my students can visualize where we are talking about when we reference books, author’s lives, and where they or their families are from. On our world map, I will print off real life pictures of each area on the map. I will cut them out to shape the various continents, oceans, terrains, etc. I will put pictures of students and their families on the area of the map where they are from and if and where they live now. I will then lace a piece of yarn from their family picture to the area where they are from on the map. That way, everyone will see where they live and are from in relation to where their peers live. I will also love to take pictures of students sitting or standing in whatever pose they want to stand in and use that for their photo. I could cut out their body and place it where they have visited before. By doing this, it will allow students to see where places are in relation to where we are. This will also allow ELLs a reference point and to share about their countries. I would also have each of my students write in their native language the word for “hello”. I would then place their word for hello by their picture in a bubble sentence.

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Right now I have an area in my classroom called the “Cozy Cube” or “Safe Space”, in a medium-sized wooden cube block with three different openings on the cube, like the picture above. My students can use this area if they feel overwhelmed, frustrated, sad, upset, angry, or just need to take a break and be by themselves for a while. I have a poster hanging on one side of the wall of the Cozy Cube, with real life people of various cultures, feeling and showing all the different emotions. I also have a basket with social and emotional books, breathing strategies, cloth and squishy balls they can squeeze, lovie blankets, stuffed animals, and various sensory bottles.

I have found this area to be a highly useful tool for all my students, including my ELL students, this year. Right now, one of my students who speaks only Mandarin uses the Cozy Cube when he feels frustrated, upset, or wants to be by himself for a little while. It is a pleasant escape and a place to get students’ bodies calm, and ready to join in the classroom schedule or activity, when they feel they are ready, as there is no set time limit to how long they can be in there. I would like to continue to use this area in my classroom next year as it is so beneficial to help all children, including ELL students, regardless of where they are from, recognize, identify, and cope with all their various feelings and emotions.

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When a child walks into their classroom, it is always important that they feel comfortable and welcome in their environment. Currently, my co-teacher and I use a Morning Greeting Poster for when our students arrive at school each morning. We have our Morning Greeting poster placed on the inside of the main door of our classroom so our students can take part in this activity when they first got to school in the morning. However, it is always the student’s choice if they want to take part in this activity or not.

Before hanging the poster on the wall, we would first introduce how to do one greeting or two at a time, and then add them to the poster after introducing it. This way, in the mornings, the student can simply point to a greeting they want to do or not do and don’t have to talk or making conversation with me or anyone else if they don’t want to.
The Morning Greeting Poster is helpful, as it honors the “silent period” of each child and builds connections and a relationship between our students and us. I already use this type of poster in my classroom, and I notice a difference in my students in building and forming connections with not only their peers but with their teachers and adults in their lives as well. Next year or in the summer, I would like to incorporate my students' ideas for ways we can greet each other in the morning.

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Having a diverse classroom library has always been a dream of mine! While taking this class this semester, it has inspired me to work on expanding and building my classroom library even more. When I was working with my ELL students while taking this class this semester, I have become more aware that I have some diverse books for them to use right at their fingertips. However, I would love to find even more books to add to my collection. By having an even more diverse library in my classroom, my Pre-k students would benefit from being able to go over to the bookshelf and choose a book to “read”. This would increase independence in my ELL students and the other students in my classroom to choose what they want to read whenever they want to. It would also increase their ability to decide and make their own decisions and choices.

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Cubbies are such an integral part of early childhood classrooms. It is a child’s own personal safe space to keep all their belongings. Currently, in my classroom, we have each child’s cubby labeled with their name, their picture, and their birthday as well. We also have a picture of each child’s family hanging on the inside of their cubby, at the level that is most comfortable for them to look at it whenever they want to. This reminds my students that when they miss their parents, siblings, pets, grandparents, etc., they can make a choice to look at their family picture in their cubby. It also shows each student how everyone has a unique family, yet everyone has a family, making each student all the same. We also use pictures of each of my students for their classroom job for the day, birthdays, small group times, and table spots as well.

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Our schedule for my classroom looks like this example above. All my students in my classroom use the daily visual schedule often throughout the day each day. Every day after our Morning Gathering Time, I go over the schedule for the day, even though it doesn’t change much from day to day. My co-teacher and I took pictures of our students taking part in all the various times and routines throughout the day. We then placed each picture next a picture of the exact time on the clock, with the words of what that specific time is for (drop-off, breakfast snack, Morning Gathering Time, work time, lunch, nap, outside time, etc.). I have noticed that for my ELL students, this can be highly useful, as I have some students that look at it each time before we move onto a new activity throughout the day.

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Currently in my classroom, my co-teacher and I have everything labeled in our classroom, from our furniture to our specific toys on our shelves, and the door, windows, walls. We took pictures of each of our materials, items, and furniture in our classroom and wrote the English word for that specific object underneath the picture. After taking this class this semester, I have come to the realization that it would be highly beneficial for my students to have everything labeled in both English and their native language, under the picture as well. We have a bathroom in our classroom, and we have pictures of each of our students participating in each of the various steps of washing their hands, from turning on the water, to getting soap, to throwing away their paper towel in the trash can. We also have our daily schedule posted in our classroom with pictures of each of our students participating in all the various routines and activities throughout the day.

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La AQ Dvl - Dual Language Classroom Labels