Celebrating Family Love: Engaging ESL Mother's Day and Father's Day Activities

ESL Mother's Day and Father's Day Activities

On Mother's Day and Father's Day, my ESL students in my class work on special projects to honor their parents. They create "All About" booklets dedicated to their moms and dads, focusing on describing external and internal traits, likes, wishes, dreams, and favorite things. These writing units strengthen language skills while deepening the bond between students and their families.

ESL Mother's Day Father's Day Worksheets lessons writing craft newcomer

1. Mother's Day in America: ESL Reading Comprehension Text and Activities and Worksheets:

Students follow Maria's heartwarming story as she celebrates her first Mother's Day in America. There are two versions of the text: one written in present tense (for newcomers) and the second in the past tense. Newcomers focus on reading skills like summarizing the text using 5Ws, retelling the story using Beginning, Middle, and End, and sequencing story pictures.

ESL Mother's Day REading comprehension worksheets lessons newcomers

More advanced students engage in a grammar workshop on regular and irregular verbs, turning into detectives as they search for these verbs in the text, while also practicing the skills of the newcomers.

All students create mother's day craft: Mother's Day Teacup full of wishes. I scaffold my newcomers writing by providing them with 12 typed-up ideas for Mother's Day wishes, complete with images for easy reference.

ESL Mother's Day reading grammar worksheets past tense

2. ESL All About My Mom Writing and Acrostic Poem Craft:

Another activity that we do is our Writing Workshop. Students create "All About My Mom" booklets, describing their moms' characteristics, likes, and favorite things. Each page of our All About Mom booklet is differentiated into 3 levels: dotted sentence starters for newcomers/ K-2 students, regular sentence starters and no sentence starters.

ESL Mother's Day Writing Worksheets Lessons Adjectives

Each Page is accompanied by Vocabulary Picture Word Bank to help scaffold newcomers' writing.

ESL Mother's Day Writing All About Lessons Worksheets Vocabulary

The culmination is an acrostic poem craft shaped like a teacup or necklace—a heartfelt tribute to the special women in their lives.

ESL Mother's Day Writing Lessons Worksheets Vocabulary

3. ESL All About My Dad Writing and Acrostic Poem Craft:

On Father's Day, students turn their attention to their dads, and again in their writing workshop we do similar activities leading to crafting "All About My Dad" booklets filled with admiration and love.

ESL Father's Day Writing Vocabulary Workshop Lessons

They describe their dads' traits and interests before creating an acrostic poem craft shaped like a hat, mug, or tie—a token of appreciation for their fathers' support and guidance.

ESL Father's Day Lessons Worksheets Vocabulary All About

Why These Activities Are Beneficial:

Language Development:Describing their parents' traits and preferences enhances students' vocabulary and grammar skills.
Cultural Understanding: Exploring Mother's Day and Father's Day traditions fosters appreciation for family dynamics across cultures.
Personal Connection: Creating personalized booklets and crafts strengthens students' bond with their parents and instills pride in their language abilities.

Incorporating these activities into our ESL classroom enriches language learning (Adjectives describing traits, learning about past tense) while celebrating the love and gratitude we have for our families. Let's honor our moms and dads while nurturing our students' linguistic and emotional growth.

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