free worksheets

Clock Work

08/25/2018 by admin 2 Comments

Yuki had a green paper watch wrapped around his wrist with the hands of the clock permanently drawn to 3:00. I asked him what time it was. “Oyatsu no jikan!” (Snack time!) he replied. “Oh!” I said. “That’s something to look forward to!”

Yuki couldn’t read a clock yet, but at four years old, his teachers were introducing the concept of analog clocks in a fun way and anchored in a daily event that was important to him.

Those little paper watches are super easy to make and kids really like them. Download a free set of templates by clicking on the image below. Teachers also use these watches for sight-word and CVC word practice!

How and when to begin…

I begin teaching my ESL kids clocks when they start learning in their own language. Because my classes are only once a week for 50 minutes, I regularly teach a little bit about clocks over a very long period of time. Starting with paper watches, I plan ahead by planting seeds for future practice.

For young English language learners, reading, writing, and speaking the time is a convergence of several different concepts and skillsets. Numbers alone can be used to teach most of the language skills necessary for reading digital clocks and speaking the time. Once kids have learned CVC words like six and ten, sight words like one, two and it’s, and CVCe, or long ‘e’ words, like five and nine, reading time as text can begin. As for the concept of reading an analog clock, you can give that up to the culture at large and simply ride closely on its coattails. As your kids learn to tell time at home and at school, be there to support their efforts and begin introducing easy, parallel English lessons.

FYI – In Japan, being able to hear the spoken hourly time and read digital time is part of the first (Bronze) level of the aural Jidou Eiken tests for young English language students. Click the link to learn more and download sample tests. It’s worth investigating if only to learn about the vocabulary required to pass the three-level tests.

Getting ready…

Practicing time can begin very early on. I prefer flashcards to plastic clocks with hands that can be manipulated simply because they don’t break and they aren’t perceived as a toy that older kids may object to. With a good set of clock flashcards, there are numerous games you can play that will make repetition more enjoyable.

Here are a few fun ideas to try in class:

Make sure that clock is part of your primary classroom vocabulary flashcards.
Place a clock image of the time your class will end on a classroom board. Kids will become super clock-watchers.
Set a time for a simple event to happen – like dropping your pencil or clapping your hands. Be sure you’re distracted when the time comes and be surprised when it happens.
Hand out hour flashcards and have students play a simple I Have/Who Has activity. “I have 1:00. Who has 2:00?”
Hand out hour flashcards and have students line up in order of the hours.
Tack hour cards around the room (add half hours, quarter hours, etc. as your lessons progress) and have students individually go to the time directed.
Hand students a stack of clock flashcards and have them sort the cards into time order.
Write digital times on the board and have students match the time with analog flash cards.
Once kids start learning to read time as text, write times on the board and have students match the times with analog cards. Setting this up as a relay brings a competitive and fast-paced edge to an otherwise simple exercise.

Remember, clock exercises are another opportunity to review the challenging numbers eleven and twelve, and later on 20, 30, 40, and 50. If you need a good set of number flashcards, you can download them here for free. If you’re in need of a refresh on your flashcard activities, download 50+ Flash Card Activities for ideas to get you going.

Diving in…

Once students are comfortable with reading simple hours, it’s time to begin doing worksheets. Tack completed worksheets into interactive notebooks so they can be reviewed later. Over time, these worksheets will become an invaluable and easy-to-access reference for future lessons where time is practiced.

If you’re looking for worksheets, here are the first ‘hour’ exercises from my textbook, Clock Work. Download and try them out in class. They’re free and I think you’ll like how the worksheets are differentiated. Click on the image above to visit my web site and learn more about the textbook.

After lots of hour practice, adding half hours is the easy next lesson. From this point, understanding and retention should begin to happen faster. Then, it’s step by step, reviewing and practicing numbers in quarters, tens, and fives for times like 9:30, 3:15, 10:40, and 8:55. To repeat, if you see your kids only once a week, plan on teaching a little over a long period of time, and don’t forget to review. It will add up!

Clock games…

I’d love to hear the approach and activities you use when teaching time to younger students. I have a lineup of games I like to use, like Clock Bingo, Clock I Have Who Has, 4 in a Row, and clock game boards. Clock flashcards and differentiated worksheets provide repetitive practice and handy visuals for explaining time concepts.

Over the years I’ve learned that teaching students how to tell the time in English is not a one-off lesson. From the early skill of reading an analog clock, then reading and expressing time in text, to understanding the language variances of telling time in English, a little at a time goes a long way. Make sure students are solid in the early lessons and you’ll have fewer problems building their language skills later on.

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney

Kinney Brothers Publishing

Teaching Cursive Writing

07/17/2018 by admin 1 Comment

Some may think of cursive as an archaic form of writing – one best left to history. Personally, I think it’s a valuable skill and well worth teaching in my ESL classes as part of the English language. Importantly, Japanese students will learn cursive writing in their junior high school classes where penmanship still holds a revered position in the culture. Just like CVC words, sight words, or stacked adjectives, I teach cursive writing from a young age in the hope that it will give them a head start in their future English classes.

I start teaching my students cursive writing from third grade; the same age I learned when I was in elementary school. Early on in my teaching, I discovered that my students’ concentration and efforts at writing cursive were, across the board, excellent! Having to gently interrupt students’ quiet concentration so that we could move forward in the lesson is nothing short of teacher heaven! Consequently, I love teaching cursive writing!

Understand your cursive ABCs!

Because I teach the skill, I had to shore up my understanding of why the cursive letters are written the way they are so that I could make the claim of authority in front of my kids! For example, where is the S in the upper and lower-case cursive S’s? Why does a capital Q look like a 2? (In our modern social media, 2ueen is accepted parlance!)

Remember, the essence of cursive is speed and connectivity.

Here’s a simple illustration of the evolution of the letter ‘G’ into the cursive letter we know today:

What about writing styles? How have they changed over the years? Predictably, there have been many methods in the past two centuries. First, there was the de facto Spencerian Method, developed for “business and elegant personal letter writing.” In the late 19th century, the more modern Palmer Method made the claim that it was exceptionally masculine, industrial, would strengthen character, and reform delinquents. This was replaced by the Zaner-Bloser Method in the 1950s, founded by Master Penmen Charles Zaner and Elmer Bloser, leaders in the penmanship industry. Finally, the contemporary D’Nealian Method was introduced in 1978. It is a derivative of the Palmer Method and was designed by a primary school teacher to ease the transition between traditional and cursive scripts. Whatever method you prefer, my recommendation is to teach what you know, use worksheets if possible, and be consistent.

FYI – ‘cursive’ is from Medieval Latin which means running and was the preferred method to accommodate the limitations of quill pens, which were fragile, easily broken, and would splatter if not properly used. The various reforms in writing methods up through the 20th century had the main intent of competing with the speed of the typewriter.

As we begin the lessons, I teach kids that their signature and writing are totally unique, a reflection of their personalities and that the police even use handwriting to identify criminals! I ask students if they could recognize whether a note was written by their mother or their father, or whose handwriting is better. (Sorry, Dads, your kids are throwing you under the bus!) Also, cursive writing gives them the opportunity to be expressive! I emphasize this with examples of calligraphy in signage, art, history, social invitations, and legal documents. I also explain that being 3rd graders, it’s time they joined the big kids club and learn to read and write in cursive. Finally, this gives me one last chance to go through every letter one more time.

Tips for Teaching

Here are a few tips when you set out to teach cursive writing.

Always begin with a warm-up! Believe it or not, writing in cursive employs a different set of muscles than regular script (remember how tired your hand used to get?) Practice writing tall and short loops, consecutive u’s, or the up and down of multiple t’s. Explain how each lower case letter is written with the intent to connect smoothly to the next letter. And don’t forget to show the kids the purpose of cursive which is to write faster and with as few pen-lifts as possible. Show them how the loops facilitate the connections between the letters and that dotting i’s and crossing t’s should occur at the end of each word.

Write all the students’ names on the board and see if they can identify their own name. Importantly, ask them how they knew their name – what letters are similar and what letters are different. Make sure that learning to write their name is part of the first lessons. Believe me, they’ll practice.

With a set of cursive flashcards, you can drill, sort, and play all the usual games you played when the kids were younger and learning their ABCs. Putting a cursive writing chart in their notebooks is invaluable for reference. If you need a refresh on flashcard activities, check out my 50+ Flash Card Activities.

Finally, have patience – especially if students are writing from memory. It takes a LOT of concentration and practice to come up to speed. My own approach to teaching the topic has improved through the years as I experimented with different explanations and demonstration methods. Anyone who teaches kids knows there’s always room for improvement and your approach will evolve.

“…the beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human handwriting.” – George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

Be sure to check out Cursive Writing! by Kinney Brothers Publishing. This textbook is available on Amazon and Donald’s English Classroom as a full pdf download. It will give your kids repetitive practice with all the upper and lower case letters, warm-up lessons, writing practice, charts, puzzles, and games! Check out the pdf preview here or the video below.

So, it’s time to show off your talents! Dazzle your students with your expressive cursive writing skills! Look forward to guiding students’ hands as they learn the loops and curlicues of the cursive alphabet. You might be pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoy the lessons. Once introduced, don’t forget to employ cursive in your regular teaching and assign repetitive exercises to be completed in cursive. And most importantly, enjoy!

Donald Kinney

Kinney Brothers Publishing

Teaching Stacked Adjectives

07/01/2018 by admin 3 Comments

What are stacked adjectives?

Nothing made me feel more inculcated into my own language than the idea of stacked adjectives. As native English speakers, it’s not something we often consciously think about. Nonetheless, I’ve learned that teaching my youngest ESL students adjectival order is not only beneficial to their long-term studies, I’ve discovered a pleasurable approach that insures the lessons stick in their memory. Unlike native speakers, it has to be taught intentionally.

In an English speaker’s subconscious mind, multiple adjectives have a specific order. When they fall out of that learned order, the brain glitches and the meaning can be lost, confused, or even misconstrued.

Let me quote from Katy Waldman’s The Secret Rules of Adjective Order:

Though red big barns and big red barns are semantically identical, the second kind pleases our ears more. These tricky situations – neither pure correlation nor accumulation – generally occur when you cross the border between adjectival regions, such as size and color. When that happens, an invisible code snaps into place, and the eight categories shimmy into one magistral conga line: general opinion, then specific opinion then size then shape then age then color then provenance then material.

Thank you Katy! Think about the following sentences:

A cat.

A black cat.

A big black cat.

A big black plastic cat.

A beautiful big black plastic cat.

A beautiful big old black plastic cat.

A beautiful big old black French plastic cat.

Even the simple sentence, “A black big cat” is a language pothole, difficult for an English speaker to mentally ignore, let alone read when the adjectives are out of their stacked order (did you miss it or did your brain reorder the sentence?) Figure this one out:

A yellow cotton handsome Indian new jacket.

It’s difficult to even say, much less discern what the sentence is trying to convey, coming off more like a word salad to an English speaker’s way of ordering meaning. In their proper sequence, the adjectives should be aligned thusly:

A handsome new yellow Indian cotton jacket.

How did it happen that, without any memory of having learned this, I expect my adjectives to be in a choreographed line dance with each other? It begins when we’re very young and is reinforced in numerous story and picture books, like Lillie’s Purple Plastic Purse, or The Giant Jam Sandwich.

So, don’t be afraid to start exposing your ESL students to adjectival order. In fact, I recommend that you start off very young – even before they learn how to read. With a bit of forward-thinking, it will make their elementary and junior high school English classes a little easier. If you’ve been doing chants such as, “Five Little Monkeys” or “Five Little Ducks,” you’re not only priming your kids to hear the sounds associated with numbers and plurals, but stacked adjectives as well!

Making Sentences Without Words

Start with simple nouns that begin with a consonant, like ‘cat.’ Pull out an ‘A’ card from your ABC deck. Then grab a few of your number, color, size, and emotions cards as well. (Download color and number flashcards from my online store for free!)

Start with a simple minor sentence. Then add a color adjective. Once kids understand this easy pattern, mix the cards up, and have students reorder or make new sentences themselves. It may be helpful to teach your kids that ‘A’ means ‘1’ in this context.* Don’t forget to make a small ‘period’ or ‘full stop’ card as well. And there’s no need to be all academic when explaining it! There will be plenty of time for that in their little futures. Teach a ‘period’ as a ‘bliiiing!’ or ‘ker-dunk’ or a Khoisan click of your tongue and I promise your kids will never forget to include it – to the point of annoyance.

Now, let’s add some more adjectives.

With emotions, colors, size, and an ‘A’ card, your kids have learned to make their first stacks of adjectives – and they can’t even read yet! You’re also teaching them to recognize ‘A’ as their first sight word. Like many teachers, you’ve probably been drilling a lot of vocabulary in separate flashcard sets. This exercise brings that vocabulary together into coherent and ordered meaning that visually mimics language and text. Later on, as your students move from speech to text recognition, and then to decoding language in connected text, it will be helpful to remind them of this simple exercise and the songs they used to sing when little. Let the kids make their own sentences or dictate sentences for an excellent listening exercise. Always ask the students to ‘read’ their sentences and help students who don’t yet understand that the correct order is important.

Upping the Ante

Once students are confident with ordering simple adjectives, start throwing numbers into the mix. By necessity, you’ll also be putting an emphasis on the ‘s’ sounds of plurals that they’re likely already using in songs and regular verbal exercises, like “Five Little Monkeys?” and “I’m four years old.” For more on this topic, be sure to check out my post on teaching plurals to ESL students!

Now that you’ve introduced these concepts to your kids, keep a board or table available with cards so that students can make sentences on their own. You may be surprised at what they put together! It also pays to have a bit of sympathy and patience. Trying to consciously LEARN this order must be terrible! I’m glad I have no memory of it – a sort of potty training of the brain. If you introduce this concept early on, it’s going to be easier as their studies become more sophisticated.

If you’re teaching older students, download a stacked adjective worksheet page from Stories For Young Readers, Book 2, a full textbook available on David Paul’s ETJ Book Service or the Kinney Brothers Publishing web site. The worksheet is very helpful when learning to do the Adjective Conga and includes an answer key. Again, color, number, and more flashcards are available from my Teachers-Pay-Teachers store. Please feel free to visit and download!

To learn more about early reading skills, check out my previous posts Sight Words: What, When, and How and Teaching CVC Words. You might also be interested to learn about the most common adjectives, why Big Bad Wolf follows a different adjectival order, or test your knowledge of stacked adjectives.

Good luck and enjoy!

Donald Kinney

Kinney Brothers Publishing

*OK, you grammar mavens – let’s keep it simple. I understand that ‘a’ is a special kind of adjective called an indefinite article that refers to a singular noun whose specific identity is not known to the listener or reader. Unfortunately, at their age, my kids aren’t going to get that as an explanation – nor should they be expected to. I also use numbers instead of written words in sentences until they learn to read the numbers as sight words. I’m aware that this is a grammatical infraction, but I pay little heed to academic imperatives when it comes to teaching my youngest English learners. Using easy-to-understand concepts (reduced though they may be) to teach young learners is not damaging anyone. If you are so inclined to always be aligned to Elements of Style, simply put the words on the front of all your cards and you’ll be covered.