Kara Nichols

Lesson Ideas
from Kara Nichols

Kara is an experienced classroom teacher working in various grades ranging from K-6. Her work has primarily been with English Language Learners. She has a passion for helping to support ELLs in the general education classroom. Kara currently serves as the MTSS Lead/Academic Interventionist for a K-8 school in Chicago, IL.

3D Shapes

In this lesson, students will have the opportunity to practice using language to describe the basic features of three dimensional shapes. Students will use key vocabulary to compare and discuss shapes.

Active and Passive Voice

In this lesson, students will have the opportunity to practice using both active and passive voices.

Adverbial Phrases

Students will practice working with adverb phrases to help provide descriptions while speaking and writing.

Calm Down Strategies

This lesson is intended to reinforce and create an individualized calm down strategy for students.

Cognates

Students will notice cognates that exist in English and Spanish. These are words that are both visibly and audibly similar, and have the same meaning.

Conjunctions

Students will practice using conjunctions to combine sentences.

Following a Routine

This lesson is intended to reinforce what to do during daily routines to help students be successful and minimize disruptions in the classroom.

Fractions

This lesson is intended to reinforce vocabulary and language used to describe fractions. It can be used as an ESL lesson or as a math lesson to reinforce the concept of fractions.

Genres

This lesson is intended to reinforce the language and vocabulary needed to discuss the genre of a text. Use this lesson as an informal assessment to determine the knowledge and features of genres.

Get to the Root

This lesson provides students with the opportunity to practice using Greek and Latin roots to help figure out the meaning of words they’re not familiar with.

Greetings!

Students will practice formal and informal phrases for greetings, making introductions, polite conversation, and saying goodbye.

How Questions

Students will explain a phenomenon by answering “how” or “why" questions.

I Declare

Students will read an informational text and practice using declarative statements to provide objective, factual information.

Idioms

Students will explain the meaning of common idioms.

Interpreting Graphs

Students will learn the basic parts of a graph in English and use simple sentences to explain its features. Students will use the information from the graph to draw conclusions.

Let's Take a Trip

Students design a comic brochure about a destination and notice language patterns used to describe a specific place.

Main Idea and Details

Students will determine the main idea and at least two supporting details of a passage.

Making Inferences

Students will practice expressing their ideas and inferences about a text.

Mark It!

This lesson reinforces the language associated with finding the percent of numbers when solving word problems.

Nouns

Students will define and provide examples of nouns, identify various objects, and use appropriate nouns while writing to bring clarity to the audience.

Plural Nouns

Students will explore the rules for making nouns plural and practice using the correct spelling of plural nouns.

Prefixes

Students will create a comic informing others how to figure out the meaning of a new word using prefixes.

Ready, Set, Action!

Students will practice using action verbs to describe what is happening in the present tense.

Self-Advocacy

This lesson is intended to allow students to practice asking for help while creating a future scenario.

Sequencing Time and Events

Students will use sequence words to describe the order of events in a story when speaking and writing.

Super Suffixes

This lesson is intended to reinforce the idea of determining the meaning of words with suffixes. Students will create a comic to inform others how to figure out the meaning of a new word using suffixes.

Supporting Your Opinions

Students will practice responding to opinion statements of others with their own personal preferences.

Verb Tenses

Students will use present, past, and future tenses with appropriate time markers when speaking and writing.

Where’s the Evidence?

Students will practice speaking and writing arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

Word Detectives

Students will practice using context clues to determine the meaning of an unknown word.

Yes or No Questions

Students will practice asking and answering "yes" or "no” questions with the verb “do”.