All You Need is Paper (and a little love) ESL/EFL activities

I had only one fifth grade student on the last day of class 😊 I had already planned on making a Christmas card with them so I told her we would make cards together. We first folded and cut a red piece of paper like the white paper in the photo. We laid the sheet flat out on the table and drew a wiggly line at the top to be the wire for the Christmas lights, We dipped our fingers in different colored paint to make the lights and while the paint was drying, we cut out 3 green triangles, each one just a little bit smaller than the other. We glued them together, added the sequins, and then glued the tree onto the cut out part of the red paper leaving just enough space to draw the tree trunk.  We added snow with a white pencil and then wrote Merry Christmas. I'm sure if I had more students they would have been creative with the details. We both ejoyed this Christmas card moment together and it was nice to talk as we worked and get to know her better.    

   My third-grade class just finished studying about living things that produce their own light. I love using black paper to highlight other colors and thought black would be the perfect color for this activity. To start, students used gold and silver pens to draw the living things we have been studing. They added sequins to make the drawings pop out even more on the black background and some students added googly eyes to their fireflies. We glued their drawing onto another paper so they could not just write the names of their drawings but also add why each living thing uses light. They were all very engaged and amazed at how beautiful these creatures and fungi are.

      My third grade bilingual group was studying living things that create their own light - bioluminescence. Isn't that a beautiful word!? We read about squids, jellyfish, mushrooms, glowworms, and of course, fireflies. The students had to write a very short text about one of these living things, so I decided they could use a paper jar filled with fireflies to get them into the activity. These students are still online, so as usual I had to think about the material they have at home. I showed them my model using an oatmeal box to draw the jar with the fireflies. They all had some kind of box at home that they were able to use. I also let them know that if they wanted their jar to stand up after they were done writing, they could fold a paper and glue it to the back, like in the picture above. When they were all done, each student shared their jar and read their text to the class. It was a different way to them engaged in a writing activity, plus they could use it t...