Series Five Essential Practices for the Teaching of ELLs - Elementary : Warming Up with Rug Partners

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Warming Up with Rug Partners

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Warming Up with Rug Partners

Lesson Objective: Warm up for academic discussions with rug partners

Grades K-5 / All Subjects / ELL

2 MIN

Discussion
Supporting Materials

Thought starters

How does this strategy help students transition from recess or lunch to the classroom?
What factors should you consider when pairing your students?
Why is this strategy especially useful for English Language Learners?

8 Comments

myrlande steel Nov 5, 2019 6:28am

Great insight when partnering students up. I have to revamp my partners as I usually only think about the children that I know cannot sit together. I also love how the boy say, "Keep the conversation going!" You can tell that was explicitly taught. Going into work and working on this today.

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Faranaz Zazai Nov 22, 2017 1:26am

I love this strategy about rug partners. I recently volunteered in my little brothers kindergarten class and this idea would have been great. I like how the pairing is made strategically to help each other learn from one another. I really liked how one of the students of the pair said to keep the conversation going.

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Ifrah Mohamed Nov 18, 2017 12:28pm

This is a a great way to transition from one activity to another. I really like how you pair the students strategically. We can all help or learn something from one another.

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Jeremy Dixon Jun 1, 2017 9:40pm

This is a wonderful way to come back into the classroom. Students are able to have meaningful discourse. I like the fact that she paired her ELL student with a student who has a strong English vocabulary.

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megan glinsky Mar 29, 2017 4:48pm

I love using shoulder partners when I am teaching a whole group lesson. Tlking with rug partners is a great warm up to a lesson.

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Materials

Transcripts

Warming Up with Rug Partners Transcript

Speaker 1: Let's get ready for a class.

Lot of times, when children come in from

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Warming Up with Rug Partners Transcript

Speaker 1: Let's get ready for a class.

Lot of times, when children come in from recess or from lunch, they're worried about the kickball game outside or if their snack fell in the yard.

We're not playing with Velcro right now.

They're not thinking about social studies or whatever lesson we're addressing at this time.

Just to get us all warmed up, I want you to share with your rug partner, three facts about each symbol that we're going to show you.

One of the strategies I use in my classroom is rug partners. And it's structured with rules of listening skills and talking norms. And the reason I do that is just to get the juices flowing.

Start with the words, "The Statue of Liberty."

When using this strategy, it's important to strategically think about your pairs.

Child: The Statue of Liberty [inaudible 00:01:01]

Speaker 1: I would say, pair your ELL's with your English-only students, so that they're able to really help each other and build on each other's strengths.

Child: Keep the conversation going.

Child 2: The American flag has 50 stars.

Child: Great.

Speaker 1: By getting them going and using that academic discourse, settles them down, gets them in, gets them ready for the lesson.

Girls and boys, let's go to our tables.

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