In a small group pull out setting with entering students we were learning about plants. To start off the plant life cycle I presented students with various seeds that they could hold and examine. I asked what these were. Most students answered in Spanish “semillas”. We identified semillas as seeds in English. Then I asked if all of them were seeds, and if so why did they look different? Then we moved into reading a nonfiction book about seeds. Some of the seeds I had presented students with were identified in the book (bean, sunflower) so we identified those seeds. By the end of the reading students were able to identify that the seeds were different because they came from different plants. Realia is an amazing anticipatory set for ELLs. It makes the lesson more concrete for students by seeing the real world application. We did plant seeds later on, but in the future I may plant one of each of the seeds we examined so we could see if the sprouts were also different.
