Tips for Teaching Children

“The ultimate gift we can give the world is to grow our tiny humans into adult humans who are independent thinkers, compassionate doers, conscious questioners, radical innovators, and passionate peacemakers.” ~  L.R. Knost

Get your copy of Hacking Digital Learning, The 30 Goals Challenge, or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, [email protected]!

 I love teaching children. I have been blessed to teach 2 to 10 year-old students English in Germany, Croatia, and the US. Below are the slides and resources to my presentation on teaching young learners. 

Little Learners, Big Expectations by Shelly Terrell

Growing Minds Clear Expectations by Shelly Terrell

Resources

​​My Posts

• I'm a writer for Sprout English for Young Learners. Check out my articles for apps, web tools, and lesson ideas.
• Survival Tips for Teaching Kids English: 30 Tips & Resources
• Several Young Learners Posts from Various Teachers! 20+
• Let’s Play! 20+ Sites for YLs
• Engaging Learners through Digital Storytelling: 40+ Resources & Tips
• 10+ Getting to Know You Activities for Kids
• Mobile Learning E-Book: 50+ Effective Tips & Resources
• Magical Moments in Mobile Learning: 20+ Tips & Resources
• 20+ Fun Free Apps that Promote Student Centered Learning & Literacy
• 10+ Ideas for Using Cell Phones with Young Learners
• 30+ Apps for Creativity & Learning
• Mobile Motivation: 17 Digital Storytelling & Literacy Apps/Resources for Kids
• Getting Children Involved with Edtech
• Devil’s Advocate: Young Learners and Technology– In this post, Chia Suan Chong debates with me the benefits of using technology with young learners. She takes a critical stance in order to talk about very important issues related to health and creativity.
• E-Course Archives: English for Young Learners​

Some Slide Presentations

• Classroom Games for Young Learners
• Using Cell Phones with YLs: 10+ tips 
• Chants & Rhyming Games
• Cooking Up Some Good CLIL
• Fun with Flashcards
• Kids Sharing Stories: Mobile Learning
• Making Reading Fun for YLs
• Visualizing Vocabulary
• Digital Storytelling

Survival Tips

• Channel in your inner child!
  • Have the ability to act silly – I often dress-up when reading books, play charades, make silly voices and faces, and sing and dance!
• Wear the right gear! Don’t dress to impress! Dress for a mess!
• Children love to play pretend games!
• Have lively music that is easy for the children to understand and that you will enjoy singing very loudly to! Find music resources here.
• TPR- Total physical response is a must for every lesson. Discover more here.
• Puppets are great for children, especially when you incorporate the puppet in every lesson.
• Play board games, physical games, and online games.
  • Very young learners will enjoy playing sight word games. Find tons here.
  • Students will enjoy learning vocabulary by playing charades, Pictionary, and Bingo. Find other popular vocabulary learning games here, here, and here. 
• Include stories from great children’s authors and make the reading time fun. 
• Use colorful flashcards and play games with the flash cards.
• Color with a purpose! Give children a task to see if they can follow directions, such as telling a child to draw a circle and color it yellow. 
• Incorporate drama activities such as mime and improvisation games.
• Felt boards are great for having children piece together what happened in a story or to learn new vocabulary.
• Finger plays like the Itsy Bitsy Spider work wonders. Read this post on how to digitalize your finger plays using Blabberize.
• Explore the outdoors with scavenger hunts.
• Use realia- My students play Bingo with pennies from the USA. Introduce real world objects to students from an English speaking culture. Play Show-and-Tell!