Let's Build a Castle Wall

ELLs need support to develop academic language, and practice using language to reason and work together in groups. Check out this short video featuring a fractions math lesson presented to K-3 teachers by math consultant Grace D. Coates. Her open-ended lesson loads up lots of math, language and writing practice as students work together to build a castle wall for the king. Students work in groups on a project which gives them lots of opportunities to participate in collaborative conversations and use tier one functional vocab words as well a tier 3 math words while designing and creating their castle wall. 

Coates shows how to differentiate this lesson - all the way from identifying and counting block shapes to make the wall to determining the total cost of shapes used and calculating 10% off for a last minute sale. 

Looks like a great opportunity for fun, collaborative learning with lots of language practice and a great model for teaching all students!

Check out the video: schools.nyc.gov/Academics/ELL/EducatorResources/deepeningmath.htm

Courtesy of the NYC Department of Education