"Home is where the heart is."

a glyph activity designed for beginning and intermediate ESL students

(but easily adaptable!)

This glyph ties in well with themes on families and diversity.

(For more explanations and suggestions on how to exploit a glyph activity in the ESL classroom please see my star glyph page.)

materials:

specific vocabulary:

For this glyph, I don't use numbers, but identify the various sections by name. This helps ESL students become familiar with the vocabulary. Although it can be done orally, I favour using this one as a reading activity.

1. If you live in a house, colour the house light green; if you live in an apartment, colour it light blue. (If you know your students live elsewhere, say in a trailer or on a farm, you should add these. I suggest asking for light colours (peach, lavender...) and ones that probably aren't their favourite colours. That way the contrast will be nicer when they colour in the heart.)
2. If your street address has 2 digits, colour the door blue; if it has 3 digits, colour the door green; if it has 4 digits or more, colour the door orange.
3. My students come from several municipalities and I have them colour the roof accordingly in one of four colours: brown, grey, beige, olive green. You could also have students colour in the roof according to how far they live from school (walking distance or not, etc.).
4. If you have your own room, colour the top of the chimney turquoise. If you share a room, colour it purple.
5. Do you have a pet at home? If yes, colour the top window panes yellow. If you don't have a pet at home, colour the top window panes green.
6. How many persons live in your home? Colour the chimney navy if there are two. Colour it orange if there are three, colour it pink if there are four or more. Don't forget to count yourself!
7. Add together the numbers in your phone number. If the total is over 35, colour the window of the door bright pink; if it under thirty-five, colour it red. If your telephone number adds up to exactly thirty-five, leave the window of the door white!
8. Back to pets again. And this is a bit complicated... If you don't have any pets, colour the bottom window panes green. If you have one pet and it's a dog, colour the bottom window panes light brown. If you have one pet and it's a cat, colour the bottom of window panes dark grey. If you have one pet and it's fish or a hamster, colour the bottom window panes turquoise. If you have one pet and it's not a dog, cat, hamster or fish, colour the bottom window panes dark yellow. If you have more than one pet, colour the bottom window panes dark blue.
9. If you have a garage, colour the window frames bright green. If you don't, leave the window frames white.
10. Colour the heart your favourite colour.
11. In the rectangle at the bottom, write "Welcome" in yout first language.
12. Print your initials in the white space to the right of the rectangle.
13. Write the saying: "Home is where the heart is." going around the top of the heart on the outside. Write "Home is where on the leftside and the heart is." on the rightside.

Note:

If you have easy access to computers and a colour printer, you may want to have your students colour the gylph in using Windows Paint and the mouse. (Best to do it first using colouring pencils!) They make a great bulletin board or colourful border. To do this you first have to save the image as a bitmap, then it can be coloured in Paint.

Students could also cut out the shapes in construction paper.

Some specific ideas for using this glyph (other than those mentioned on the star glyph page):

• Ask students to share info about themselves using the glyph orally or in writing. They can add names and details to the glyph info.

• Explain the saying "Home is where the heart is." and use it as a jumping stone to talk about families, family diversities, etc.

Some may wonder why I have students total up their phone numbers and count the digits in their street addresses. Students like doing that and it's a way of consigning information some students would not feel comfortable having posted in the classroom (i.e telephone numbers). It's also good for number practice. ("Oh, your telephone number adds up to over 35! What's the total?" Find out who has the lowest total, etc.)