KWL charts are a way for students to access their background knowledge and start to think about the topic before a lesson/learning takes place. I like KWL charts because they give students a chance to think about what they already know about a topic in a low-stakes way. After students fill out their KWL chart, I like to share with partners and then the whole class some things that we already know and want to know about the topic. To meet the needs of a translanguaging classroom, I will encourage students to share what they wrote with a partner and the class if they choose. This will continue to give students the opportunity to access background the knowledge that they have individually, and that of their peers. 

My district uses Eureka Squared curriculum for math. Each lesson starts with fluency and a "launch" to prepare students for the concepts of the lesson. This is an opportunity for students to activate any prior knowledge that they have on the skill. To the right is an example of a "Which One Doesn't Belong" activity, where students analyze the images and decide on one image that doesn't belong with the others. There is no right or wrong answer, just a chance for students to think about the specific concept for the lesson. 

In order to take a translanguaging stance in this activity, I am going to use this as an opportunity for students to discuss the images in any language they are comfortable with. This will give students an opportunity to access their entire linguistic repertoire to get ready for the lesson ahead. 

For this routine, students will be in pairs or small groups. They will have 1-2 minutes to discuss, in any language, which image doesn't belong and why. The purpose of this activity is to focus on mathematical concepts, but opportunities are given to students to participate even if they are not ready to address the mathematical concepts. For example, in the top image, a student who is ready to address the concept of place value may observe that D doesn't belong because there are not enough place value disks to regroup. However, a student who is not ready to address the concept of place value may focus on the unlabeled columns in image C, or that the disks in image C are red instead of black.