Domestic animals - presentation of new vocabulary

This is a lesson in the second grade. The lesson aim is presenting the vocabulary for domestic animals.

You can start the lesson by presenting the target vocabulary. For this activity you can make some paper plate animals. Since visual is crucial for young learners, making these types of learning materials can help a lot in achieving the goal of the lesson. You can browse on the Internet and get endless ideas on paper plate animals. Show the animals to the students and ask them to repeat after you several times. Then put the animals in a line on the board, point to the animals and ask students to repeat after you and then ask them to say the words on their own.

For the next activity you can use some flash cards. Put them on the board and ask students to come out in pairs. Give them paper balls and ask them to try and hit the animal they hear. The teacher says the animal and the two students throw the paper ball at the same time. The student who hits the correct animal or hits closer gets one point.

To practice pronunciation of the new words you can print some pictures of the animals you intend to teach on this lesson. Make sure to put a number next to each animal. Put the pictures on the floor, Ask the students to stand in a circle around the pictures. You can use the same paper balls from the previous activity. Ask students to throw the ball and see where it stops. They should say the name of the animal as many times as the written number on that picture. Make sure to help them out with the words and the pronunciation in case some of the students find it too difficult.

For the next activity you can ask students to watch a video. Their task is to watch the video, listen and repeat the words and try to remember which animals they see on the video. After they watch it give them a handout with some pictures of animals. Their task is to circle the animals from the video. After they finish with the task revise the words and check their answers. This is the link from the video I used but of course you can find many more on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izl0vz4Km7w

To extend the activity you can prepare small strips of paper with the names of the animals and ask students to glue the words under the correct picture.

For the last activity you can use the song Old McDonald had a farm. I used this version of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFX98pqzb3o

You can make a poster of a farm with all the animals that are mentioned in the song. Ask students to listen to the song carefully and number the animals in the order they hear them. You can also write the noise that each animal makes and refer to it while listening and singing the song to help students with recognizing the animals. 

Revision of adjectives ( follow up on introducing adjectives)

To revise the adjectives that we learnt on the previous lesson with the second grade ( which you can find in the previous post) we did some games and activities that I would like to share.

1. As a warm up activity show students flashcards with animals and ask to name them. Then you can put the adjectives on different places in the classroom and ask students to follow your instructions : Run to the bear/ Jump to the hippo/ Swim to the elephant etc.

2. In the main part of the lesson I had a few activities.
- Divide the board in half. Put the same pictures of animals in both of the halves of the board but make sure they are positioned differently. Invite the students to come to the board in pairs. Give each of them a flyswatter and explain the game. Their task is to hit the animal with their flyswatter once they hear the word. You can turn this into a competition. You can decide who did the exercise faster or who made less mistakes.

- Put some pictures of animals on the floor and play the game "stepping stones". Each student needs to stand on the picture and name it and they should try to do it as fast as possible. In case they make a mistake they should go back and start over.

- To revise the adjectives you can give students cards with the adjectives written in English and in their mother tongue. Ask them to match the word with its translation and then check.

- Finally give them pieces of papers and ask them to work in groups and arrange the pieces of papers into sentences. Check and explain where necessary. 

More games using toys - Learning can be fun!

I often do this in the class with my younger students. I use toys, ask students to close their eyes, touch the toys and try to guess the animal in English. I usually measure the time so that we can find out who the winner is. That's the student who names all of the animals correctly for the shortest time.
The good thing about using this type of toys is that you can use it with different vocabulary like - food, fruit, vegetables, shapes, number, letters from the alphabet...... the choice is yours!

TOYS, TOYS, TOYS - vocabulary game - Learning can be fun!

When you teach younger learners you simply must  use toys in your lessons. Not only they are very appealing to the students but they also keep the busy, make them think and make them learn new words. Different types of puzzles can be very useful for revision of vocabulary. I usually ask my students to solve the puzzle and name the object ( in this case - animals). I keep track of the time. The student who solves the puzzle first and names all the animals correctly is the winner.

Domestic Animals - stepping stones - Learning can be fun!

I'm sure you have heard of the game Stepping stones, so this is just an idea how to use it in the classroom. It doesn't take too much time to prepare. Just make sure you draw or print several pictures of domestic animals - the ones you learn in class. Put them on the floor - use some tape so that they don't move when the kids step on them. It's as simple as that. You create the rules of the game. I usually ask my students to step on the pictures, say the word and try not to make a mistake. If they do, they have to go back and do it all over again. The winner is the student who manages to name all the animals without making a mistake. Sometimes there can be more than one winner. The point is that we practice the words in a fun way - it's not who gets the prize! Here's a video on how we do it in the class.