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. 

Reading - ideas on how to organize a lesson

This is a lesson I did in the fifth grade. The unit deals with going to for expressing future and the topic of holidays and camping. I came up with two simple texts so that I can do some group work. This is what we did.

Warm up activity - revision of the vocabulary about sport. Put some flashcards on the board and ask students to work in two groups. Make sentences on pieces of paper and ask students to run to the board and stick the sentences on the correct pictures. You can measure the time and turn the activity into an amusing game. With this activity you revise sport, going to, plus you make students move around and have fun while learning.

Main activity - Students work in two groups. They need to read a text and replace the pictures in the text with words. Then they fill in another worksheet by answering some questions related to the text.

To check if the students in the groups understood the texts ask two representatives, one from each group to come to the board, answer the questions and fill in the Venn Diagram. The other members from the groups can also help if needed.

End of class activity - Ask students to work in  pairs. Give them a piece a paper, ask them to fold it in  half, then again, and again and again:) Then ask them to write a sentence using going to, by writing one word in each square. Then they cut the pieces, mix the pieces of paper and give them to another pair. They are expected to create a sentence. It saves teacher's time for preparing cards for the lesson and it's fun for the kids.

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. 

Introducing adjectives

This is a lesson I did in the second grade. The lesson aim is introducing adjectives and their use in a sentence.

Lesson plan

Warm up activity:
1. Show students flash cards with the animals you have taught them previously and ask them to name the animals.
2. Give each student a flash card a ask them to say a whole sentence. ex. It's a bear / It's a lion
3. Put the flash cards on different walls in the classroom and play the game listen and point. Students listen to the word and they point to the correct picture.

Main part:
1. Put some pictures of animals on the board (bear, elephant, spider, snake and a giraffe). Show students cards with adjectives ( big, fat, tall, long, small) Try to elicit from the student which adjective best describes each animal. Repeat the words several times so that they practice the pronunciation and then make whole sentences. It's a big bear/ It's a fat elephant.

2. Use animal toys and give one toy to each student. Make cards with the adjectives written on them and put them around the classroom. Ask students to walk around the classroom and find one adjective that can be used to describe their animal. Make sure that you give them different animals now from the ones that are on the board. You can give them hippo-fat; rhino-fat; crocodile -long; bird/fish-small. etc. After they find the best adjective for their toy ask them to stand in a line and make a sentence with the adjective - It's a long crocodile. Help them out when necessary.

3. Write a sentence on the board- It's a big bear. Elicit the word order in the sentence and ask students to remember it. Prepare a poster with post it notes. Write jumbled up sentences and ask students to come to the board, one by one, and put the words in the correct order by re- arranging the post it notes. After they put them in the correct order, ask them to read the sentence out loud. Or if they find it too demanding help them out with the pronunciation.

End of class activity:
To finish the lesson in a positive note. sing the song The elephant walks like this and that...
Point out the adjectives in the song and make sure students remember them.
Enjoy your lesson!