#crumbslittleideasfortheclassroom

5 no-prep movement games for preschoolers

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Movement

The question appeared in one of the groups on the social media and I realised that a) I have something to share here and b) I haven’t got any posts on the movement games for the little people.

One: Abracadabra

Resources: only a magic wand. It can be made at home and producing magic wands is now a real hobby of mine. The easiest version (in the photo below) can be even made with kids, in class. Some shops sell magic wands, too but, really, kids will respond well to a simple pencil if it is accompanied by some ‘Abracadabra’

How to play: We have been using the same line for many years now, with many groups: ‘Abracadabra, 1,2,3. You are….’. The game might be introduced with the first topic that lends itself to miming, for example ‘pets’ or ‘toys’. We start with the simple phrase ‘Abracadabra, 1, 2, 3. You are a cat / a dog / a frog etc’ and I support the language with the visuals namely flashcards displayed on the board and my own examples. The gestures we use for each of the pets, toys, fruit, transport, jungle animals, fairy tale characters, jobs are not universal, they are only our creation for that particular group. Please remember that the ability to represent characters and words through gestures is not a skill that children are born with. They are developing their symbolic representation and they might need the teacher’s support in the beginning of this journey. That is why the teacher’s example is so important.

After the kids have learnt their first adjectives, these can be extended into ‘You are a happy cat’, ‘You are a sad princess’ and so on. Naturally, the game is led by the teacher in the first lessons but later on, the children are invited to lead the game and to cast some spells in the classroom. They start with the very simple and basic combinations but with time they start to be really creative, both with the langauge and with gestures. Think about all these gems from the classroom: ‘a sad pumpkin’, ‘a sleepy cat’, ‘an angry princess’…How would you mime these?

A classroom-made magic wand

Two: Musical flashcards

Resources: only one set of flashcards, I normally use the set from the coursebook, A5 size.

How to play: We stand in a circle and the cards are lying on the floor, in the centre. We move around, in a circle, just walking. The teacher sings a song and my choice is usually ‘Happy Birthday’. As soon as stop singing, everyone stops and picks up one card from the floor. Afterwards we show what we have by using the word in a sentence. The simplest version is ‘It’s a cat’ but the structures can vary and be more closely connected to the vocabulary for example: I like + food, I’ve got + toys, I am wearing + clothes and so on.

After each child produces the sentence, we put the cards back on the floor and continue the game. It works well with all the groups although with my bigger groups, I encourage the kids to speak together, in kind of a messy choir, in order to save time and not to risk any dead moment in the lesson.

This is not a competitive game, no one is sitting down or dropping out, we all play throughout the game. No points are awarded either.

A classroom-made magic wand

Three: Everybody is dancing

Resources: None:-)

How to play: We stand in the circle and the teacher is chanting or singing the phrase (the melody is made up), and everyone is performing the actions. I normally start with the easy verbs i.e. clap, march, walk, eat, drink, dance and swim but we keep adding through the entire year, more complex and more creative verbs so by the end of the first year we have lots of them at our disposal because kids learn all of them just from this simple game.

The teacher is the one to lead the game for quite a long time but the kids can be slowly involved, too by giving them a choice of two verbs, for example ‘Sasha, everyone is singing or dancing?’, Sasha: ‘Dancing’, after which the teacher is singing or chanting what Sasha has chosen. Eventually, the kids are ready to make their own decisions and to produce full sentences. And Present Continuous (because that’s what it is) will come in really handy with storytelling and picture description.

Oh, one important thing: don’t forget to add ‘sleep’, it will work wonders to calm the kids down.

A classroom-made magic wand

Four: Snake!

Resources: a long snake made of paper aka a necessary number of scrap A4 pieces of paper glued or stapled together with a head of a snake drawn on the first one and the tail of the snake drawn on the last one. I actually like to use the A4 sheet cut in half for a thinner snake and I cut out the head and the tail. Perhaps a set of flashcards in the first weeks of playing the game or with younger students.

How to play: The teacher puts the snake on the floor, the kids come to the snake one by one and stand in a line on one side of the snake. The game is intended to practise one particular group of words with some distractors included, distractors here being any other words, not in the category. For example, if the main aim is to practise colours, the basic distractor can be numbers or even kids’ names if that is the beginning of the year and the children do not really know anything else.

The teacher calls out the words, in a random order. If the students hear the target vocabulary, they have to jump over the snake (or to step over if the kids are young and not very good at controlling their gross motor skills) every time they hear the target word i.e. a colour. If they hear one of the distractors, they don’t move. In a way, actually, it is a movement variation of ‘Simon says’ only no one is dropping out.

When we start playing, we line up and I show the kids all the flashcards and we revise all the words. I also tell them that today we play with colours. Later on in the year, when the kids have more vocabulary at their disposal, the teacher can raise the level of challenge and play with two or even three categories.

The game mostly focuses on listening for the target vocabulary and discriminating it from the distractors but it can easily be turned into a productive game with one of the students standing at the head of the snake, facing the group and calling out the words. In the early stages of the unit, when the kids still might struggle with remembering all the new words, it makes sense to let them look at the cards displayed on the board or on the wall or to even hold all the flashcards and to call out the words they want to use.

I created this game for my group in Pamplona in which I had 12 little kids and no room in the classroom apart from the relatively narrow aisle in the middle of the classroom. This is how the snake game was born. We needed something thin to fit in the aisle and I chose a snake because I hate them personally and stepping over a snake is a good move, very conducive to survival. But the kids accepted it and we loved the game.

The snake itself needs to be made but it is easy to store it and to recycle it and if it gets destroyed during the game, it is also easy to fix. Or to be recreated. During one of my training sessions, one of my teachers suggested using a skipping rope and that, of course, is a solution. However, I still prefere the paper because in case of a mishap and a kid tripping over the snake, the paper seems a safe option. If it gets torn, we can fix it, no harm done. A child tripping over a skipping rope, however, might result in a child falling down. Typing that up here I realised that if the classroom has the appropriate floor, the snake can also be drawn on the floor, with chalk for example…

A classroom-made magic wand

Five: I like cats, I don’t like cats

Resources: one set of flashcards, the regular A5 set that normally come with the coursebook and two cards with symbols for I like / I don’t like, for example a heart for ‘I like’ and a crossed heart for ‘I don’t like’

How to play: Before the lesson the teacher puts up the I like / I don’t like symbols on two walls in the classroom, on the opposite ends. In the real life, these two simply stay there for the rest of the year as we use them all the time. The kids get up and stand in the middle of the room, half-way between these two signs. It is good to put there a small stool or a table with all the cards, for example all the toys, pets, colours etc.

The teacher picks out one card, for example ‘green’, calls it out and the students go either left or right, depending on whether they like it or not. The teacher points at one of the group and says: ‘Green!’ and the kids reply ‘I like green’ and ‘I don’t like green’ together with the rest of their group. Afterwards, they come back to the centre (aka the stool) and the game goes on with a different word.

This is another stirrer that gives the kids a chance to move around a bit and to produce the langauge, with the additional support since they have the flashcards to reinforce the meaning of the word and since they produce full sentences with approximately half of the group. The kids can also be invited to lead the game by choosing the words to use.

The game can be used throughout the year with almost any vocabulary and there are a few adaptations possible especially as regards the settting. If the group is big or if the kids are too energetic and too tricky to control, the same game can be played with the kids sitting on the carpet or even on their chairs. Instead of walking to the left and to the right, they can stand up and sit down or clap their hands and stomp their feet or raise one arm or two arms for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ respectively. This will make the classroom management a little bit less challenging for the teacher.

A classroom-made magic wand

Bonus activities: My favourite movement activies

Resources: the access to the internet and youtube

How to play: All of these songs here have been created specifically for the purpose of ensuring some movement in the classroom. The main aim here is not the langauge production although they do include some language but, of course, the movement is the star here.

  • Move by Super Simple Songs – a real hit, nothing more to say.
  • The Rolly Polly Roll by Super Simple Songs – another hit but only if you have a carpet because kids might actually try to roll or to crawl. You’ve been warned:-)
  • The Jellyfish Song by Super Simple Songs – I love it and it is quite a challenge to turn yourself into a jellyfish
  • Head, shoulders, knees and toes – this is the first song we sing in the classroom, mostly because kids can participate without any language production, just by doing what the teacher is doing. I like to sing this one myself, without the audio, in order to be able to control the speed and the activity. There is a version by Super Simple Songs, of course.
  • Shake your sillies out by Jose Paolo Liwag – I love to use this one with my older students, actually when they can appreciate the need to shake our sillies out and to clap our crazies out…
  • The Dance Freeze Song by Scratch Garden – the hit of this summer camp. There are some cool verbs and dance movements and we just LOVED to dance! You can also teach your kids the most important verb in the world: FREEZE.
  • Action Songs for kids by The Singing Walrus – one more fun song, with the basic verbs.
  • Make a Circle by Super Simple Song – it is a very popular song, I have seen it in many lessons that I observed but, somehow, I have never used it myself a lot.
A classroom-made magic wand

Some things to remember

  • Before you start any movement games, make sure that the kids are ready. Ideally, these games can be played in the part of the classroom where we have more room, only the carpet, no or fewer pieces of furniture. If that is not possible, please make sure that you create this space, with the kids’ help, possibly, to make sure that it is as safe as possible.
  • It is also a good idea to introduce some rules related specifically to this movement part of the lesson and these will depend on the classroom and on the group. In my classroom, we used to do all the movement games on the carpet by the window and for that reason our only rule was: We stay on the carpet, to ensure that the kids do not wander around, run around and leave the safe space.
  • Make sure that you move to this other place of the classroom in an organised manner. In the beginning it might be necessary to call the kids one by one, by the name to avoid a situation in which we have to control a stampede of five-year-olds there and back. With my groups (the maximum number of students in our pre-school groups is eight), we have our chant. I like to go to the carpet first and singing, call all the kids one by one (‘Sasha in the circle, Sasha in the circle’) and to wait, holding hands with all the kids, as they arrive. The child who is just joining is the one to choose the next child (‘Sasha, who’s next?’) and for the last one to join us we all call out loudly (‘Sasha, come here’) so that nobody feels unwelcome. Some kids actually love to be the last ones to join the circle because it is a lot of fun to be called by the whole group.
  • When the movement game is over, we go to our tables and desks, one by one or in pairs and the teacher is the one to make a decision about the order, at least in the beginning when the kids are still getting used to the new element of the routine.
  • Bigger groups can use the same pattern, but the kids move in groups of two or three so that the preparation for the activity does not last longer than the game itself.
  • One of the other things that I always do as the first activity on the carpet is to make a circle, holding hands and run a few rounds of ‘big circle’ (we stretch our circle), ‘small circle’ (we gather in the centre), a few times with these two adjectives and with the other ones, too for variation, for example a low circle (we bend), a high circle (hands up in the air, still holding hands), a wavy circle, a shaky circle and so on. It is an easy, risk-free activity, the kids love it (especially when everyone is present and we can really make a big circle) and, most importantly, after arriving one by one and being individuals, we can do something as a group, something super easy, before we get on to the more creative and productive things.
  • These games are not only about movement, although this is their reason for being in the classroom and in the lesson. However, as always, the main aim is language production and for that reason the students as the teacher, leading the activity have been included in all of the games presented above.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 65 Monster Bookmarks

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Ingredients

  • Colourful cardboard, some white paper, markers, scissors and glue
  • An idea to inspire you. I got mine from I Heart Crafty Things and if you are interested you can even find a template there for a small price although, I, personally, did not find it necessary.

Procedures

  • Before the lesson, I prepared the paper: small pieces of paper for the eyes, a large rectangle of cardboard (for example, an A4 sheet makes 2) folded in half, smaller rectangles (aka strips of paper) cut up for the nose.
  • We had two full lessons on the topic of body parts, monsters, health problems and going to the doctor. By the time we started the craft activity, the kids had already practised using the body parts in a sentence, they had described countless monsters, they had also created a monster with in a dice drawing activity.
  • I showed the children the ready product and we described it together.
  • We started with the kids choosing the colour of the big rectangle (the body of the monster) and so did I, in order to be able to demonstrate every step.
  • We cut up one of the longer edges, 5 – 10 mm, along the whole age (the hair). Afterwards, we applied the glue inside the folded rectangle and glued the two halves together.
  • We decided how many eyes we want our monsters to have. We drew these eyes, cut them out and glued them on the monster.
  • The kids chose the colour of the paper for the nose. We drew the nose on the back and we cut it out. On the back on the nose I drew three short lines at the top, to mark the place where to apply the glue. The kids do the same and we glued the nose on the monster.
  • We finished with drawing the smile and adding some decorations.
  • We finished with introducing the monster (name, age, boy / girl, what he/she likes).

Why we like it

  • This craft was a part of the lesson that in itself was very generative, productive and creative. That is why, for the main craft activity, I wanted something that the kids could use not only to produce the language but to use outside of the lesson. That is why I started to look for ideas for bookmarks.
  • When I showed my monster in the beginning of the lesson, some of my kids went ‘Oh, monsters, I don’t like monsters’ but, somehow, they all wanted to make theirs and they got really involved, boys, girls, the younger, the older. I was happy and not so surprised (because it did happen before) that they all left the classroom almost hugging their big-nosed creations. And, once out, I heard them report to the parents, in a very animated way, what it was that we did in class.
  • The craft is relatively easy, with some simple materials, especially that the cardboard can be easily replaced with the regular paper. It did involve some before-the-lesson preparations but nothing very time-consuming and, again, the templates were not necessary at all.
  • I have already started to think of adaptations and of replacing the monster with other ideas and shapes. I have not done these yet, but I am thinking a lot about elephants and, inspired by my friend’s son, LEGO people…Once they are ready, I will definitely share here:-)

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #64 ‘What time is it?’ aka Classroom management tricks for primary

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Ingredients

  • A board and a marker, with two phrases written on the top: ‘What time is it?’ and ‘Time left:….min’
  • A watch for the teacher.

Procedures

  • Drill the question with all the kids (‘What time is it?’)
  • Every time you hear from the classroom the same or similar question, most probably in the kids’ L1 (‘What time is it?’, ‘When is the break?’, ‘How much time we’ve got left?’) etc, point to the question on the board and elicit it from the group or from one student and only when they do, check the time and write the number of minutes left until the end of the lesson.
  • Repeat every time someone asks the question but insist on them asking the question in English.

Why we like it?

  • First of all, this trick gives kids an opportunity to learn to control their behaviour in class. I use it with my pre-primary and primary students in a situation in which they cannot tell the time using the clock and they do not have their mobiles to do this using their digital clocks. Not to mention that at the moment we work in an unusual context and each part of the 4-academic hours-long day has a different length. If the kids understand better how much time is left or, in other words, for how many more minutes they are required to ‘work hard’, they are better prepared to manage their behaviour in the time left. Also, it is of a great psychological help to see the minutes disappear and then even if the day is long, even if the weather has an impact on the kids’ energy levels, even if the activities today are not amazingly exciting for everyone, there are fewer and fewer minutes to go through until the next break time, snack break, the walk, the playground and so on. It has been of a great help in all the summer classes.
  • The kids are likely to ask this question anyway, directing it at their teacher or their peers so giving them a chance to do it in English is an opportunity to learn and to practise some useful language in a natural context.
  • To be perfectly honest, it is a tiny little bit irritating to hear this question and to have to answer it a few times during the lesson BUT the very fact that the question is asked and the frequency with which it is asked is a great source of immediate feedback for the teacher and a signal that, perhaps, some changes need to be introduced in the original lesson plan. Maybe an activity took too long, maybe on that particular day the kids are too energetic or too sleepy for whatever is going on and they need a settler or a stirrer. Perhaps even an activity needs to be abandoned asap, for whatever the reason…Knowing is is much better than not knowing it and proceeding when your audience is not ready for it. That also means that on some days and with some activities, the kids will completely forget to ask the question and that is for the best reason of it. They will be so involved in the activities that the lesson length and the clock will not matter at all.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #63 Musical Challenge meets Andy Warhol

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Ingredients

  • A set of markers and a simple handout (eight circles and numbers)
  • A video with different music samples. I have used this one here, devoted to the unusual instruments.

Procedures

  • In our case (City Camp), the whole day was devoted to music and in the first half of the day we: learnt the names of the instruments, played different games with the vocabulary such as miming, guessing the name of the instrument by the sound and we made our own shakers. I came up with the idea for the musical challenge to follow-up on all of that.
  • First of all, we revised all the colours and we talked about the associations between colours and emotions. We used those that the kids were familiar with (happy, sad, angry, tired, sleepy, hungry, crazy, scared, energetic).
  • I showed the kids the handout, with the eight empty circles and numbers and asked ‘How is number 1?’ and the other numbers. It was clear that they had no colours and no emotions.
  • I told the kids that we would listen to music. ‘Is it a happy music?’ ‘A sad music?’ ‘Are you scared?’. I asked them to close their eyes and played the first part of the video. It is important to mention that I used my laptop here and the kids were not able to see the screen and the instrument. I did not want them to get distracted by the image and I was hoping that we would be able to focus only on the sound and the associations.
  • When the music stopped we talked about out emotions and the best colour for them. Afterwards we coloured the first face.
  • Later on, we proceeded with all the other pieces of music in the same way.
  • In the end we watched the video again, this time properly but we also paused and talked about the emotions and the colours, comparing our pictures.

Why we like it

  • This activity is a variation of the Musical Challenge that I often use with my older students. Initially, I was considering using it in its original format but later decided against it as some of the kids in the group were too young and I was worried that I would not be able to explain in English that they can draw anything they want, that they should be quick and avoid adding too much detail and that we would not really be able to talk about the results properly as the children do not really have enough langauge for that. Instead, I mixed the Musical Challenge with the Andy Warhol lesson.
  • I loved the way the activity worked. As an English teacher, I should probably start with the fact that it gave us an opportunity to produce a lot of langauge because kids started to make some comments even during the listening part and continued later, while making decisions about the colours and while presenting their smiley to the teacher and the group.
  • The same video and handout can be used with older and more advanced students because the music samples / emotions can be used in an extension acticivity i.e. group the samples/ emotions, choose your favourite, create your own instrument and play some music, choose one sample / emotion and tell a story etc.
  • It was also amazing that everyone could produce as much as they were capable of. Since it is a city camp group, we have some mix of abilities but since it is an open-ended task, kids can produce a little bit, the bare miminum (‘It is sad. It is green and yellow’) or a lot more, fully justifying their choices.
  • As an Art teacher (and yes, I dare call myself that), it was absolutely amazing to see how well kids responeded to an opportunity to look at the world from a slightly different perspective, making the connections between the colour, the music and the emotions and representing it on paper. During the entire activity, it was easy to see how the kids actually did take time to think about their impressions and how to express them best through langauge and through colour. Sometimes, they would make an immediate decision, while listening and then rethink it and change it. And the conviction with which they did it was a wonder to behold.
  • As a teacher of children, I loved this activity because it gave us all an opportunity to express our own personal views and opinions and to learn that everyone, the kids and the adults may have a completely different opinion and that there are no right or wrong answers. So at the same time, it was also a lesson on learning how to respect other people.
  • A busy/lazy teacher loves this kind of an activity because it takes about 5 minutes to prepare and to set up.
  • For us the activity was the final project but it can also be used, in a shortened version, as an introduction or a lead-in activity to any lesson related to music.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #61 How to make a shaker

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Ingredients

  • A4 pieces of cardboard, one per child. I have used just regular craft cardboard, sold in sets. I had the colourful one but I needed the back side of it, in order to decorate it so white carboard will be even better.
  • Glue, to be used before the lesson
  • Markers to decorate
  • Scotch and scissors or a very good stapler
  • Something to put inside, for example buckwheat (raw).

Procedures

  • Partially, the materials had to be prepared before the lesson. I folded and glued the A4 pieces of cardboard into envelopes a few hours before the lesson, to give them a chance to dry completely. Each cardboard sheet was folded into three and glue was applied along the shorter edge.
  • One model shaker was also prepared before the lesson and then presented in class. We learned the word and we passed it around for all the kids to touch it and to try to use it.
  • The envelopes templates were given out, we wrote our names on them and we took about 5 minutes to decorate them.
  • I set up the assembly table with all the other resources and as soon as the kids were ready, they were coming up one by one to the teacher to finish the shaker.
  • The final stages completed by the teacher went as follows: 1. close one end of the envelope with three layers of scotch. 2. fill the envelope with buckwheat, to about 1/3 of the envelope 3. fold the other edge of the envelope and close it with three layers of scotch 4. try it with the kid
  • The most important part was our attempt to use the shakers. We tried out two activities. The first one was a simple Listen and Repeat with different rhythms ‘dictated’ by the teacher and, possibly, also by the children. The other one was singing of a song that we all know very well with the instruments. We chose ‘If you happy and you know it’ by Super Simple Songs. For one song we all became an orchestra and we agreed to shake twice (after the words ‘clap your hands’ because, indeed, there are two claps) and once (on the words ‘clap your hands’ because, again, there is one clap there). The same patterned followed in the other verses, with stomping, oh no and take a nap.

Why we like it

  • First and foremost, I am excitingly happy with the design of this shaker which I came up with myself. The topic of the lesson was Music and one of the activities suggested was making some easy intruments. There are lots and lots of amazing designs that I found on Zing Instruments’ website and I want to make so many of them but, last week was very busy and I simply had no time to collect plastic bottles or to ask parents to give their kids one. I did not want to use plastic cups because I did not have the right kind of glue and I have always had some reservations about collecting toilet rolls that frequently feature in these activities. I spent the whole evening breaking my head over that dilemma, getting angry by the minute because the ideas were not coming. Until I finally gave up and went to sleep. My last conscious thought that day was the answer to my question. This design works. The materials are easy to get, the task is feasible for everyone and it has a universal appeal, too. All my kids were equally excited and involved in the task, the one aged 4 and the one aged 10.
  • I was a bit dubious about the durability of the shaker but it did last a whole full day of extensive use. We made it in the first lesson of the day but the kids were carrying around and using it throughout the entire day. I cannot guarantee, of course, how many days they would last afterwards but, even if they break later on, they can be easily fixed with a piece of scotch and some buckwheat or remade and although I do not wish it on my educational parents, the worst case scenario will not be a real disaster. The raw buckwheat can be easily cleaned up and I don’t imagine, kids would want to eat it, because it is just not tasty or pleasant to eat.
  • The cardboard envelope was very easy to decorate, easier than a roll or a plastic cup and we could use regular markers instead of all the other materials featuring on the designs I found on the website, such as the painter’s scotch, decorative scotch, permanent markers or acrylic paints. The kids could draw anything they wanted, either very simple patterns such as stars or hearts or something that was very special to them, for example a blue whale, a white tiger or a skyscraper.
  • As I have already mentioned above, the shakers became the real treasures almost instantly, to all the kids. ‘Are we going to take them home?’ was, naturally, one of the questions that every single child asked while we were producing them, just to make sure. And yes, we did take them home but the kids agreed for me to take a photo of all the beautiful shakers. Mine does not even feature in the photos, it was definitely the least interesting:-)
  • The finished product helped us in developing social skills. In the final stages of the lesson we became an orchestra and we worked on doing something together, listening to the teacher to repeat the rhythm and, even more importantly, listening to the song and shaking our shakers to the rhythm of the song. This particular group really really needed this kind of an exercise and I was very happy that we managed to become an orchestra for a few minutes. If it had been my regular, long-term group, I would produce some of these shakers to keep in the classroom and to repeat this kind of an exercise more regularly.
  • I was a little bit worried about me having to deal with sealing the envelopes but I could not delegate this task to kids as it is quite tricky, for any young learner hands. However, because there were only five children present and of different ages and of different levels of interest in drawing, it all came together. My youngest Sasha completed the task of decoration first and his shaker was the first ready. But then, having had a look at what everyone else created, he went back to his table to add some elements and afterwards he started to play with the shaker. A similar thing happened to all the other students and there was no dead time. However, if we make the shakers again, I will start playing our favourite songs during the time when we all decorate our shakers. This way the kids can start using the shakers with the music as soon as they ready. And, even if they are still working, they can still sing along.

Happy teaching!

Dear Diary…My favourite activities from this year’s summer camp

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Here is a most random post of a kind that I have never tried to get involved in: one long, constantly updated, written-throughout-the-entire-summer post, with all the fun things I did in class. A kind of a Summer 2023 Diary.

A little bit of a background: this summer I am teaching at a non-residential summer camp, for primary school children that has a special curriculum and a set of materials that were prepared by the educational management team at my school. Naturally, we, the teachers, are allowed to adapt and supplement these and, naturally, I am doing a lot of that. Here are my favourite bits so far.

I really like to swim

This is a small case study in the theme of ‘How to use a song effectively to teach vocabulary and to practise a grammar structure’ and I am very happy to share it here. Here is to hoping that the framework and the pattern can be adapted and re-used with other songs.

The song that we used was the amazing Milo and ‘I like you’ from Super Simple Songs. I love this song not only because of Milo but also because it includes a long beautiful list of verbs (hobbies and activities) that, as a result of the song, become a part of the kids’ vocabulary.

We started with the vocabulay introduction, with the teacher and kids miming, drilling the verbs and the structure (I like to read books) and playing Mime&Guess, with the teacher leading the game. I didn’t have flashcards to represent all the verbs that feature in the song so I prepared a set of my own mini-flashcards. Afterwards, we worked in pairs and the kids were miming the verbs for their partner to guess, each pair with their own set of cards. This way, the kids got a chance to get ready for the song itself. We listened to it and watched the video. At this point, I was singing but I didn’t push the kids to do so. I wanted them just to watch it and to enjoy it.

The following step was a proper pairwork. Each student got their copy of the handout and they were instructed to mark the activities they liked and didn’t like with pluses and minues. When this step was ready, we paired up, compared our lists and reacted (Student A: ‘I like to count stars’, Student B: ‘Me, too / I don’t’). This was something that we had already done in our lessons so it all went quite smoothly, including re-grouping. With six kids in that group, every student had a chance to talk to three different students.

At the very end of the lesson, we played the song again and, this time, I tried to encourage the kids to sing. Today, when I am writing this post, we have had only one lesson with this song and I am convinced the next time we meet in class, the response to this song will be even more active and productive.

Elephant

This is not a new idea. I have created this activity for my English and Art classes, again, with my pre-school students. However, the interaction of salt, water and paint is interesting in itself and it has a lot of potential for the older kids, as a science experiment and it was a part of a lesson with three experiments (together with the other two mentioned here, static electricity and the rainbow Skittles / M&Ms).

We went on with the drawing just like we did with the younger students, but the version for the older students included the following: learning the names of all the ingredients involved, trying to predict what we will do and what will happen (‘We will…’, ‘It will…’), describing the experiment while it was happening (Present Continous) and assessing it afterwards and grading it on a scale from 1 – 10.

Sugar Rainbow

No matter how old they are, the kids and the adults are simply in awe when they see the rainbow in a plate. Even if they have done this experiment before. Even if they are teachers. Speaking from experience here.

This is a very well-known experiment and you can find all the details here. I have used it so far in a lesson with my super advanced primary school kids to introduce and to practise the zero conditional. This time, since it is camp, we used it as a proper science experiment. The younger levels focused on the colours, the older and the more advanced ones could predict and assess and talk about the sugar dissolving fast and slow in the hot and cold water.

My little monster

I really love the folding surprise drawings and I have used them a few times in class already, although so far it has been done mostly with pre-schoolers and the follow-up activities involved a simple presentation, saying hello and a few Q&A, depending on the structure that we were practising at the time. It was an interesting experience to try to bring into the classroom with the older and the more advanced kids.

First of all, I decided to make it more creative and instead of a drawing dictation, with all the kids following the teacher and ending up with the same puppy or kitten, we all went our ways and created the monsters we wanted. One group used the collage technique using old newspapers and markers, the other opted for creating their own drawings and, indeed, in a short period of time they were actually able to draw their own beautiful monsters.

Second of all, I wanted a lot of language to come out of it. For that reason, as soon as the monsters were were, we sat in pairs and talked about them. The lower level group focused on describing the monster using the same structure (‘My monster has got…’), in a few rounds with different partners. The more advanced group had a set of questions starters (‘Has your monster got…?’, ‘Is your monster…?’, ‘Can your monster….?’ and ‘Does your monster like….?’) and they were able to keep up the conversation for a while themselves. The only requirement from the teacher, apart from the sentence starters, was to ask 20 questions.

Storybird

Storybird is a wonderful tool to develop kids’ imagination and the love for telling stories. You have to subscribe to be able to use it extensively but if you do, you get the access to a multitude of stories written by other users and their students and, even better, the access to a multitude of illustrations by budding artists which you can use in your stories. There is also an option of the trial period so you can start playing with everything that the website has to offer without investing and then you can make a decision whether you really like it or not. As for me, I haven’t even managed to go over everything that it has to offer but I am going to tell you about the one feature that I have used many times in my classes and why I love it.

We use Storybird to encourage the kids to express themselves more freely, in writing, without the hassle of actually having to write or type, during this delicate period when the students already have something to say but they do not yet have the fluency in writing, holding the pen, typing up or, in case of some my students, they do not write in English at all because they are still in pre-school. With the use of Storybird, I select the pictures and then kids talk and the teacher (yours truly here) is their secretary with quite a reasonable WPM (word per minute) numbers.

So far, I have used it in four different formats

  • The oldest learners, in a group of 1-1s: a set of thematic pictures, with the same characters, that we look at, figure out the story, order and then tell the story, slide by slide. This can be done at any point during the course.
  • Any group of learners: a set of any pictures, as the Year Book, at the end of the academic year, with the students choosing a picture to represent themselves and they can include anything they want about themselves, as they would in a year book.
  • The younger learners in a group: a set of thematic pictures for example toys or animals in which a student chooses one for themselves and then talks about it, using a set of structures, depending on their levels and skills. Students take turns to talk to the teacher and there is also a need for a task that all the kids will be doing alongside such as a colouring page or a wordsearch
  • The younger learners 1-1: a set of thematic pictures, for example toys or animals, with a student choosing 5 or 6 or how many of their favourite and they talk about every single one of them while the teacher is typing up.

Kids talk, either producing a discourse or a narrative with dialogues, the teacher types it all up, we publish it privately, we read it together, with either the students or the teacher reading the text and then, and this is definitely the best part, the book can be pdf-ed and downloaded and shared with everyone. There are even two modes for that: a simple e-book or a craft-version, for the kids to print it and assemble it into a real book which they can later read together with their parents.

If you are curious about the final product have a look at these stories we created together with my online and offline students: The Ballerina Cat and Her Friends, Our Toys and The Circus Story.

The only thing that I have a love-hate relationship with on Storybird is that since it was not created for the EFL teachers per se, it has a huge range of illustrations sets but in a rather random order. It gives me a lot of joy to be going over them and admiring the artword BUT it is time-consuming and you can use only the illustrations of one author in a book, without the options to collate different pictures. On the plus side, there are so many different styles and approaches represented that it can be used to teach Art, too. And, once you have found your favourite bits, you can reuse them with different groups.

Apparently, the best transport in the world…

The best transport in the world

This type of a speaking activity can be adapted to any set of vocabulary. We did it with transport because that was the theme of the day but I have already tried it with animals (‘The best animal in the world’), professions (‘The best job in the world’) and cities and countries (‘The best place in the world’), with different age groups and levels. This week’s camp group were kids aged 8 and 9 who are somewhere in the A1 level, mixed ability.

Before we started the game, I introduced the question (‘Which one is better?’) and a few comparatives to use while describing different means of transport (faster, slower, louder, quieter, more beautiful, more interesting, more expensive, more dangerous) and it is important to highlight that the students already knew all of these adjectives as we used them in some of the previous lessons of the course.

There is only one resource necessary and that is either a set of flashcards in a pile, a set of word cards or even a set of the electronic flashcards such as these, anything that guarantees that the words will be coming up at random.

The teacher or the students taking turns pick up two random cards and compare them, i.e. a boat a nd a bike, answering the question ‘Which one is better?’, they justify their answers and choose the one. Then we proceed to another random pair and so on, until we go through all the cards. The ‘winners’ or ‘the better ones’ in each pair are kept separately as they have qualified for round 2. The activity continues until there is one winner, the best transport in the world.

There are a few variations to the activity, for example, with bigger classes, the students can be divided into smaller groups and they can do the whole activity on their own, choosing their best trainsport. As the whole class feedback, the groups present their results or they can have the final of the finals. Another solution is diving the cards among the groups and having them run the qualifiers for the whole class debate to choose the winner. For the classes where the students don’t know each other very well or when they do not quite get on with the group, to avoid any kind of competition or peer pressure, the final stage can be replaced with choosing your Top Three, individually. Last but not least, there is the option of extending the activity into choosing the worst of the worst from among ‘the losers’. That is also a lot of fun.

transparent background toys clipart – Clip Art Library (clipart-library.com)

Colouring dictation

I am pretty sure I have already described this activity somewhere here because I have been using it successfully for ages but this summer I am revisiting it and with a lot of joy, too.

Preparing the activity is very simple as you need only a picture to colour with a copy for each student and a few sets of pencils, crayons or markers, one per pair. As for pictures, I usually use the YLE Cambridge Starters, Movers and Flyers listening materials (without the audio) or, even better, the black and white clip art. Googling ‘toys’ or ‘zoo animals’ or ‘clothes’ will give you a nice set of pictures. If there are some more complicated and less common words, I create my own pictures, also with the black and white clip art.

The more important aspect here is the setting up of the activity as its success (maximising production) will depend on it. I start with putting the students into pairs and assigning roles (‘a teacher’ and ‘a student’). Afterwards, I give out the copy and the pencils but only to the students as they will be the ones working hard.

The next step is modelling. In an ideal world the real teacher can do it with one of the stronger students, at the board: The teacher says ‘The rocket is green’ and the student colours the rocket green, then they continue with the other toys. ‘The teacher’ is the one making all the decisions, the student is listening and colouring. That’s the ideal world. I have had classes in which it was necessary to have a round of the teacher starting the activity in all the pairs, one by one and only later monitoring. It is not the most efficient as some pairs will be just waiting (and only possibly obsesrving) but it has been the most effective way of setting it up with new groups and students who have never worked in pairs before (yes, they do exist).

The students continue speaking, listening and colouring for some time and then they swap roles. They can continue colouring the same picture or the teacher can give out another set of copies. It is important to note that not all the items have to be coloured in. The roles swap can take place after 5 minutes, for example, depending on the group and the remaining items, toys, animals or clothes, can be coloured in later on. The kids can finish the picture in any way they want, without their partner’s instructions.

The best thing about this activity is that it can be done with even the lowest levels as the structure used is pretty simple but it gives everyone a chance to practise the key vocabulary and to listen and to speak. There is another way of extending it, in the feedback stage. Since all the kids will have a different picture, with different colours, they can share what they have either in a whole class feedback (Teacher: My giraffe is green and yellow. S1: My giraffe is pink. S2: My giraffe is yellow. etc) or, with another partner after they have been regrouped. A lot of production:-))

astronaut clipart – Clip Art Library (clipart-library.com)

My astronaut passport

This is the lesson that I designed while trying to come up with an activity that could become a fun project lesson, something else than just a poster or a role-play. It is not my original idea, I have come across these online but I needed something that would be feasible with a group of primary beginners.

The main idea of the project is a kind of a role-play in which one student interviews the other in the format of a test. Our days was space-themed and that is why the kids were taking a test for an astronaut, answering the questions about themselves and about their skills (‘Can you…?’) because this was our target language on the day. However, this can be adapted to many topics such as a test for a traveller / explorer, a test for an athlete, a test for a student of English and so on.

I was considering a few different set-ups for this activity but since my group was a mixed ability group, my two strongest students did a lot of interviewing, with the kids taking turns to come up to the table to answer the questions and to demonstrate their skills. In the end, they also interviewed each other. All the kids who completed the test, were getting their passports with a stamp and they could sit down to decorate and to colour them. In the end, we had a small awards ceremony, with the appropriate music and applause.

I was happy because everyone really did practise the language and the kids were very excited about completing the tests successfully. So excited, in fact, that during the follwing lessons, on seeing some templates in my hands, they would ask again and again whether we would be doing the passports again. If you are planning a similar lesson, you can find my template here.

Going shopping

There is a separate post describing this activity and the resources necessary. You can find it here.

Making instruments and making music

This activity and this lesson has also become a post. You can find it here

Monster bookmarks

Again, there is a separate post devoted to these beauties. You can find it here.

To be continued…

Happy Teaching!

Teaching English Through Art. Jeff Koons and his rabbit

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The language

  • The activities mentioned here were a part of the final lesson of the month and in the unit on animals. We practised the names of animals and we tried to make very simple riddles about animals (‘It is big. It is green. It can swim’). In this particular lesson, for the first time ever, I invited the children to make their own riddles and, with the help of the teacher, they managed.
  • I also introduced the forest version of ‘Walking in the jungle’, which very conveniently, includes a rabbit.
  • We used the finished product for practising the target langauge (Rabbit, can you jump? Yes, I can). We created a few questions (and I say ‘we’ because I only needed to start and the kids took over), answered them and then followed that with singing the song that we learnt in this unit (Little bird, can you clap, from Super Simple Songs) which turned into our own conversation and / or a version of a song (‘Anka, Anka, can you dance?’) which is now one of our favourite parts of the lesson. Kids took a lot of pleasure in answering the questions about themselves.
Porcelain edition Jeff Koons | Bernardaud Porcelain

The artist

  • Jeff Koons was chosen to be the artist of the day only because he was what came up as a result of the google search along the lines of ‘modern artists who drew animals’. His most famous animal is, of course, the balloon dog but I really could not think of a way of turning it into a fun craft activity in the online environment, without asking parents to purchase some unique resources. Plus, we made a puppy craft only a few weeks earlier and I wanted something else. Luckily, Jeff Koons created more than just one dog and a balloon rabbit was one of his creations.
  • We introduced the artist (name, country, favourite things) and we looked at his animals and tried to guess what they are.

The art

  • We started with checking all the materials: an A4 piece of paper (either the drawing album paper or just regular photocopying paper), scissors, glue and marker. I also sent the photo of the finished product to the parents so that they could help, if necessary.
  • As usual, I was modelling every step, then waiting for the kids to complete the action before moving on to the following stage.
  • First we drew two lines along the long side of the piece of paper and we cut along them.
  • Then I put the two strips together into a letter L (although in class I used the references from Russian and we made a capital letter G) and glued the ends together. Then came the time for the most challenging step, making the harmonica (or the spring (the reference that came from the student who had a slinky and called it a spring). I used the phrase ‘on the top, on the top’ while demonstrating how I was folding the paper. We glued the ends, too.
  • On the remaning piece of paper we drew a circle and drew the face of the rabbit on it. Afterwards we drew ‘two letters A’ for the ears and cut them out. We glued them together and then we glued them on the top of the spring.
  • Next, we drew ‘4 zeros’ for the paws and we also cut them out and glued them on the pieces of spring, two at the base and two somewhere in the middle. The glue here can be applied on the top or at the bottom of the piece and glued on, it does not really matter.
  • The rabbit was adapted from the original version from DIYArtPins to make it feasible in an online class but, still, it is the most complex and the most challenging craft that we have done in our online class. I had experiemented with it before the lesson, making my own copy, checking whether the quality of paper will or will not have an impact on the final product, visualising the stages and instructions. I was ready but I still got cold feel once we started to make it. However, my amazing kids who have been creative for two years and who have been creative online for one year managed. The youngest artist was supported by her mum and she managed, too. I would not recommend this activity for beginner online artists of beginner offline artists, either.
  • Without doubt, the rabbit is just cool. It is a real toy, made of paper and when you press it, it springs back or, we could and we did say, ‘the rabbit can jump’.

Happy teaching!

Teaching English Through Art: Upgrading Picasso

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The artist

This is not Pablo Picasso’s first appearance in our lesson because last week, in our unit on animals, we looked at elephants by different artists and among them was also the most amazing and the most beautiful elephant by Pablo Picasso (see below). Even then I knew that it would not be the last we see of it.

I was planning to introduce Pablo Picasso in our traditional way, with the country and his favourite things (faces, shapes and line drawings) and I have prepared our gallery for it, but, as it sometimes happens, there was no time for that in the lesson. We are going to catch up on that next time, in our final lesson in this academic year.

In this lesson, we only looked at different one line animals created by Picasso and we tried to guess which ones they are using this set of visuals on wordwall.

The language

This lesson was a part of our Animals unit and the langauge that we have been working on and this was one more chance for us to use and to practise the following langauge: names of animals, categorising animals (big and small, I like and I don’t like) and, most importantly, talking about what animals and what we can do, using I can and I can’t and a series of verbs. We have based it on the song from Super Simple Songs, Little Bird, and we have been working on extending the list of verbs beyond the song.

We have already been playing with the spinner, asking the question: ‘Can you jump?’ and doing the actions to prove that, yes, we can but not as much language came out of it, even though it has been one of our favourite activities recently. This Monday, however, we started to adapt the song and sing it for all the kids, one by one (‘Sasha, Sasha, can you clap?’) and, finally, the langauge came out it. The girls were either singing or singing-reciting their answers, in full sentences. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

The art

In the last few lessons, we have done a lot of work with paper, scissors and glue, creating various toys. It was fun and lots of it but, at the same time, I was getting ready to introduce a new technique in our lessons. That is how the idea of upgrading Picasso came about.

I have looked through all the amazing line drawings that Picasso created and I was experimenting with the animals that we could all draw in class, online. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to give up on the chameleon (although that would have been the animal to upgrade with colours!) but I will leave it for another occasion. The flamingo and the horse were the other ones that I was considering but decided against, in the end, because they would be a bit too complicated for the younger students.

Eventually, I have chosen the elephant, the fish and the owl because they are simple and they represent three different actions and animals from the song which was also used during the craft activity. The verses of the song helped us to punctuate the activity as we sang it at the end of every stage of the craft, that is, after we completed the fish, after the completed the elephant and after we completed the elephant.

Before the lesson I experimented with the technique and checked with the parents that all the resources were available at home. In class, we went through all the resources, showing them to the camera, as usual: an A4 piece of paper, a pencil, paintbrushes, watercolours and two pots with water, one with the regular water and one with the water with salt.

First we drew the fish, step by step. I was drawaing one element, the kids followed and I waited for them to finish. This was not our first drawing dictation so the kids are now very good at following, showing the piece of paper to the camera after each step. Normally, I hold the piece of paper on a clipboard and I show it to the camera. This time, however, I decided to hold the camera over the paper because of the watercolours and I did it consistently throughout the activity. We drew three animals, one by one and put the pencils away.

The idea for upgrading Picasso I got from this great video on youtube. First, we prepared the based and covered the drawing of the owl with the water mixed with salt. The we put it away and started to apply the paints, first one colour, then the other. It is necessary to take some paint with the paintbrush and delicately touch the paper. The colour should spill and seep into the paper beautiful, opening like a flower. It has to be done slowly and carefully in order to be able to observe how that happens. After the first colour is applied in such a way, we repeat with the other or with the others, depending on what the kids choose.

In the end of the stage, I announced ‘I am ready. My owl is blue, red and pink’ and elicited the same from the kids. Afterwards, we sang the verse for the owl. This gave the kids a little bit more time to complete their birds.

Later on, we moved on the the other two animals and repeated the steps. I told the parents to leave the animals somewhere to let them dry completely.

My students were really involved and they had a lot of fun. One of them even used the animals to play a game with her dad and grandma (‘What animal is it? Can you guess?’). They drew their own Picasso animals themselves and they upgraded them beautifully. I was a very proud teacher that day!

And the most amazing of one line drawings and the most amazing of elephants that actually made me fall in love with Picasso…

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #59 Hello Elephant!

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Ingredients

  • One piece of A4 paper per child. It can be the regular photocopying paper or a sheet of the drawing paper, of regular texture, from a drawing album that kids use at school.
  • Markers or pencils, scissors and glue.
  • My elephant was inspired by the design I found at Creative Family Fun website, which I adapted to the needs to my group.

Procedures

  • Show the kids the finished product. I do not always do it but in case of this craft it seemed important to help the kids see the final product and to visualise how they are going to proceed during the entire activity.
  • Check that everyone has all the materials by going through the list, picking the items up and showing them to the camera, asking ‘Have you got…?’
  • Fold the A4 paper into halves, crosswise. Open the paper and draw the line in / along the fold. Cut into two.
  • Put one of these halves aside. It will be used later for the trunk and the ears.
  • Take the other piece of paper, hold it lengthways (with the longer edge on the top), draw a line along one of the shorter edges
  • Closer to the top edge draw two eyes. It might be a good time to decide if the elephant is a boy or a girl and add eyelashes and / or a bow on the forehead.
  • Open the glue and apply some glue along the line that has just been drawn along one of the shorter edges. Roll and glue into a tube. Put it on the side.
  • Take the other piece of paper. Draw a circle. Cut it out. It is ok if it is not a perfect circle.
  • Fold the circle into half and draw the line in / along the fold. Cut into two semi-circles.
  • Draw the line along the diameter of the circle, on both semi-circles.
  • Apply the glue on the line, on one of the semi-circle and attach it to the side of the head of the elephant. Press. It might be a good idea to show the kids how to press it here – with the fingers inside the tube and the fingers outside of it.
  • Repeat with the other one.
  • Prepare the strip of paper that will be used as the trunk. It will be glued under the eyes and it might be a good idea to check its length and perhaps cut off a bit.
  • Roll one of the ends of the strip around a marker or a pencil. It will twist it a little bit and it will make it look a little bit more like a trunk. Apply the glue under the eyes of the elephant, attach the top of the trunk and press.

Why we like it

  • This is a relatively easy craft that can be completed by children online, although I would not choose this particular activity as the first craft of the year. However, it is appropriate for five-year-old children, half-way through the academic year or the children who have taken part in some craft activities before.
  • It is a simplified version of the original craft and it requires less preparation on the part of the teacher. It was ‘designed’ and tested with regular A4 photocopying or drawing paper, without any real templates or special resources such as the cardboard tubes and goggly eyes.
  • If the students are younger, the teacher might choose to cut up the paper before the lesson (one big rectangle for the body, one small rectangle for the trunk and a circle for the ears).
  • It is an online-friendly activity.
  • The finished product can be easily used as a puppet (if it is put on the two or three fingers of a hand). One of my students also turned it into a bracelet, only because she chose to use a bigger square and, in the end, it was big enough to be worn on the wrist. As such, it can be used in simple role-plays.
  • It definitely has the WOW element and kids get very excited to be able to make a real toy out of a piece of paper.
  • It can be used to accompany a story, for example ‘Elmer’ or ‘Dear Zoo’ as one of the animals.
  • Our elephants were very simple and white but they can be made colourful, very much in the theme of the elephant party we know from Elmer in which all the grey elephants ‘get dressed’ for the occasion. The teacher can use the colourful paper or the kids can decorate their squares before glueing them together into a tube. If there are some leftover stickers available, these can be used to decorate the elephants in the end.
  • We used the elephant as a part of our unit Animals in Art and English classes and apart from making the elephant we also looked and talked about different elephants created by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau, among others.
  • We also had a lot of fun playing with the semi-circles. We used them as our mouse’s ears, cat’s ears, sunglasses, monkey’s ears and wings. ‘I am a butterfly’ as a lot of fun!

Happy teaching!

Craft #58 Baby shark craft

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Ingredients

  • One A4 piece of cardboard paper, ideally in colour but if that is not available, the while cardboard will do, too.
  • Markers, scissors, glue
  • Something to use as a template for a circle i.e. a small plate for the bigger circle and a small glass for the smaller circles
  • A link to inspire you. Mine came from supersimple.com, after some adaptations for our online classes.
  • A link to the song which this craft usually accompanies. This is my favourite rendition of the song.

Procedures

  • The teacher starts by demonstrating the finished product to facilitate the whole process. I do not use this kind of an approach but it might come in really handy with this particular craft activity.
  • The teacher and the class go over the all the resources necessary for the lesson. The teacher calls them out and shows them to the camera. The kids do the same.
  • The teacher demonstrates how to draw a big circle on the piece of cardboard. If the kids are ready, they can draw a circle themselves. If not, the teacher shows them how to draw around a plate. It is a good idea to use the paper economically, in order to ensure that there will be enough paper left for the small circles. The kids do the same and show their circles to the camera.
  • The teacher cuts out the circle. The kids follow suit.
  • We fold the circle into half and we draw the eyes and a smile at the front.
  • The teacher demonstrates how to draw two small circles (or how to circle the smaller object twice). Afterwards, these are cut out, too. They are folded into halves and cut into halves, too.
  • Two of these half-circles are used as fins. They are glued to the side of the shark. The teacher demonstrates that, step by step.
  • The third half-circle is to become the frontal dorsal fin. It is glued to the top of the shark, at the back.
  • The remining half a circle is cut into two pieces (in any way) and these are are the tail (or the caudal fin, what a pretty name!). Their ends are glued together to form something resembling the letter V and they are glued inside the folded circle.

Why we like it

  • It is a perfect craft to accompany the song or to be included as a part of the life aquatic-themed unit.
  • It is easy enough to make, even online. It works well in the offline classroom, too and the teacher can adapt it to the younger students by preparing the circles before the lesson or even by folding them beforehand.
  • Even if the circles are drawn by the kids themselves and they do not turn out perfect, the sharks will look good.
  • The sharks are 3D and are a lot of fun.
  • They can be used as a puppet and they can be used in role-plays.
  • The kids can decide if they make a baby shark or a mummy or daddy shark and they can decorate the sharks accordingly.

Happy teaching!