A text written for the lower levels learners, pre-A – A1 level, preferably accompanied by some visuals. The one pictured above which was the inspiration for this kind of an activity was taken from Super Grammar 2 by Emma Szlachta, CUP, p. 38
A set of blue cards to cover some of the key words in the coursebook. It is much easier to manage if the text is displayed on the screen. The SECRET cards can be easily adjusted and moved around during the lesson.
Procedures
In the first stage, the kids look at the illustrations and describe them. If you are looking for the ideas how to use with illustrations in the EFL classroom, make sure you check out these posts, here and here. There are lots and lots of ideas. This stage will give the kids an opportunity to produce some language and also to get ready for the reading.
Kids read the text in silence, individually and, afterwards, in pairs, trying to guess what words are hidden under the cards. At this point all ideas are good ideas but the teacher should point out that there are some hints in the illustrations.
The class read out loud together, led by the teacher or the students, and each pair proposes their ideas. The teacher is revealing the real words. It is not a competitive activity so no points are awarded.
The following stage is the reading comprehension task, such as the one in the coursebook.
The follow-up productive task can be a text interpretation: the teacher covers all the secret words again. Kids work in pairs, they read a text (one text per child). In step A: they try to remember what the original words are, in step B: the kids read the text again with their own ideas for all the secret words.
Why we liked it
The activity is easy to prepare, especially with the use of the electronic devices.
The activity can be used with practically any text and it is easy to adjust the level of development by limiting or extending the number of words, by focusing on some specific words ie only colours, only verbs or only a specific grammar word ie a structure or a part of speech, depending on the level of the students.
This is one of the ways of breaking up the text and making it more manageable for the early readers.
It is also a way of making it more interesting as it changes the reading task into something resembling a guessing game.
It can be made productive and generative by the illustrations-based activities or by the creative reading (the final stage) which can also lead to a writing task ie describing your own room or your own dream room.
This is the second chapter of the post devoted to lesson planning habits worth developing in a teacher of a YL teacher. Here you can find the first part of it: Variety and it is all about looking back at a lesson already planned to check that includes the necessary variety of interaction patterns, materials, settlers and stirrers and learning styles.
One more item that needs to be added to the list of Things To Think About while planning for young learners are all the potential problems and solutions. It is an indispensable element of the formal written plan for any kids’ lesson (or at least it should be). It is also a habit that a teacher needs to develop for the every teaching when no plans are written.
Here is why:
Looking at the lesson from the perspective of all the potential disasters and (‘disasters’) to happen can help troubleshoot
Problems and solutions can and should be applied to the instructions, interaction patterns, materials, activities, learning styles, behaviour, participation, time, seating arrangements and the amount of language produced.
Coming up with the list of everything that can go wrong helps to generate at least some of the solutions for them and get the teacher better prepared for the lesson and, ultimately, fewer surprises in the classroom.
This is especially important if the teacher is doing the activity for the first time ever or if it is a new approach or technique never used with a particular group of students.
Analysing the problems and solutions can result in the teacher having to adapt the original lesson arrangements, in order to improve the lesson.
Predicting what can go pear-shaped and then comparing it with a list of the things that worked out or that didn’t is another fascinating exercise that a teacher can do as part of the post-lesson reflection. How many of my predictions were true? How many of them were not? Was I overly optimistic or overly pessimistic? What were the biggest surprises?
Writing these down is an option but, most likely, in there everyday teaching life, with 20+ lessons to teach a week, there won’t be any time for that. It is a lot more important to allocate time for that, though, and, although it might take a bit longer in the beginning, it is definitely one of the teaching skills that become automatic and, with time, require less and less time committment. Speaking from experience here:-) Over the years, it turns you into a teacher who takes literally a second to look at a handout or a game or a coursebook page and who can see a list of its benefits and pitfalls. Upon which a decision can be made whether to use it in class or not.
This is the week of the summer teacher training and may it be the first of many. I love being a trainer for many reasons and one of them is the fact that just as many ideas come are born in the classroom, in the presence of kids, in the same way, many are born in the classroom in the presence of trainees. Being, talking, observing and reflecting and, ta-dam, you find yourself talking and making mental notes for all the posts to add to this blog.
Here is the first post dedicated to my summer trainees from the June 2023 group.
Lesson planning process in three easy steps
Check the coursebook content, choose the lesson aims and the main activity
Plan the whole lesson (in the way you prefer to do it, with taking notes, without taking notes, with colours like I love to do or just on a set of post-it notes, like my teacher-friend Irina likes to do.
Once it is all done and ready, take another look at it and assess it, analysing it from the point of view of variety. If something is missing and/or is in excess, adapt the lesson plan
Here comes the variety…
Settlers and stirrers
This is probably the one that I would recommend starting. First of all, because it is quite straighforward and easy to spot, even for a newly qualified teacher. Young learners accumulate energy fast and they need to be given an opportunity to release it in order to be able to concentrate on those tasks that require focus. If they don’t, they will become distracted and wriggling in their chairs. In such a situation no teaching or learning is taking place.
Second of all, it is a good one to start with because it is just very easy to deal with and to fix, without any major effort. Most of the time, what it takes is to shift stages around the lesson. If a lesson is too active, a stage in which students work on their own on a task can be added. If, on the contrary, the lesson is too calm, too still, too book-bound, all you need is a song or, even better, a few songs, to punctuate the whole lesson and to give it a proper rhythm.
Materials
This one is quite easy to take care of as there will always be the board and the markers, the coursebook and the workbook, all the flashcards and a set of markers or pencils. Throw in a puppet, a soft ball, a few die, perhaps a few storybooks and some magnets and a blob of blutack and your basic set is ready. Then, to make all the dreams come true, I would add a beautiful multifunctional box, some coloured paper, a few pairs of kids scissorss and a few gluesticks, some trinkets to be the checkers, a bag of stickers, painter’s scotch and a homemade magic wand.
The computer and the screen, with the Internet access and the cornucopia of goods available online is already in the classroom.
The only thing is to make combine all the elements in a clever way and make sure that the set changes a bit, from lesson from lesson, and that some occasional pretty pieces such as playdough, watercolours or food.
Learning styles
On the one hand, ‘learning styles’ is one of the terms that features in many (if not all books) on teaching young learners. On the other hand, it is one of the most frequently mocked concepts at many (if not all) conferences, workshops and lectures on teaching English.
But, as I have been telling my trainees over the years, those who say anything about learning styles with the tiniest even traces of derision are, quite likely, the people who have never worked with children. If they had, they would have embraced any movement, action, songs, music, chants, colourful flashcards, realia, blocks and posters, not because they would lend themselves to be neatly labelled as kinesthetic, auditory and visual but because variety of learning channels means less boredom in the YL classroom and, even if only for that one reason, better results.
And it’s not that the song in the classroom is only going to be sung only by those kids who actually like singing. Quite the contrary, the song is there for all of the kids to participate only some will enjoy it more than the others. So will the flashcards, posters and realia or boardgames.
I got to this paragraph in the post and I smiled. And it’s because, as soon as we get to this point in our coversations with teachers or trainees, there is always somebody who raises up a hand to say that ‘Primary school children don’t know to work in pairs’. I smile.
It is true, that on entering a classroom with a bunch of primary school kids, you cannot just assume that you will be able to go ‘Together, together, together. Work in pairs. Here is the handout’ and it will just happen. It will not but it is not because the kids, developmentally, are unable to work in pairs. It is because it is a new environment, a new teacher, a new group of peers, a new classroom and, in our case, a new language.
Pairwork is possible in primary. Pairwork is absolutely necessary in primary and it can be done. It can be done even with much younger students and here you can read about how to go about it. For that reason, and taking full responsibility for my words, I can say that in a lesson with primary students, as a trainer, an observer, a mentor, an educator and an ados, I would expect to see some whole class work, some indivdual work, some teamwork AND some pairwork.
Practical notes
I like to colour-code different areas to better see the balance or the lack of it.
I sometimes use it as a reflection task before teaching the lesson, sometimes it is a post-teaching entertainment.
Most of the time, I use it in my everyday lesson planning, and then I only focus on one or two areas here and that is usually when the lesson plan just ‘doesn’t feel right‘ and I am trying to identify why I am not happy with it.
This is also a technique that I have used in teacher training, with evaluating the lesson plans of my trainees, while preparing an observation report and, naturally, also during the lesson planning sessions of all kinds. Because of that, the main objective would be different, either to identify the weaker areas and to create the connection between the lesson planning process and the lesson itself or while lesson planning to problem shoot and to ensure that the lesson is balanced, at least on paper.
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.
This was my first reaction to the context I had a chance to teach in last week. To be honest, I am still sighing because an experience like that does not wear off too easily. Yes, it was not a positive experience.
Now, even being just dead inside and very very angry (not a contradiction) at the time it was taking place, I was still a devoted teacher and, even more importantly from the point of view of this post, I was a trainer, reflecting and assessing. So here we are. For you, what not to do and why.
What happened
Last week I had a chance to teach an extremely mixed ability group. I am an experienced teacher and an experienced trainer and, over the years, I have had an opportunity to work in a variety of contexts with different students and mixed ability groups in all shapes and forms and types of a mixture. Last Wednesday I reached a new level.
There were nine kids in the classroom. Three of them – real beginners who should be learning colours and their first hellos. Seven of them – pre-literate students who would require an alternative set of materials. Two kids – of a higher than ‘just pre-A1’ who should be in a more advanced group. One child, aged 5 (according to the information from the admin) and aged 4 (according to what he told me) – a pre-schooler who should not be spending in the classroom more than 30 minutes. Three kids, aged 10 – who should be in a completely different group where they are given a task on a higher cognitive level of challenge than just a picture to colour. And yet, there we were, myself and all nine kids (all of them called Sasha, traditionally), in the same classroom, for 4 academic hours of a lesson.
We all survived. Here are some notes from this memorable day.
The youngest Sasha…
The youngest Sasha was completely out of place. He did not understand what we were doing and the only reason why he even stayed in the classroom was that his older sister was present and involved. He was trying to join in, though, and the result of it was a little boy babbling in some kind of a newspeak, that was neither pidgin, nor Sasha’s L1 and not any langauge known to mankind. Albeit, to be honest, it to someone who did not know English, it might have sounded like English, from afar. My heart was literally aching at his efforts.
The youngest Sasha had no idea of the way you interact in the classroom. On countless of occasions, he would get up, come to the board, pick up markers to draw on the board (since the classroom was not baby-proof, I did not expect a pre-schooler), to try to nick a few post-it notes. He did not understand why he did not get a set of mini-cards (and some kids did, the leaders of all the small teams) and when he got a small heart for the other activity, he did not want to give it back. Because why would he? At one point, I felt like being on the playground and ‘fighting’ over toys.
It was beyond the little Sasha’s understanding why we would even dictate the colours for each other to use in a colouring dictation. ‘But I want to colour it blue and green!’, he said, already on the verge of tears and, later on, naturally, he was thoroughly confused that his picture was different from the teacher’s, his sister’s, all the other kids’ and he kept asking if he did a good job and if he completed the task well.
The Sashas in the middle…
Generally, these Sashas were under control. After all, they are the kids who have spent the longest period of time in the classroom and they are the kids who have had a chance to experience and to benefit from the routine of the previous two weeks. High five to the teacher who made an effort to build this routine. It was worth it. These are also the children who constitue the biggest group and the activities were generally designed for them and graded to their linguistic, cognitive and social skills. They did participate, they did produce, they did work well in pairs and, unknowingly, they were the kids that the teacher was looking at and sighing with relief. ‘Not all is lost’, thought the teacher. ‘I have not run in vain’, thought the teacher, quoting her favourite quote from the Bible, albeit a very un-religious one.
But, still, the atmosphere of the lesson, chaotic and messy, unravelling and tense (my bad, I know that) also took its toll even on them. My amazing twins were on the edge and, at one point, a heated debate broke out because one of them wanted to play a simple gussing game (as intented and as they were instructed to) whereas the other wanted some hints and suggestions (because that is how we played in the previous weeks). ‘Why aren’t you miming? Why aren’t you telling me if it is big or small and if you like it?’, he was asking. They ended up getting upset with each other and breaking up for a minute. The other pair, Sasha girls were sleepy and tired and on the verge of tears and even though they did play, they also spent a moment discussing whether they should just divide the cards into two piles or take them from the same pile and how much time is necessary to make a decision which word you want to use to talk about (Answer: not too much, the sooner, the better).
The day is quite long and the kids like to ask how much time is left. We have established a routine that when they want to know, they should ask (‘What time is it?’) and the teacher checks the watch and writes how many minutes are left until the nearest break. I don’t quite like it but they are quite young, they cannot tell the time using the clock and, still, they need something to understand and to manage the lesson time. We have drilled the question, it is always on the board and, although it is slightly annoying to hear the same question over and over again, it gives me an idea of how involved the group are. The more frequent the questions, the more ‘trouble’ we are in. Unsurprisingly, in that particular lesson, this question was popping up again and again and again.
The oldest Sashas…
The oldest Sashas finished the task way too quickly for teacher’s liking and we all had to wrap up a bit faster, although, indeed, they got convinced into taking part in some kind of an extension and it did buy the rest of us some time.
The oldest Sashas, because there were more than one, spent the lesson being on the brink of getting involved in some alternative, mostly illicit activities. In the end, they did not, with an experienced teacher present, but, oh Lord, there was so much potential for it. If there had been only one older Sasha, they would have been more easily contained. With two or three, at times, they could bounce their exciting ideas off each other, fueling the behaviour that were not quite welcome.
It was almost a miracle that the older Sashas enjoy colouring and that they got midly interested in completing the task. They were most engaged than I would have expected from children of their age. I can safely say that, yes, I did get away with it.
In an ideal world, these Sashas would be getting a much closer monitoring from the teacher to ensure that they are using the same material but producing a lot more langauge than the average student. Unfortunately, with the kind of mix that I actually had to deal with, it was not possible. Apart from the storybird activity that involved a 1-1 interaction with the teacher, closely supervised. Overall, the teacher was not happy at all.
I have also noticed that one of my older Sashas has got a very strong inclination for bullying. Nothing happened but I do not like the vibe and the way he behaves around the younger children (aka all the other children in the group). He is naturally a leader without any skill to be one and he has absolutely no one to look up to and to be inspired by. He would benefit more from being in a group of older children in order to develop his social skills and to learn from the other kids.
If I could think of a metaphor for that day…
A sweater that is fraying uncontrollably, at three different ends.
Washing the windows in a flat ont the top floor, in a blocks of flats. Standing on the chair and reaching out to this little piece in the corner, thinking that this may all end up in a very, very bad place.
A flooded kitchen, with you trying to make decisions quickly and to save something, to wipe the floor and not to let the flood spread to the neighbours below you.
A three-course dinner for ten, prepared by one relatively skilled chef, on one hob, with a pot and a pan.
A herd of cows that your grandma asked you to bring back from the pasture, walking them on the main village road, with all the tractors and all the combine harvester coming back from the fields and using the same road AND all the neighbours and villagers standing by the fences of their houses, watching the god-damn show because a city teenager trying to manage a task she had no preparation or knowledge of. Speaking from experience, in case you are wondering.
Any of the experiences that you spend hating every second of and yet you go on and you survive. Exhausted. And then you just sigh and vent in a post on your blog.
Coda
There is not much to say here apart from this one thing: all these kids should not be learning English together. There are too many factors that come into the picture that make it an almost impossible task for the teacher. It is true that English language groups are rarely homogenous and it is especially true in case of young learners groups and, especially especially, in case of primary school students. Teachers are simply obliged to deal with that issue on daily basis. Managing a group of kids who are on the same level of English but who are of different ages – it is possible. Managing a group of kids who are of the same age but have different levels of English – it is manageable. However, this kind of a mix, different age groups, different levels of English, different levels of literacy skills, cognitive skills and social skills development with such a number of kids is simply not a good idea. If you have a choice, please, DO NOT DO IT.
The EFL classroom, just like the Mary Poppins’ bag, is full of the little pieces that to other people might be just random junk but to the teachers of young learners, they are the true gems and the amazing, life-saving fireworks. This post today includes only 5 of them, something old, something blue, something borrowed, something blue or, in the EFL words, something for production, something for games, something for classroom management…Because sharing is caring.
One: paper hearts
You need: a set of small colourful cardboard cards, which stand for ‘I like’ (the colour side) and ‘I don’t like’ (the side with a small cross).
You will need these to encourage the kids to start expressing opinions. The hearts are used as a symbolic representation of the structure when it is introduced, they are used in all the handouts, even with the youngest kids, but they really start working when the students can physically hold them and use them to react to express opinions by showing the appropriate side of the heart, depending on their opinion. First come the gestures and the symbols, then the language itself and then the hearts become unnecessary because the kids are ready to just talk about the things they like and those that they don’t. It works amazingly well with small groups and it works even better with the bigger groups because all the kids can talk at the same time and the teacher gets the immediate group feedback with all the hearts up into the air.
Two: Little random word cards
You need: a set of regular small cards with the key vocabulary from the unit. They can be handwritten or printed. For the younger kids these are replaced with a set of mini-flashcards, with the images and the text or only the images.
You can: use them in a variety of games to practise vocabulary such as: riddles (make a definition to guess the word), questions (ask a question with the word for your partner to answer), similar or different (taking two words at a time to look for similarities between them), categories (with students grouping the words in any way they want), random stories (telling stories with the words taken out of the pile in a random order) or testing each other (to check the meaning or spelling of certain words) or pelmanism if there are two sets of words per group or pair. Anything for more vocabulary practice and use.
Three: Faces
You need: a set of cardboard circles with emoticons for them. The disposable paper plates work amazingly well here, too.
You can use them during the hello circle to help the kids answer the question ‘How are you today?’ as they are allowed to manipulate the cards while talking to the teacher. We also use them all the time while telling stories to help illustrate all the emotions involved and while working with any visuals that accompany listening or reading activities in the coursebook. The emotion flashcards can also come in handy with different behaviour issues. Knowing the words such as ‘angry’, ‘sad’ or ‘ill’ can really come in handy in many class situations.
Four: Stars
You need: a set of cardboard stars, cut out of regular or, if you are really fancy, out of some colourful cardboard paper, and some blutack or magnets. In a super upgraded version these cardboard stars can have a piece of magnetic sheet glued to them (aka this is how we recycle the merch magnets given out at out local pizza place, cut them up and glue them to things we want to use on the board).
Why? These have become my go-to, clutching-at-straws solution to motivate my kids to speak more English in class at the point when my sweet primary kids grew up and became more talkative and they were more likely to choose their first language to chat away. The stars, given out demonstratively with an excited ‘Oh, what beautiful English!’ worked in two ways. On the one hand, they made them focused on using the target language, on the other hand, somehow, magically almost, it got them to use the target langaguage from the higher shelf. Once they got into the habit of communicating mostly in English, we could stop using the stars in every lesson.
Five: Names Cards
You need: a set of small cardboard rectangles, with each of the students’ names on them, one per card, possibly laminated, to make them year-long-lasting.
You can: use them for any pairwork or group forming activity without getting personal. The cards can be kept in a box or a bag and drawn out by the teacher to organise the kids in a fun way. Even more so, the students can be involved in the draft. This way the grouping and pairing will be the most impersonal, the most random and the most genuine ever. It might also make it easier for the students to accept the outcome, even if they end up working with the classmates whom they might not like very much. After all, it will be due to luck, good or bad, not due to some very arbitrary decision of the teacher.
This is my number 1 storybook illustration ever. Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald
This post came about as a result of conversations with some of my trainees and colleagues, most recently with Vera, and it inspired me to reflect on not necessarily on my favourite storybooks as this list would be much, much longer but on the list that I would start a storybook library from and the titles that I would buy first.
Making this list was not entirely pleasant because as soon as I got to number 10, I started to revise it as I was being flooded by the titles and the characters that also wanted to make it. It is quite likely that this list will be modified in the future.
Here we go then. The Very Personal List Of My Favourite Storybooks To Be Used In the EFL Classroom with some very short rationale and some interesting links.
Very Hungry Caterpillarby Eric Carle: It is a true classic and it is quite likely that your students, no matter how young, have already read it in their L1. It has a great character that we can relate to (I know I can) and it can be used to teach food, emotions (‘I am hungry’, ‘I am not feeling very well’), the life cycle of butterfly and, potentially, the seasons and weather, too. It can be combined with a treasure hunt in the garden and in the park and with a craft lesson.
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell: This is a storybook that I know it by heart and I did use it in class a few times with only a box and a set of flashcards. It is a great resource to teach and to practise all the animal vocabulary but it is a great starting point to teaching adjectives, too. I used it to introduce the idea of a riddle which we later extended to make our own. It has been
Marvin Gets Angry by Joseph Theobald: I have a special place in my heart for Marvin and his antics. This book can help you to teach the basic emotions (happy, sad, agry, tired) and it is great in the first lessons, while establishing class routines and teaching kids how to behave but it also helps to accept that we all get angry sometimes and we need to find ways of dealing with. Other than stamping on the flowers, frightening the hens and biting the cow’s tail. It works for body parts, too.
Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carl: It is a wonderful book for the first lessons with year 1 students because it has a repetitive text and it works very well with colours. It can be also used to teach ‘What can you see?’ ‘I can see / I see’ which is a good first functional phrase that will be used throughout the course.
Barry And the Scary Hairy Monster by Sue Hendra: It is not the first book of the series, but it is the first one I used and I fell in love with. It has a great plot with a fantastic surprise at the end and I normally use it in the beginning of the year 1 course, to practise emotions, colours and some simple questions such as ‘Where are you?’, ‘Who are you?’. It is great for involving kids through miming and counting. It also normalises the fact that we are all afraid and it helps the kids to deal with the fear.
Three Billy Goats Gruff (traditional): This is my favourite traditional story to be used in the EFL classes although the reasons for that are rather random. I started using it with my students only because I found it lying around and came up with ways of dealing with it. We use it to talk about emotions and food because all the goats offer some random food items to the troll trying to bail themselves out. At least they do in my rendition.
Where Is My Baby? by Julie Ashworth: Here is another book that I am very attached to emotionally. We have a history, you could say. Naturally, I know this one by heart, too. It has some repetitive language, it can be easily turned into a role-play with the whole class and it is a perfect resource for teaching and practising body parts and adjectives. I love the ending, too because it helps to teach the idea of tolerance. It can be combined with a craft lesson.
Zog by Julia Donaldson: I love Zog because it works well in the EFL classroom to teach body parts, health problems (‘What’s the matter?’) and ‘I can’, ‘I can’t’. Apart from that, it also has a great story that includes an underdog hero, a princess that does not care about castles and honours and who wants to do something real and a prince that learns that it is not necessary to fight with dragons, all the great ideas that can help teach kids develop and believe in themselves.
Don’t Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward: This books made it to my top ten because it includes aquatic animals and a shark as the main character and a lot of school vocabulary. It has got a funny plot and can be used to teach imperatives and the rules of classroom behaviour. It is one more book that I like to use in the beginning of the year. It can be used in the unit on animals or, specifically, on life aquatic and it can be combined with the Baby Shark song and craft, too.
Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes by Anna Kemp: This storybook might be a bit too challening for the youngest of students, in terms of concepts or vocabulary, but it is still an amazing resource. It has some potential to be used in lessons on colours, emotions, house vocabulary, animals, verbs and adjectives. It is a fantastic resource to start a conversation on the power of imagination and the relationship between the kids and the parents. I am also planning it to use it in my Art and English classes. This is also the storybook that I used with all the ages of students: from pre-school to my advanced teachers.
Those that almost made the list: Elmer by David McKee, Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald, Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin, James Dean and Kimberly Dean, Hugless Douglass by David Melling, Dinosaurs in the supermarket by Timothy Knapman and Sarah Warburton, Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival, The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalk and Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and many many more…
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.
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.
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’.
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!
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.
