Have you tried our Spotlight lesson with your young learners this week? We featured Maze Craze: five simple, fun mazes for very young learners. The object of those mazes is to get the food item to the animal. When I came up with the idea for these mazes, I automatically thought of a hippo eating a watermelon. The explosion of pink goo is something to see! I wanted to include a video of a hippo eating a watermelon for your students, so I asked my sister, who works at a zoo, to film the video. It’s a little blurry and shaky because it was filmed with her iPhone, but I hope your students enjoy it!
End-of-Year ESL Activity: Obstacle Courses
My daughter, who isn’t really into sports, recently told me that she only likes gym class when they get to play sports that their teacher invents, such as “benchball”. She was surprised to hear that basketball was created by a gym teacher, and that it used to be played with peach baskets. My son loves anything to do with sports, but right now he’s obsessed with a running race challenge he invented at school. “You get to make up a new name for yourself every day, and every day is a new season. You have to win five races in a row before you’re crowned the champion!”
The idea of inventing anything (and making up the rules) is something kids get really excited about. This is why so many kids love obstacle courses! The end of the school year is a great time to have play days with obstacle courses. You can celebrate all of the obstacles that your students have overcome! Obstacle courses are useful for language learners because they can review vocabulary related to sports equipment and actions. They can also practice giving, writing, and listening to instructions.
Whether you are a teacher or a parent, here is an Obstacle Course Activity to try with your young English learners :
Warm-Up Questions
First, teach the word “obstacle course” and consider how it relates to language learning:
How is learning a language like going through an obstacle course?
- It’s mentally challenging.
- You have to figure out how it works.
- You can’t move too quickly.
Next, talk about some of the specific obstacles language learners face:
What are the difficult parts (obstacles) in learning a language?
- remembering new words (more…)
Articles
Many languages don’t have articles, so English language learners often struggle with using a or the. Over the years, I’ve found that presenting articles (also called “determiners”) in a chart like the one below helps students see which one to use and why. When students are getting frustrated, remind them that it could be worse—they could be learning a language like French that has male/female and singular/plural articles, too!
Chart:
Mother’s Day Video Fun: Animals and Babies
Kids love learning about animals! At the dinner table last week, I challenged my own kids to name as many animals as they could (without reaching for the iPad). We grabbed an old-fashioned pen and notepad, and they came up with 217 types of animals in 45 minutes. As they proudly named all of the animals they could think of, they shared interesting facts they had picked up while reading and watching videos about strawberry poison dart frogs, dusky dolphins, and other obscure animals! I was a proud mama. My little cubs have learned a lot since the early days when we used to sing the Sleeping Bunnies song over and over.
If you’re looking for Mother’s Day themed ideas for the classroom, this is the perfect time to talk, sing, and learn about animals and their babies. In the Spotlight this week, we have a NEW Word Bank lesson plan about Animal Families. After you’ve tried the lesson, here are some questions and related videos to share in class this week. You’ll notice in some of the videos that animal mothers are the best teachers! It’s no wonder Teacher Appreciation Week ends on Mother’s Day!
What Are Some Names of Animal Babies?
Mother’s Day Fun Facts
Mother’s Day will be celebrated in many countries this Sunday. Are you doing any Mother’s Day lessons or activities in class? Most teachers will want to discuss this holiday with their students, so I thought I would blog about some fun, interesting Mother’s Day facts that you can share with your class this week!
What are some interesting Mother’s Day customs around the world?
- Children in many countries give their mothers flowers (especially roses and carnations) on Mother’s Day. Some children buy gifts for their moms such as chocolates or jewelry.
- Children in the US and Canada often give their mothers breakfast in bed. (more…)
Pronunciation Practice: Name Games
Over the weekend I played a fun getting-to-know-you-better game with my own children. We each wrote ten questions, and then guessed how we thought the other person would answer. I was surprised to discover that my son knew me better than my daughter (based on the ten questions I picked). It didn’t surprise me that my kids knew each other better than I knew them!
One of the questions I included on my list was, “What’s your favorite name?” My kids thought it was hilarious that I chose my own name (Tara) as my favorite name. My son guessed that I would pick my daughter’s name (firstborn) and my daughter guessed that I would pick the name of the main character in the novel I wrote. The truth is, your own name is the sweetest name you’ll ever hear (even if you don’t love it). According to research, if a business uses your name, and pronounces it correctly, you are more likely to go back and do business again. You are also more likely to make friends with a person who remembers your name (and says it properly). Hearing your own name pronounced incorrectly (or having someone call you the wrong name), however, has the opposite effect.
If your students are just learning each other’s names, or if you’re starting a class with a new group of students, explore some different ways to practice the pronunciation of each other’s names. Here are some fun activities to try:
My Favorite Name
First, ask your students to write down their favorite name on a scrap piece of paper. Tell your students that you won’t take any questions (some students will want to ask if they can choose their own name). Next, ask your students to hold up their papers. Count how many people picked their own name and have a discussion about it. (more…)
Pronunciation of “ph” & “wh” Words
English spelling and pronunciation can cause a lot of difficulties for English language learners! That’s because English spelling often doesn’t match the pronunciation. English has gone through many sound changes over time, and we’ve kept some of the older spellings that don’t reflect the current sounds. Did you know that while many languages only have 5 vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u), English has 26 vowel sounds? No wonder it’s tough to learn how to spell and pronounce English words correctly!
Two tricky sounds are those spelled with “ph” and “wh”. “Ph” is pronounced as an /f/ sound, and “wh” is pronounced as a /w/ sound, and neither include the /h/ sound! This week’s Spotlight lesson was on
“ph” & “wh” Words, so I decided to record the words from this lesson on the blog this week. (more…)
Describe It! 8+ Activities, Apps, and Tools to Help Children Learn Adjectives
“A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives
which he habitually uses in conversation.”
~ Mark Twain
Adjectives help children learn language in a fun way. They help children visualize and describe nouns and settings. Adjectives also spark a child’s imagination. When children learn adjectives they learn how to describe the worlds, characters, and adventures they conjure up in their minds. Dragons become fire-breathing green giants and monsters become enormous hairy beasts with sharp fangs and claws. Below are a few lesson ideas, web tools, and apps to help your students learn adjectives.
Adjectives and Poetry
Children can learn adjectives by creating acrostic, diamante, and concrete poems. In an acrostic poem, the first letters of a word describe the word. For example, students can spell out their first names, then describe themselves. Jim becomes Jolly boy, Interested in soccer and cars, and Makes model airplanes. Diamante poems are diamond-shaped poems that are seven lines long and follow this pattern: (1st line) noun; (2nd line) adjective, adjective; (3rd line) verb, verb, verb; (4th line) noun, noun, noun, noun; (5th line) verb, verb, verb; (6th line) adjective, adjective; and (7th line) noun. Concrete poems, often called shape poems, are poems that take the shape of an object or noun. For example, children can be assigned to write sun-shaped poems that describe what they like about the summer. Before students write their poems get them to brainstorm a list of adjectives and adjective phrases to describe the subject matter. Find templates and various activities about poetry at Poetry4kids.com. Find brainstorming templates at EnchantedLearning.com. (more…)
Adjective Sentence Patterns & Suffixes
English language learners study the Be verb early on, and they learn about adjectives soon afterward—adjectives usually appear in simple sentences with the Be verb (e.g., I am happy and That is a big house). This week’s featured lesson was on Adjectives that describe feelings, so I thought a blog post on the grammatical structure of adjectives would be useful for your students!
What do our students need to know about adjectives? First of all, we should explain that adjectives are used to describe nouns. Adjectives can describe the shape, color, age, details, etc. of a noun, and they can describe the emotions associated with a person or thing.
There are two things to “master” about adjectives: the sentence patterns and the suffixes. Once your students learn both, they’ll have adjectives in the bag! (more…)
Spring Idioms
“Is spring coming?” he said.
“What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
~ Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
The flowers are blooming and the birds are singing—spring is in the air! Your students are probably excited about playing outside again and looking forward to the Easter long weekend. Grab their attention with our Spring/Easter Idioms poster!
Students usually love learning idioms because they’re funny, but they can have trouble remembering them because they’re not literal. Using visuals such as this poster can help! Hang the poster in your class (along with our other idioms posters listed below, if you wish) so that students can see the idioms every day. You can also try some of the activities suggested below that will help students remember these idioms.
