ABC of Alphabet Activities

Posted by on Oct 09, 2014 0 Comments

Sprout English’s theme of the week is all about Reviewing the ABCs. You’ll find hundreds of creative ideas for ABC-themed crafts, games, and activities all over the Internet if you start searching. Here are some of the best ideas we discovered. Be sure to click on the links for full tutorials and instructions from creative teachers and parents. Share your own ideas in the comments!

A is for Art Book

Assign each student a letter (or two) of the alphabet. (Or put some students in pairs if you want to have exactly 26 pieces of art.) Give each student (or grouping) a blank piece of three-ringed paper to create a page of art for the letter (e.g., A is for Auntie). Place all of the art into an Alphabet Art Book binder. Let students take turns taking the book home. Alternatively, do this over the course of the year as a “letter of the week” project. Each child would have his own binder full of art. (more…)

Alphabet Name Game

Posted by on Oct 07, 2014 0 Comments

This week’s Spotlight lesson is Alphabet Review from our Phonics Cafe – Book 2 section. Young English language learners will find 23 pages of printing practice for uppercase and lowercase letters, along with fun illustrations and exercises. After reviewing the alphabet on paper, why not try some oral practice with your students? The following activity is a simple one, but one I use again and again with my students because of the specific letter-sound focus. The instructions below tell you how to play with country names, but you can easily change the theme to suit whatever you’re studying in class (animals, food, etc.). (more…)

Comparative Adjective Family Tree Craft

Posted by on Oct 02, 2014 1 Comment

“Every family tree produces some lemons, some nuts, and a few bad apples.”
– Wise Author Unknown

Sprout English’s NEW Comparative Adjectives lesson plan for young learners covers everything from the basic grammar explanation to spelling rules and exceptions. After your students learn the rules and practice making comparisons of people, places, and things on paper, be sure to do some oral practice off the page!

Here is a fun activity you can do with your young learners. This Family Tree Craft will help your learners review English vocabulary for members of the family while also practicing comparative adjectives for describing people.

Family Tree Craft

1. Give each student a copy of Tanya’s handy list of Comparative Adjectives for Describing People.

2. Print a Family Tree worksheet for each student.  (more…)

Comparative Adjectives for Describing People

Posted by on Sep 30, 2014 0 Comments

In English, we use adjectives to describe nouns (people, places, or things). What about when we want to compare two nouns? Comparative adjectives are useful to learn so that students can compare different things. There are a few rules for forming comparative adjectives, which your students can learn in our new Comparative Adjectives lesson (in the Grammar School section of Sprout English). Once students have learned these rules, get them to practice using this worksheet on describing people. On Thursday, Tara will blog about a fun activity for comparing people, so be sure to check back then!

You’ll find two worksheets, one with blank spaces for students to fill in the comparative form of the adjectives, and another with the answers already filled in. You can use the one with the answers as an answer key for students to check their work themselves or as a handy reference sheet for Thursday’s activity. (more…)

#ELT Ideas: Games, Activities, and Tips for Teaching English to Young Learners

Posted by on Sep 25, 2014 0 Comments

Sprout English has been growing for over a year now!

As a materials writer who contributes to various Red River Press publications, including Sprout English (previously English Avenue) and ESL Library, I was excited about the opportunity to blog with the Sprout team. I have been blogging in the field of ELT for many years both personally and professionally. Here are a few reasons why Sprout English has been my favorite place to blog so far!

  • It’s beautiful! The clean design and gorgeous illustrations make it a pleasure to blog here. I love looking at the finished product. Thanks, Robyn!
  • It’s organized! Sprout’s editor Tanya Trusler has the blog team working on a handy, theme- and grammar-based schedule. Each post connects with a featured lesson in our Spotlight section.
  • It’s useful! Many of our posts offer free, professionally designed worksheets to go with our suggested activities. The blog allows teachers to get a feel for the quality-based materials that Sprout English offers to subscribers. (more…)

50+ Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation Resources for Teaching Young ELLs

Posted by on Sep 23, 2014 0 Comments

Time flies when you’re having fun! When you enjoy blogging about grammar, teaching, and the English language as much as I do, a year of weekly blog posts goes by just like that! Our goal at Sprout English has always been to provide quality educational materials to English teachers and students, and my personal wish is that teachers and students will continue to learn from and use our free blog materials. We love helping young learners grow their English skills!

I thought it would be helpful to organize all the articles I’ve written so far into a list that’s easily accessible. (Some articles are included twice if they belong to more than one category.) I hope you find this resource list useful! (more…)

Movie Poster Activity: Practicing the Simple Present & Present Progressive

Posted by on Sep 18, 2014 0 Comments

Have you tried this week’s Spotlight lesson with your English learners? In this lesson, Pako, a young actor from Brazil, is starring in a movie. The reading and exercises in this lesson focus on a movie poster. Students complete exercises that review the simple present and present progressive tenses.
You can extend this lesson by having your students create their own movie posters! These posters will be a great addition to your classroom walls.

Movie Poster Activity

1. Make sure that your students are familiar with how to talk about themselves using the simple present and present progressive tenses. Use the lesson Pako from Sprout English’s Library to review these tenses.
(more…)

Simple Present Vs. Present Progressive – Grammar Worksheet

Posted by on Sep 16, 2014 0 Comments

Students learn the simple present and present progressive verb tenses early on in their English language studies. The problem is that most textbooks don’t present these tenses together! It’s easy enough to remember the conjugation of one tense and practice it over and over. It’s quite another when both tenses appear in the same context—that’s when students really have to understand the differences in order to use the correct tense. Our Spotlight lesson this week, Pako – Simple Present / Present Progressive Reading, uses both tenses in the story so that students can see them compared and contrasted.

We’ve got many resources to help your learners figure out the differences between these tenses. Go over our free, printable grammar chart on the simple present vs. present progressive with your students, then print out the worksheet below and see how they do. If they are still confused, try some of our other resources at the end of this post!

Download the grammar worksheet PDF (more…)

Draw My Face: Listening Activity

Posted by on Sep 11, 2014 0 Comments

Our theme of the week on Sprout English is The Face! If you teach absolute beginners or very young children, these are probably some of the first vocabulary words they learn in English. Do your older or more advanced students know how to make sentences with these words? Do they know some of the adjectives that go with face nouns? Our resource pack offers everything you need to introduce and expand on this vocabulary.

Word Bank Lesson Plan: The Face
Describing the Face: Adjectives and Sentence Patterns
Draw My Face: Listening Activity (below) (more…)

Adjectives for Describing the Face

Posted by on Sep 09, 2014 0 Comments

Our Spotlight lesson this week is The Face, a fun and colourful vocabulary lesson from our Word Bank – Describing People & Things section. As a follow-up and expansion, try teaching some common adjectives that your students can use to describe the face and hair. You can also use these adjectives with Tara’s vocabulary activity (which will be on our blog on Thursday). Scroll down to the end of this post for examples, sentence patterns, and a discussion on comma placement with multiple adjectives.

Eyes (more…)