For a bedtime story last night, my son chose a book that he had picked out at the library: The Natural History Museum Book of Animal Records by Mark Carwardine. We were proud to find out that we knew quite a few animal records already, such as the longest migration for a mammal (gray whale), or the most dangerous shark to humans (bull shark). We laughed ourselves silly in the Birds section, where we found records for the worst walker (hummingbird), the most bossy (kea), and even the strangest nesting material (mockingbirds in Ecuador snatch hair from passing tourists).

If your students are practicing superlatives with this week’s lesson plan, why not create your own Animal Records book? Include the most amazing facts you can find in the library or on the Internet. (more…)

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!

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When we were at the TESOL 2014 convention in Portland this year, we got a lot of requests for materials for pre-K, K, and the lower grade levels. Among the materials we’ll be developing is this series of low-level mazes. Introducing Maze Craze: simple, fun mazes that young learners will love!

Our designer Robyn created five lovable characters that your students will want to help feed. The object is to get the food to the animal, which they can then color. If they can’t do the mazes, they will still enjoy the coloring!

These mazes will tie in nicely to a theme on animals or food. Or just do them anytime for fun! (more…)

Mother’s Day will be celebrated on Sunday, May 11, in many countries. In honor of this important day, we wrote and designed a NEW lesson on Animal Families!

In this eight-page Word Bank lesson, students will learn the names of mother, father, and baby animals of certain families such as lion, cow, chicken, deer, etc. They will practice this vocabulary through several fun, colorful activities, including a picture dictionary, matchup, word choice, word search, word scramble, and spelling bee. This lesson finishes up with discussion questions so that your students can practice using the vocab in context. These activities are suitable for individual, pair, group, or class work—the choice is yours!

The animal family pictures are also available as flashcards at the end of the lesson. For some ideas on how to use flashcards in class, check out 9 Ways to Use Cards & Flashcards in Class.

More Mother’s Day Materials:

• Mother’s Day Video Fun by Tara Benwell
• Mother’s Day Fun Facts by Tanya Trusler (more…)

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?

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Teaching from a textbook all day can be tedious for both students and teachers. Breaking up the time with interactive warm-ups, filler, and wrap-ups makes the lesson engaging and fun! One way to do this is with cards—both flashcards and playing cards. Using cards in the classroom also lets you sneak in some learning while your students think you’re just playing a game. Young learners, especially, respond well to games, and if the games are educational, there’s no reason to limit their use! Games can involve speaking, vocabulary, grammar, etc., but today I’ll focus on ways to use vocabulary cards.

Card & Flashcard Games:

Try the following games with Sprout’s cards in the Card Games section of the Games Room. We have image/word card sets on animals, clothes, farm animals, fish and reptiles, fruit, jobs, prepositions, verbs, and adjectives! (more…)

Flashcards and card games can be used in a variety of ways in an English classroom. They make vocabulary learning fun, and are great as a warm-up, filler, or wrap-up to a lesson. With over 48 words and pictures, our Animal Cards are sure to engage your young learners!

Our lesson of the week is Zookeeper, in the People section of the Color Mart. This coloring activity would be a great warm-up, filler, or wrap-up to any lesson, especially if you’re doing jobs or animals as a theme. (more…)

How many of you had a beloved childhood pet? My family always had one or more cats running around, and I am still a cat lover today. Since a lot of kids either have or want a pet, a discussion about pets is a great way to get your young learners talking.

This week’s article review is on 10 Popular Small Pets on Animal Planet‘s website. Some of the animals might surprise you. (Hermit crabs? Who knew?) There are a number of ways you could use this article with your class. (more…)

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! It’s a zoo at Sprout English this week! Most kids love animals, so lessons and activities involving animals usually get their attention. Our Lesson of the Week is on Hippos, and materials writer Tara Benwell will be blogging for us on Thursday with a fun activity involving animals.

I thought I’d share one of my favorite animal activities to do with young learners. Students get practice with descriptive adjectives in this activity. They think they’re describing their favorite animals, but it’s actually a surprise personality profile! This activity always results in lots of laughs. (more…)