The environment is an important topic, but students can find it a little dull. Kids love talking about cars, though! Combine these two topics in our updated Smart Cars lesson, which makes learning about the environment lots of fun!

Our Smart Cars lesson in the Discovery Center includes discussion questions, pre-reading vocabulary, a short reading full of interesting facts, comprehension questions, vocabulary review exercises, and a word maze. There is even an optional black-and-white title page for your students to color.

For related materials, check out Where’s the Puppy? Preposition Practice for IN and ON on our blog for a free worksheet on prepositions used for transportation. (more…)

Getting ready to go back to school? This week’s Spotlight lesson, The Test, features a dialogue between two friends about typical school subject: exams! It’s a great lesson to use at the beginning of a new school year. Students can practice the simple future using be + Ving and be going to + V, both of which are natural to use when planning out goals for the year.

This lesson includes a short reading, comprehension questions, a be going to grammar chart, sentence puzzles, and a group discussion activity.

All of the readings in our Library section have a digital component, so teachers and parents can choose how to present the reading and comprehension questions—either on paper or online!

Sprout English has many simple future resources: (more…)

A lesson on there is / there are is useful for low-level students for many reasons. It uses the simple present, a very common verb tense. It demonstrates subject-verb agreement. It introduces students to prepositions of place (since we often mention a location in this type of sentence). And students will also learn vocabulary on food and containers in our There Is / There Are lesson! (more…)

So many prepositions, so little time! English language learners tend to struggle with prepositions because of the wide variety of meanings and uses. Breaking prepositions up into types can help! The focus this week is on prepositions of place in our Word Bank lesson on Prepositions.

This lesson contains eight beautifully illustrated pages that include a colorful picture dictionary, matchup, word choice, word search, word scramble, and spelling bee. Discussion questions at the end allow your students to practice prepositions in context! (more…)

Clothes and shopping are popular topics in most classrooms. With 32 picture cards and 32 word cards, our Clothing Cards make vocabulary learning fun!

Are your students or children ready for a review of the basic verb tenses? This week’s Spotlight lesson, Juan and Sofia – Simple Past Reading, includes the simple present, present progressive, and simple past tenses, and will engage your kids with a hilarious story and fun, educational activities!

This lesson includes a short reading, comprehension questions, sentence puzzles, a crossword, and a group discussion activity to review the simple present, present progressive, and simple past. There is also a helpful spelling review on forming the past tense of regular verbs.

All of the readings in our Library section have a digital component, so teachers and parents can choose how to present the reading and comprehension questions—either on paper or online!

Other simple past resources: (more…)

Turn this popular kids’ food into a lesson! Your young learners will enjoy learning about Pizza and how it’s served all around the world.

Our Pizza lesson in the Discovery Center includes discussion questions, pre-reading vocabulary, a short reading full of interesting facts, comprehension questions, vocabulary review, and a word maze. There is even an optional black-and-white title page for your students to color.

Check out our blog this week for related grammar tips and an activity. On Tuesday, Tanya will blog about Some Vs. Any—get students to practice these quantifiers while talking about pizza in her suggested activity. On Thursday, Tara will blog about a fun food-related activity to try in class: Countable or Uncountable Food: Our Buffet!

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Excitement is building all around the world for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which takes place in Brazil from June 12 to July 13. Kids usually get energized by anything sports-related, so get them into the spirit of the games with our featured vocabulary lesson on Soccer (Football)! (We’ve included both of the sport’s common names in our title because we have subscribers from all over the world. For those of you who might be unaware, this sport is known as “soccer” in the US and Canada and “football” to the rest of the world.)

In this eight-page Word Bank lesson, students will learn nine words associated with soccer, including soccer player, goalie, team, soccer ball, cleats, goal, score, kick, and run. (more…)

Today is skateboarder Tony Hawk’s birthday, so it’s a great day/week to try our Skateboarding lesson! Students will enjoy learning about this popular sport and Tony Hawk’s contributions to it.

This six-page Discovery Center lesson includes discussion questions, a short reading full of interesting facts, comprehension questions, vocabulary review (including an odd-one-out exercise and a crossword), and a word maze. There is even an optional black-and-white title page for your young learners to color. (more…)

“Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.” – Hermann Hesse

When I first began teaching children, I struggled with providing opportunities for all to voice their learning equally. Often, the most vocal students answered questions or took charge in games or group work. The shy students remained silent. With web tools and apps we now have the ability to ensure all our students get to voice their opinions and reflections about the content. With these tools, kids can tell stories, practice vocabulary, or tell us about themselves. Many allow kids to create videos that can be posted on a class website, wiki, or blog or sent to parents and friends. These recordings allow parents to see the learning taking place and evaluate their child’s growth throughout the year. Additionally, many make it fun for even the shyest student to want to participate. Below are a few free tools and apps created with kids in mind.

Web 2.0 Tools

With these free web tools, students can create stories, practice vocabulary, sing songs, or pretend to be the characters they read about. They can work with their peers and practice role-plays or dialogues that they are learning. Kids can also send fun greetings to friends and family, because many of these tools have templates and backgrounds to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and other holidays. (more…)