Young kids often giggle when they see things that don’t seem quite right! Get your youngest English learners giggling (and learning) with these silly Odd One Out games and activities.

Dizzy Doodlers

You will need: Whiteboard markers or chalk and a board

1. Think of a category or theme that you have been working on with your students, such as “shapes” or “animals”. Don’t tell the kids the theme.
2. Invite four students up to the board. (your first set of doodlers)
3. Choose three related words from your category (e.g., monkey, hippo, bear) and one unrelated word (e.g., can of soup). Assign all of the students at the board one of the words you chose. If they don’t know the word in English, you can translate it.
4. Before the students start drawing, spin them around once or twice (to get them a bit off balance).
5. Give the kids a short amount of time to create their drawing.
6. When the drawings are finished, ask the class this question:

Who’s the Dizzy Doodler?
In other words, which student drew the picture that doesn’t belong in this collection? Have your students identify each drawing as well as the category or collection the drawings belong in. Which category or collection would the odd picture belong in? (more…)

Do you use Pinterest for inspiration when you’re looking for crafts to do in the classroom? Pinterest is full of holiday craft ideas, and with a little creativity, you can easily find ideas that can be combined with language learning.

Last weekend I went hunting on Pinterest to find ideas on painting eggs with nail polish. One of my daughter’s favorite games right now is “Name the Nail Polish”. We gather all of our bottles of nail polish and put them in her glittery treasure box. She pulls the bottles out one by one and we take turns coming up with fun names for the colors. Twinkle Twilight…Party Perfect…Salmon Suede…Confetti… Sometimes we play this game out loud together, and other times we write the words down and compare the color names. We’ve played this game with up to four people (boys included), and it works best when we have lots of different colors (at Auntie K’s). Sometimes we even vote on the color names to see which ones we like best. When we’re done, we look at the bottom of the bottles to see what the real names are.

I was delighted that my “nail polish Easter eggs” search on Pinterest brought up so many ideas for coloring eggs. There were ideas for painting real eggs as well as plastic eggs. I was skeptical that nail polish and water would work well on plastic eggs, but was excited to find out that it actually worked when I tested it out!

This particular idea, “You’ve Been Egged” would make a great classroom activity or weekend project. You could “egg” another classroom at your school, or invite your students to “egg a neighbor” over the Easter weekend. Here is a handout you can give your students if you want them to do this activity at home. *

You will need: (more…)

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? With our lesson on the Great Pyramid, students can learn about this famous ancient wonder of the world and discuss some of the mysterious facts surrounding it.

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

There are many ways to review vocabulary, and using an activity such as a crossword puzzle is always a hit with students! Our Spotlight lesson this week is our Sports Crossword.

If you log in to Sprout English and type “sports” in the search bar, you’ll find over 50 lessons, flashcards, and activities about sports to do with your young learners. Try a lesson on Sports from our Word Bank, and follow it up with our Sports Crossword, Sports Jumble, Sports Word Search, or 3 Sports Mazes for fun-filled vocabulary review! (more…)

Many countries will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. In some schools, teachers encourage students to wear green on this day, and they do some fun activities in class related to St. Patrick’s Day on or before the holiday. With our St. Patrick’s Day vocabulary lesson, students will learn while having fun!

This eight-page Word Bank lesson includes a colorful picture dictionary with St. Patrick’s Day images including leprechaun, shamrock, four-leaf clover, pot of gold, etc. Activities such as a matchup, word choice, word search, word scramble, and spelling bee help make this lesson engaging and fun. Finish up with the discussion questions so that your students can try using the new vocabulary in context! (more…)

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!

Many countries will celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14. In some schools, it’s common to participate in Valentine’s Day activities like giving out cards and candy in class. Try our Valentine’s Day vocabulary lesson this week for some fun activities to do before or on Valentine’s Day!

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The 2014 Winter Olympic Games take place from Feb 7-23, and the Olympics will be a hot discussion topic during this time. Now is a great time to try our brand new Winter Olympics vocabulary lesson with your young learners!

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This week’s Spotlight feature is from our Discovery Center, and it’s all about Food Allergies. Are you doing a unit on Food in your classroom this year? You’ll probably want to teach your students some songs to help them learn all of the basic vocabulary. I’m sure you’ll also read some stories and play some games. Here are some fun and educational videos you may want to use during your unit on Food.

1. Do You Like Broccoli Ice Cream? (song)

Introduce how to express food preferences.
Do you like…? Yes I do. No I don’t.
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