Our world lesson plan

Stand-alone lesson ESL kids lesson plan

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Our world ESL lesson plan

Our world

A lesson plan for talking about the world we live in. In this lesson students learn key vocabulary to describe the world around them. It ends with a fun class poster craft activity.

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Notes:

In this lesson students will learn some vocabulary to describe the world around them, including natural features in the land and in the sky.

Important: This lesson will review [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] vocabulary so you should make sure you have taught the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] lesson before this lesson.

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

The beginning of your lesson is extremely important: this is where you set the tone of your lesson and get everyone in the right frame of mind for learning English. It is also an opportunity to check homework and review previous lessons.

Click for warm up suggestions for the start of your lessons

Print this warm up and maintenance section

Print this warm up and maintenance section

These activities can be done in the following order at the start of your lesson:

Welcoming

1. Welcoming
Greet the students by name as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down. If you have space on the floor, it’s a good idea to have a cushion for each student as this makes sitting arrangements easy to [hide_on_uk]organize[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]organise[/hide_on_us]. Try and arrange the cushions beforehand spaced out in a fan-shape around you.

Name tags

2. Name tags
Before class prepare some name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) with each student’s name written in lower case letters. Sit down with your students and lay out the name tags in front of you. Pick up each tag and call out the name. Try and encourage each student to put their hand up and say “yes”. Hand over the tags and help to pin / stick on. Later on as your students recognize their written names you can have each student in turn pick out their own name tag.

Glove puppet greetings

3. Greetings
Use a glove puppet (such as a Sesame Street puppet) to greet the students. Keep him in a cloth bag. Bring out the bag, open it enough to see in and shout into the bag the puppet’s name (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Then move your ear to the opening to listen – nothing. Go to each student and encourage them to shout the puppet’s name into the bag – each time nothing happens. Finally, get all the students together to shout the name at the same time. This time the puppet wakes up and jumps out of the bag! The puppet then chats to each student:

Puppet (teacher): Hello, What’s your name?
Student Hello. My name is….
Puppet: Goodbye / See you!
Student: Goodbye / See you!

As your students learn more phrases, you can include them in the conversation, such as “How old are you? Do you like …?, Can you …?, etc.

Finally, the puppet goes back into the bag and back to sleep.

4. Sing the “Hello song” or a review song
Sit in a circle and sing along to the song. Encourage students to clap along or pat their laps in time with the music. The Hello song is a good song to start the lesson with, especially as it has an accompanying Goodbye song to sing at the end of the lesson.

Lyrics for the “Hello song”

Hello, hello, Hello, hello,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine, thank you,
We’re ok, We’re ok.

Lyrics for “The Hello Song”

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Hello, hello,
How are you today?

I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Gestures for the “Hello song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

  • Wave as you sing the “Hello, hello” parts.
  • Gesture to others as you sing, “How are you today?”
  • Point to yourself as you sing, “I’m fine, thank you”
  • Hand gesture towards another student as you sing, “And how about you?”.
Sing the "Hello song"

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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Song download

Music only

Song video

Song posters

Read a classroom reader again

5. Read a classroom reader again
As you progress through the lessons you will start to build up a catalog of classroom readers. Kids love going back to old stories and reading through them again. Invite a student to pick a classroom reader and read through it as a class. Make the story as interactive as possible by asking questions (e.g. what [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] there are, the names of different objects, etc.) and getting students to speculate what is going to happen next in the story.

Homework check

6. Homework check
Check each student’s homework set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “what [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is it?”), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker, a stamp or draw a smiley face). Finally, tell your students to put their homework back into their bags.

Exercise routine

7. Do “Exercise routine” activity
Say the following and have your students follow your lead: “Stand up (teacher stands and so does everyone else), “Hands up / hands down” (x 3-5), “Jump” (x3-5), “Run! / Stop!” (x3-5), “Turn around! / Stop!” (x3-5), finally “Sit down”.

Throughout the course you can introduce other commands, such as “Hop”, “Star Jump”, “Wiggle”, “Crouch” and so on.

Extra activity: Once your students have got to know these exercises you can play “Teacher says” using these actions.

How to play … Teacher says:

This is basically the game ‘Simon says’ but using the words “Teacher says” instead. The teacher tells the students to do an action and they do as asked (e.g. “Teacher says … jump 3 times”). The teacher keeps on giving instructions with different actions using “Teacher says …”. At some point the teacher gives a command without using the phrase “Teacher says” (e.g. “Hop 5 times”) and the students must not do that action – they have to stay still. Any students that do the action have to sit out for the rest of the game. The last student standing is the winner.

Name writing practice

8. Name writing practice
If your students cannot write their names yet, this is a great activity. For really young ones, don’t worry if their effort is a scrawly mess – always encourage and praise.

You will need to prepare a writing sheet for each student before class with their name written in dots for them to practice tracing their names (also prepare one for yourself so you can model the task). You can either make these yourself (hand draw the dots for each name) or use a font typed into a Word document – we like to use the “National First Font Dotted” font (you can download it for free here: http://www.fontspace.com/roger-white/national-first-font-dotted).

Prepare the sheets something like this:

Name writing sheet

Tip:

Make a few extra copies of each student’s name writing sheet so you can use them in future lesson or for homework.

When everyone has finished writing their names, get each student to hold up their sheet so you and everyone can see. Give lots of praise to each student.

9. Review past lessons
Reviewing past lessons is very important – students need constant practice of new vocab, structures, songs, games and so on. Always review parts of your last lesson as well as some parts from other previous lessons. You can spend 5-10 minutes reviewing – it’s fine to recycle games and activities from your past lessons to review as kids enjoy playing familiar games (although be careful not to play a game to death!).

Note: You can also include review activities in the main body of your lesson. Kids can have short attention spans so it’s good to be able to pull out lots of activities during different stages of the lesson.

Other ideas to include in your warm up:

What's in the bag?

What’s in the bag?
This is a great activity to do at the beginning of your lessons. Fill a large cloth bag with items from your previous lessons (e.g. plastic fruit, animals, etc.). You can also throw in a few other objects (e.g. a pencil, a plastic bottle, a plastic cup – anything lying around (and safe!)). Show the bag to your students and shake it to rattle the objects inside. Pull out different objects, teach/elicit their names, have students hold and pass the objects around. You can even have students pull objects out of the bag. Pull out 1 or 2 objects per student. Finally, place the objects around the classroom and have each student retrieve each object as you call out its name and put it back in the bag.

Knock-knock
This can be used at the beginning of each class. Teach the students to knock on the door before entering the classroom. There are 2 variations for the next step:

  1. When the student knocks, teacher says, “Who’s there?”. The student replies, “It’s (Koji)” and then the teacher says, “Come in (Koji)”.
  2. When the student knocks the teacher must guess who it is, “Is that (Koji)?”. The student replies yes or no – if no, the teacher continues guessing. Having your students develop their own knocking styles makes this even more fun.
Spin the bottle

Spin the bottle
Sit students in a circle with a bottle in the middle. Teacher spins the bottle. When it stops spinning the student it is pointing at has to answer a question. If the answer is correct then that student can spin the bottle. For example, How are you? What’s your name? What is this? (show an object or flashcard) Do you like _?, etc.

Weather board

Talk about the weather (do after you have taught the weather lesson plan).

  1. Prepare a weather board. Before the first class prepare a piece of cardboard and cover it with felt – you are going to pin this to the wall. If you can, try and get blue felt (to represent the sky). Write at the top in large letters, “How’s the weather today?”. Below the write “Today it’s”. Cut out weather pictures (such as our weather flashcards) and stick some velcro on the back. Arrange the weather pictures around the edge of the board and then put the board on the wall of your classroom. You can now use this weather board at the beginning of every lesson.
  2. Sing “The weather song”. Sing the song together doing all of the gestures.
  3. Look outside. Get everyone to look outside by saying, “How’s the weather? Look outside”. Elicit the weather for that day.
  4. Put the weather pictures on the weather board. Invite some students to come up and put the weather pictures on the board. Make sure these students say the word as they put the card on the board.

New learning and practice:

1. Review and teach the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] vocabulary and sing “The rainbow song
This lesson practices [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] vocabulary so make sure you have taught the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] lesson and The rainbow song before this one. Prepare the following pieces colored paper (origami paper works great) before class:

  • (review vocab) red, yellow, pink, green, purple, orange, blue
  • (new vocab) brown, white, black
The rainbow song

Start by holding up the red piece of paper and elicit the [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]. Chorus the word and then let some students touch the paper as they say the word. Do this for all the review [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] in the order of The rainbow song. Now, lay the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] on the floor and have everyone sit on the floor in front of you facing the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us]. Play the song and sing along, pointing at each [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] as it is sung.

Finally, hold up each of the new vocabulary [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] papers (brown, white, black), chorus and pass around the class – with students saying each word as they pass the paper.

Color touch game

2. Play “[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] touch”
Walk around the room and stick the pieces of [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper to the walls as you walk around. Say each [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] word as you stick them onto the walls and make sure they are at a level your students can reach.

Now model the game: say, “Touch green!” and show everyone how you look around the walls for the green paper, then run and touch it. Encourage your students to do the same. Now have everyone stand up in the middle of the room. Say different [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] as your students run around touching the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us].

Draw colored lines

3. Play “Draw [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] lines”
Get a big piece of blank paper (A3 or bigger if possible). Have everyone sit in a circle around the paper with their crayons. Say, “Everyone draw a (blue) line”, and model taking out a blue crayon, drawing a nice blue line on the paper and then putting the crayon back into your pencil case. Get everyone to follow suit. Continue with all the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us]. In the end you will have a nice abstract piece of artwork!

4. Teach new vocabulary “sky” and “land”
Before class, find a picture in a book or magazine which shows a scene with the sky and land. Using this picture, point to the sky and chorus “sky” 3 times. Then say, “Let’s touch the sky!” and jump as high as you can and mime touching the sky. Get everyone to copy you.

Touch the sky!

Then point to the land in the picture and chorus “land” 3 times. Say, “Let’s touch the land!” and crouch down and touch the ground, with everyone else following along.

Next, line everyone up and shout out instructions, “Touch the sky!”, “Touch the land!” with everyone jumping and crouching down. Make a game of it by going quickly but sometimes calling out sky or land twice in a row.

5. Teach new “nature” vocabulary
Now we have two defined categories (sky and land) we are going to provide some new words for those categories. Before class, prepare two large A4 envelopes (color one green for land and one blue for sky) and flashcards for sun, moon, stars, mountain, sea, river, cloud, rainbow, lakes, fields, forest.

Pin both of the envelopes to the wall, opened, with the green one low down on the wall (to represent land) and the blue one higher up (to represent sky).

Next, show the first flashcard (e.g. sun). Ask what it is (elicit if required) and chorus. Also, elicit the [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]. Then ask if it belongs in the sky or on the land. Finally, give the card to a student to put into the right envelope. For example:

Put the sun in the sky

Teacher: What’s this?
Students: ???
Teacher: It’s a sun. Repeat, sun.
Students: sun. (chorus 2 more times)
Teacher: What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]
is the sun?
Students: Yellow!
Teacher: Good job! Yes, yellow. And does the sun belong in the sky (pointing at the blue envelope) or on the land (pointing at the green envelope)?
Students: The sky!
Teacher: Yes, great! Emi, please put the sun in the sky envelope (student takes the flashcard and puts into the blue envelope).

Continue with all of the flashcards.

6. Play “Slow motion” and “Jump on it” with flashcards
Now that all of the flashcards are in the correct envelopes, we’ll test to see if everyone can remember the words by playing a guessing game.

Jump on it flashcards game

Take one of the envelopes and slowly start pulling one flashcard out, bit by bit. Encourage your students to guess and shout out what they think it is until it is guessed correctly. The person who guesses first gets a high-five from the teacher! Do this with all of the flashcards in both envelopes.

Next, spread the flashcards, face up, over the floor and get everyone to stand up. Shout out, “Jump on the (mountain)”. The first student to jump on the correct flashcard wins a point.

7. Sing “The nature song”
The first time you play the song, put up “The nature song” song poster on the board.  Quickly elicit the vocabulary.  Play the song and sing along, touching the objects on the song poster as you sing.  Get everyone to sing along and do the “sky” and “land” gestures, as described above in Gestures below.  Play 2 or 3 times.

Lyrics for “The nature song”

Verse 1:
Sun, moon, stars, Sun, moon, stars,
Sun, moon, stars, In the sky.

Sky, sky, sky, sky.

Verse 2:
Mountain, sea, river, Mountain, sea, river,
Mountain, sea, river, On the land.

Land, land, land, land.

Verse 3:
Cloud, rainbow, sun, Cloud, rainbow, sun,
Cloud, rainbow, sun, In the sky.

Sky, sky, sky, sky.

Verse 4:
Lakes, fields, forest, Lakes, fields, forest
Lakes, fields, forest, On the land.

Land, land, land, land.

Gestures for “The nature song”

The gestures in this song are very simple – even very little ones will be able to join in.

  • For verses 1 and 3: these verses are about the sky, so have everyone sway their arms in the air in time with the music as they sing.
  • For verses 2 and 4: these verses are about the land, so have everyone sway their arms low down near the ground in time with the music as they sing.
The nature song

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
[/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
[/hide_on_us]

Song download

Music only

Song video

Song posters

8. Read classroom reader “Rainbowman saves the day”
This reader follows on perfectly from the song and helps to reinforce the new vocabulary with a fun story. Before class, download and print off the reader “Rainbowman saves the day”. As you go through each page, point to the different features and elicit what they are, for example:

Rainbowman saves the day reader

Teacher: (reading from page 2) “Into the sky” … What is this?
Students: Sun!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right. (pointing at a cloud) … And what’s this?
Students: Cloud
Teacher: Yes, a cloud! (continuing to read from page 2) “Past the clouds and sun. No one here!”.
etc.

Continue through the story, eliciting the key vocabulary. Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. about the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] on the rainbow and Rainbowman’s costume, the different transport vocabulary, etc.).

Read classroom reader

After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and read through the story one more time (without stopping for questions, etc.) as students draw the route Rainbowman took on his adventure. Then go through the answers as a class.

Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader (Internet connection required).

9. Do an “Our world” wall poster
We’ll finish with a nice craft activity. Before class, prepare the materials: a large sheet of black or blue construction paper/card with a large circle cut out of green construction paper/card glued in the middle of it (enough sheets for each group of 3 or 4 students). The black/blue paper is the sky whilst the green circle is the Earth. Give out these sheets and have each group have fun drawing objects from the song in the sky on the Earth. You can also get a bit more creative, such as:

Our world wall poster
  • sticking on blue wool for rivers
  • glitter for stars
  • cotton wool for clouds
  • blue paint for seas and lakes
  • green felt for fields
  • etc.

When everyone has finished, pin up the posters to the walls and go around the class asking questions and giving lots of praise.

Wrap up:

Assign homework: “Our world draw” worksheet

Click for wrap up suggestions for the end of your lessons

Assign homework

Print this wrap up section

Print this wrap up section

1. Assign homework
Each week give out a homework worksheet for your students to take home. Hold up the homework worksheet and model how to do it. Give out the worksheets and say, “Put your homework in your bags” and help them to do so – this is important as they will probably want to start [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] them right away.

Note:

If possible, encourage the parents to help out as much as possible with their child’s homework – it is a great way to have your students practice the target language outside of class.

Say goodbye to glove puppet

2. Say goodbye to glove puppet
Take out the bag again and get everyone to wake up the glove puppet by shouting its name into the bag (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Bring out the puppet and go through the same routine – go to each student and say hello, ask their name and the say goodbye / see you. Then put the puppet back in the bag (back to sleep).

3. Sing the “Goodbye song”
The “Goodbye song” is a great way to sign off the class. Sit together in a circle and sing and clap along. You can also use a different song, especially if your students love a particular song.

Lyrics for the “Goodbye song”

Sing the "Goodbye song"

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.

It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Gestures for the “Goodbye song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

  • Wave as you sing the “Goodbye, goodbye” parts.
  • Hold your hand above your eyes (as you would when you are looking into the distance and keeping the sun out of your eyes) and look at another student as you sing, “See you again”.
  • Tap watch (or imaginary watch) and then point to the door as you sing, “It’s time to go”.
  • Point towards another student as you sing, “See you next time”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
[/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
[/hide_on_us]

Song download

Music only

Song video

Song posters

Do "Quick check" and say goodbye

4. Do “Quick check” and say goodbye
Time to leave the class. Make sure everything is put away and the students have gathered their belongings. Have them line up at the door and place yourself between the door and the students. For each student check one new word or phrase, for example:

  • hold up an object or flashcard (such as a [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] or fruit) and ask, “What’s this?”
  • say an action for the student to do (e.g. “Roar like a lion”, “Jump 5 times”, etc.)
  • ask a question from the lesson (e.g. “How old are you?”, “Do you like bananas?”, “Can you play chess?”, etc.).
  • for very young students you can hold up one of the worksheets you did in the lesson and ask them to touch an object (e.g. “Touch the melon”).

When they give you the correct answer say goodbye and let them leave. If their answer is wrong, have them go back to the end of the line – they will have to try again once they reach the front!

Other lesson plans

Actions, verbs & tenses:

Adjectives:

Adverbs:

Alphabet:

Animals:

Body:

Classroom:

Clothes:

Colors:

Colours:

Directions:

Family:

Feelings & emotions:

Food:

Health & sickness:

Holidays & festivals:

Jobs:

Likes, dislikes & favorites:

Likes, dislikes & favourites:

Nature & Our world:

Numbers:

Places & where we live:

Prepositions of location:

Pronouns:

Shapes:

Shopping:

Sports:

Time, days, months, seasons:

Toys:

Transport & travel:

Weather:

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