Body and shapes 3 lesson plan

“Mr Shape Head”

Lesson 9 Level 2 Age 5-7

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 9

Body and shapes 3

This lesson continues with the themes of parts of the body and shapes. Students learn some new vocabulary, play fun games and make a shape craft. They also sing a song and read a story about a funny character called “Mr Shape Head”.

Members get accompanying flashcards, worksheets, songs and reader.

This is a stand-alone lesson plan.

This is a free sample lesson!

Materials:

Our lesson plans are FREE!

Sign up for accompanying:

✔ worksheets
✔ homework sheets
✔ craft sheets
✔ flashcards
✔ PowerPoint lessons & multimedia
✔ song downloads & videos
✔ classroom readers & videos

Click to see lesson details, materials and supplies

Age: 5-7 years
Time: 50 mins – 1 hour 10 mins
Objectives: Identify and recognize 9 body parts and 4 shapes.
Structures: “What is it?”, “Which part of the body is that?”, “Touch your …”
New vocabulary: hair, rectangle, brown.
Review vocabulary: head, shoulders, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, square, circle, triangle, 8 [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us].

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

head, should, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, hair

Printables:

Mr Shape Head craft sheet
Mr Shape Head’s body worksheet
Mr Shape Head reader worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
Head, shoulders, knees and toes song
The rainbow song
Mr Shape Head song

Readers:

Mr Shape Head reader

Supplies:

[hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] pencils
name tags for each student
a glove puppet
a large cloth bag
8 sheets of origami [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper (red, green, blue, purple, yellow, pink, orange, brown)
squares, circles, triangles and rectangles cut out of colored card (4 of each) cushions (1 per student)
scissors & glue for craft sheet activity
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

Students complete learning body and shape vocabulary and play lots of fun games. They are also introduced to a new character: Mr Shape Head – they sing a song about him, read a story about him and make a craft of his head.

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

1. Greetings
Greet the students by name as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down (on cushions if you have them) in a fan-shape around you.

2. Name tags
Before class, prepare some name tags (stickers or pin-on tags).

If your students can not write their names well:
have each student’s name written in dots or dashes in lower-case letters on the tags. Sit down with your students and lay out the name tags in front of you. Pick up each tag and encourage the student to recognize his/her name. Do this for everyone.

Finally, have everyone take out a pencil and trace their name on their tags and stick them on.

If your students can write their names well:
simply give a blank name tag to each student to write their name on in pencil and stick it on.

Introduce glove puppet - greetings and introductions activity

3. Glove puppet greetings
Bring out your glove puppet bag and have everyone shout “Hello!“ into the bag until he wakes up and jumps out of the bag. Then model chatting with the glove puppet …

Puppet: “Hello”, What’s your name?”
Teacher: “My name is…”.
Puppet: “How are you?”
Teacher: “I’m fine, thank you”.

… and then have the puppet say hello to each student and ask them the same questions.
Finally, go around saying “Goodbye” and “See you” before going back into the bag and back to sleep.

4. Sing the “Hello song”
Sit in a circle and sing the song (clap along or pat knees).

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?”.

[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]

5. Homework check
Check each student’s homework that you set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “What shape is this?, Is this his head?”), 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.

6. Do “Exercise routine” activity
Say the following and have the students follow your lead:

“Stand up” (Teacher stands and so does everyone else)
“Hands up / hands down” (do 4 or 5 times)
“Jump” (4 or 5 times)
“Kick” (4 or 5 times)
“Run! / Stop!” (4 or 5 times)
“Turn around! / Stop!” (4 or 5 times)
“Wiggle!” (a few seconds)
finally “Sit down”.

7. Do the “What’s in the bag?” activity
Time for the bag again.

Before class, put in a couple of new objects (e.g. a crayon, a plastic bottle, a sock, a paper cup, a leaf, a ball, a teddy, etc. – anything lying around (and safe!)) and take out a couple of the plastic fruits.

Show the bag to your students, shake it to rattle the objects inside, and ask, “What’s in the bag?”.

Randomly pull out different objects and teach/elicit the words – in each case, have students hold and pass the objects around. You can even have students pull the objects out of the bag instead of you taking them out – with eyes closed to make it fun!

Finally, place/throw the objects around the classroom and have each student retrieve an object as you call out its name and put it back in the bag.

8. Sing the “Head, shoulders, knees & toes” song
Everyone stand up. As the song plays everyone sings and does all the actions, touching each part of the body with two hands in time with the song. It’s easy and fun – your students will love doing this! Each verse gets faster so by the last verse it will be frantic but great fun.

Lyrics for “Head, shoulders, knees & toes”

(Each verse gets faster and faster)

Verse 1:
Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Verse 2:
Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Verse 3:
Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Gestures for “Head, shoulders, knees & toes”

Doing the gestures with this song is a must! They are very simple and the kids will pick them up really quickly as they follow you.

Everyone needs to stand up. Simply touch the parts of your body with both hands in time with the song. The song starts off slowly with each verse getting progressively faster, making the gestures more frantic and therefore more fun!

We also have a video that you can play in class to sing along and do the actions with.

[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]

New learning and practice:

1. Review/Teach 9 body parts
This lesson we’ll learn 1 more body part: hair. Before class, prepare flashcards for the 9 body parts. Slowly reveal each flashcard card so students can guess what the picture is. Then, have your students touch their part of the body (so, when you show the “head” picture get everyone to touch their heads). Chorus each word 3x and ask your students to individually say each word.

2. Practice the body vocabulary
Lay the 9 flashcards that you have just used in front of you, facing your students (or lined up on the board). Randomly touch each card and have your students touch that part of their body and say the word. Do a final, faster round.

3. Play “Flashcard exercises”
Get everyone sitting on the floor and facing the front of the class. Give out body flashcards so that each student has at least one card (even better is for each student to have two cards). Shout out a random flashcard word (e.g. “ears”) with an action (e.g. “ears – hands up!”). All students with the ears flashcards have to do that action. Continue with other words and different actions (e.g. jump up and down, run on the spot, turn around, stand up / sit down, wiggle, touch your toes, etc.).

4. Sing “The rainbow song”
Let’s review the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] with the rainbow song! Give out all 7 [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] (e.g. [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper, pencils, etc.) to each student. Get each student to lay out the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] in front of him/her, in the order of the song. As you pay the song again, have all students touch each [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] and sing along.

Lyrics for “The rainbow song”

Verse 1:
Red and yellow and pink and green,
Purple and orange and blue.
I can sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow too.

Verse 2:
Red apples and yellow sun,
Pink flowers in the green grass.
Purple grapes and orange carrots,
A rainbow high in the blue sky.

Verse 3:
Red and yellow and pink and green,
Purple and orange and blue.
I can sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow,
Sing a rainbow too.

Gestures for “The rainbow song”

There are a number of activities you can do as you sing along to the song:

Simply pat your knees or clap in time with the music as you sing the song.
Give each student a print out of The rainbow song song poster. As they sing along they touch each [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] or picture.
Give out the 7 [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] to students ([hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper, origami paper, [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] blocks, [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] pencils – anything will do) and have students touch the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] in time with the song.
Put [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper up around the walls of the classroom. Have all of your students point to each [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] as it is sung.

[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]

5. Review [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us]: blue, green, purple, yellow, pink, orange and teach new [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]: brown
Use the [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] origami paper / paper / card for the 8 [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us].

Sit everyone in a circle and hold up the first [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper and elicit the color (e.g. red). Chorus and practice saying the [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]. Do this for the rest of the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us]. Finish with brown.

6. Play “[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] touch” and “[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] hold up”

Color touch: Lay the 8 [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] in the middle of the circle. Say, “Hands up!”. Students raise their hands. Then say, “Touch…..red!” and the students should all try and touch the red [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper. Do for all of the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us].

Color hold up: Give each student one of the [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] papers. Say, “Hold up….blue!” – the students holding the blue papers raise them into the air.

Optional activity:

Ask students what [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] cloths they are wearing and the [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] of their hair. Try and get the [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] brown elicited.

7. Read and write time
This segment can be part of all your lessons. Spend 10 to 15 minutes building up your students’ writing and reading skills. You’ll need to assess your students’ reading/writing level and then choose to start at one of the following stages:

Reading and writing activities by level:

1. Beginners: students cannot read or write the alphabet.
Each lesson introduce 3 lower-case letters of the alphabet (first lesson will be a, b, c). Use flashcards to do this. Play alphabet games and do printing worksheets.
» See our ‘Alphabet a-z (lowercase)’ mini-lesson plans for full details.

2. Early starters: students have experience with the alphabet but need phonics practice.
Each lesson introduce 5 lower-case letters of the alphabet (first lesson will be a, b, c, d, e). Use flashcards to do this. Start by working on the sounds of the letters and then move onto letter clusters (e.g. sh, ee, etc).
» See our ‘Alphabet’ and ‘Letter clusters’ mini-lesson plans for full details.

3. Early readers.
Work on reading and writing simple sentences with lots of practice activities.
» See our ‘Early reading’ mini-lesson plans for full details. (click on “Early reading” tab)

4. Elementary readers: students can read and write simple sentences well.
Work on reading and writing short texts and stories.
» See our ‘Reading short texts’ mini-lessons for full details. (click on “Reading short texts” tab)

8. Teach/Review 4 shapes
Use the shape cutouts from your previous class (4 squares, 4 circles and 4 triangles) and add 4 rectangle cutouts on some [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] card.

Start off by showing the square and eliciting / chorusing “square”. Hand the square to a student who says “square” and passes it on to another, each student saying “square” as they pass it around.

Then do for the remaining 3 shapes. You can also elicit [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] and sizes (e.g. a “big, yellow,
square”, “a small, blue circle”, etc.).

9. Play “Missing shape” and “Shape touch”
Put all the shapes on the floor and gather everyone around. Tell everyone to close their eyes. Take away one shape and say, “Open your eyes”. Everyone must guess which shape is missing.

With the shapes still on the floor, say, “Hands up in the air!” – once all hands are up say, “Touch a (green) circle” – and have everyone quickly touch (not slam!) a green circle. Do this for all the shapes.

10. Show Mr. Shape Head
We are going to introduce a character who we’ll sing and read about. Bring everyone’s attention to the board and draw a large square – this will be the head. Make sure some of your cutout shapes have some sticky tape or blue-tack on the back.

Hold up a triangle cutout, elicit that shape and stick it to the nose position inside the square head. Keep doing this with the shapes until you have a complete head/face. Everyone will enjoy watching a face grow out of the shapes they have been playing with.

Also make sure to elicit the face vocab for each face shape.

11. Sing the “Mr. Shape Head” song
Keep Mr. Shape Head on the board and use it with the song. The song poster is also helpful as it shows the order of the shapes as they are sung in the song – so you can put this on the board as well. Play the song through one time, pointing at the shapes on the board as they are sung. Next, get everyone to stand up – teach the gestures (see below) and then play the song again and sing along doing all of the gestures.

Lyrics for “Mr. Shape Head”

Chorus:
Mr. Shape Head, how are you?
Mr. Shape Head, how are you?
Mr. Shape Head, how are you?
How are you this morning?

Verse 1:
My eyes are square, but I’m okay
My ears are circles, but I’m okay
My nose is a triangle, but I’m okay
For I am Mr. Shape Head

Chorus

Verse 2:
My head is square, but I’m okay
My mouth is a rectangle, but I’m okay
My hair is a triangle, but I’m okay
For I am Mr. Shape Head

Chorus

Gestures for “Mr. Shape Head”

Some simple actions can be used with this song:

For the chorus, touch your head for the “Mr. Shape Head” parts and then do the question gesture (palms up, looking puzzled) for the “How are you?” parts.
For the verses, make shapes with your fingers for each shape and place on the part of the face as it is sung (e.g. “My eyes are square” – make two square shapes with your fingers and place over your eyes; for “My ears are circles” make two circle shapes with your fingers and place over your ears; etc.).
For the part of the verse “but I’m okay”, do a thumbs up with both hands.
For the end of each verse “For I am Mr. Shape Head”, move your already thumbs up gesture to point your thumbs inwards to your body.

[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]

12. Read classroom reader “Mr. Shape Head”
Let’s follow the song with a reader which uses the structures from the song. Before class, download and print off the reader “Mr. Shape Head” and its corresponding reader worksheet. Give the worksheets to your students to [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] as you read through the story. As you go through each page, point to the shapes in each picture and elicit the shapes, [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] and face parts, for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 4) “Let’s put your head back on. Where is your square head?” … Ok, what shape is his head?
Students: Square!
Teacher: (pointing at a square eye) … Is this his head?
Students: No!
Teacher: (pointing at a circle) … Is this his head?
Students: No!
Teacher: Where is his square head? (invite a student to touch the picture)
Student: Here.
Teacher: Ok, let’s check (turns over to page 5) … Yes, good job! What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is his square head?
Students: Yellow!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right! Ok, [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]the yellow square on your worksheets.
etc.

Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions and getting them to touch their face parts along with the story.

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

13. Do the Mr. Shape Head craft
Before class, print out the Mr Shape Head craft sheet. You’ll also need scissors and glue. Put students in pairs and give each pair the craft sheet. For little ones, you may want to cut out the shapes before class, otherwise help your students cut out the shapes.

Together each pair can then make Mr. Shape Head by gluing the shapes onto paper or card. Circulate as everyone is doing the activity and ask questions (e.g. “What is this shape?”, “What is this?”). You can play the Mr. Shape Head song in the background as everyone is doing this activity.

We also have a Mrs. Shape Head craft sheet!

Extension activity

An optional, fun game is to play a version of “Pin the tail to the donkey”. Blindfold one student and give him a shape to put on the yellow square. Then get another blindfolded student to add another shape. Keep going until all the shapes are used up. The final head will be all over the place but it will have been great fun!

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “Mr Shape Head’s body”
Hold up the homework worksheet and model [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] in the shapes.

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 working on them them right away.

2. Say goodbye to the 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”
Sit together in a circle and sing and clap along.

Lyrics for 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]

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 hold up either a body part flashcard or a shape and ask them to say what it is.

When they say the words correctly say goodbye and let them leave. If they make a mistake, have them go back to the end of the line – they will have to try again once they reach the front!