Can for ability 1 lesson plan

“I can ride a bike”

Lesson 28 Level 2 Age 5-7

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 28

Can for ability 1

In this lesson students learn to talk about their abilities using the modal “can“. They ask and answer questions about what they can do, play ability games, sing a song and do a worksheet on their abilities.

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This is a full course lesson plan.

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Age: 5-7 years
Time: 50 mins – 1 hour 10 mins
Objectives: Talking about ability, asking “Can you…?” questions and answering with “I can …”.
Structures: “Can you ..?”, “Yes, I can”, “No, I can’t”, “I can …”, “What can you do?”..
New vocabulary: jump, run, swim, hop, [hide_on_uk]stomp[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]stamp[/hide_on_us] my feet, turn around, fly, ride a bike.
Review vocabulary: left, right, forward, back, jump, turn around, touch the ground, turn, sit down, stand up, clap your hands.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Action flashcards: jump, run, swim, hop, [hide_on_uk]stomp[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]stamp[/hide_on_us] my feet, turn around, fly, ride a bike

Printables:

Basic actions ability worksheet
What can you do? worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
The weather song
The directions song
What can you do?

Supplies:

name tags for each student
a glove puppet
[hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] crayons / pencils
a large cloth bag
weather board (see end of this page for details)
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

This is a high energy, super fun lesson which allows your students to pick up ability question and answer structures quickly with the modal verb “can”. Parts of this lesson can be used in other lessons as energy burners (especially the song).

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
By now your students shouldn’t have any problems writing their names, so there is no need to give them name cards to copy from. However, keep their name cards handy, just in case some students still have problems.

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”.
Puppet: “How old are you?”
Teacher: “I’m …”.

… and then have the puppet say hello to each student and ask them the same questions, including their age.

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’s that?”, Are these doors?”), 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 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!)) into the bag.

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 weather song”
Time for the weather section of the lesson! Put the weather flashcards on the board in the order of the song (or use our song poster). Have all the students stand up and watch you as you sing along and use the gestures. Encourage them to join in and sing along.

Lyrics for “The weather song”

Verse 1:
How’s the weather? How’s the weather?
Look outside.
How’s the weather? How’s the weather?
Look outside.
It’s sunny, it’s rainy, it’s windy, it’s cloudy.
It’s snowy, it’s foggy, it’s hot, it’s cold.

Verse 2:
How’s the weather? How’s the weather?
Look outside.
How’s the weather? How’s the weather?
Look outside.
It’s sunny, it’s rainy, it’s windy, it’s cloudy.
It’s snowy, it’s foggy, it’s hot, it’s cold.

Gestures for “The weather song”

There are some easy gestures you can do as you sing along to the song:

For the question part “How’s the weather?”, sing along and do the ‘palms of the hands up’ question gesture.
For the “Look outside” part, face the window and put your hand over your eyes (like a salute), as if you were looking into the distance.
Use hand gestures for the weather words:
- sunny: slowly spread your arms out
- rainy: wiggle your fingers downwards like rain
- windy: gesture wind blowing out of your mouth
- cloudy: make cloudy shapes with your hands
- snowy: wiggle your fingers downwards like snow and shiver
- foggy: close your eyes and put your hand out in front like you are trying to feel for something you can’t see
- hot: fan your face
- cold: shiver and wrap your arms around your body

FREE SAMPLE (full-length song):

[hide_on_uk][/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us][/hide_on_us]

9. Talk about the weather outside
Motion for your students to come over to the window (or even outside). Say, “How’s the weather? Look outside”. Elicit the weather from the words they learned in the last lessons (It’s sunny / cloudy / windy / rainy / snowy / foggy / hot / cold).

Depending on weather conditions, you can introduce more weather words, such as:

stormy
misty
showery

warm
cool
freezing

humid
frosty
icy

drizzly

Weather board for showing today's weather

10. Use the “Weather board”
Use the weather board that you created in the previous class (see instructions here). Invite some students to come up and put weather pictures for today’s weather on the board. Make sure they say the word as they put the card on the board.

If you introduced any new weather words as you were talking about the weather just now, add these pictures to your board – you can either draw them there and then or prepare the pictures before class.

11. Review directions and actions – copy the teacher
Let’s review the vocabulary from last class. Have everyone stand up and say, “Copy me!”. Jump to the left and shout, “Jump to the left!” and have everyone copy you. Do multiple times for the following directions and actions:

jump (to the left/right / forward / back)
turn around
touch the ground
turn (to the left / right)
sit down
stand up
jump up and down
clap your hands

Play a second round, this time only shout out the actions but don’t do them – can everyone remember them without copying the teacher?

12. Sing “The directions song”
This is such a fun song, so let’s sing it again!

Lyrics for “The directions song”

Are you ready?

Chorus:
Jump to the left,
Jump to the right,
Jump forward,
And jump back.

Jump to the left,
Jump to the right,
Jump forward,
And jump back.

Verse 1:
Turn around and touch the ground,
Turn to the left and turn to the right.
Turn around and touch the ground,
Turn to the left and turn to the right.

Chorus

Verse 2:
Sit down and stand up,
Jump up and down and clap your hands.
Sit down and stand up,
Jump up and down and clap your hands.

Gestures for “The directions song”

The actions are very simple: as you sing along do the actions of the 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]

New learning and practice:

1. Teach the actions vocabulary
Before class prepare the action flashcards for jump, run, swim, hop, [hide_on_uk]stomp[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]stamp[/hide_on_us] my feet, turn around. These pictures show all the actions in the song that we’ll sing later in this lesson.

Have all your students stand up and show the first flashcard (e.g. “Jump”). Get the students to do the action as soon as you reveal the picture. Shout out each word as you are all doing the action and encourage everyone to shout the word as well.

Do this for all 6 flashcards and repeat until everyone can do quickly.

2. Play “Quick flashcard actions”
Lay the 6 action flashcards down on the floor and mix them up. With your students still standing, quickly turn over one card for all to see and shout out the action (e.g. “jump”). Everyone jumps for a second or two. Then turn over another card and shout the action for everyone to do. This should be quick paced with actions changing frequently.

After a few rounds mix the cards up again and pick up one card. This time don’t show it to everyone – look at it yourself and then shout out the word (e.g. “Run!”) and see if everyone does the right action. If they are having problems show the card.

Do this for all the cards until everyone is getting the actions right.

3. Play “Teacher says”
This is the game “Simon says” but using the word “teacher”, or your name, instead. Go straight into the game (no explanations necessary) by saying, “Teacher says (jump)”. Do the action and make sure everyone else follows along. Do a few more “run, turn around, swim, etc.”.

Then at some point give a command without the “Teacher says” part (e.g. “Jump!”). First time round, everyone will jump, so make it very clear that they shouldn’t do this when you don’t say “Teacher says”. After a while your students will get the hang of it. Play the game faster and faster. When a student makes a mistake they have to sit the rest of the game out. The last student standing is the winner.

4. Teach “Can you ..?”, “I can …”
Take out two more flashcards for the actions “fly” and “ride a bike”. Have all your students sit down. Pull out the “Jump” flashcard. Say, “I can jump” – point to yourself and nod your head. Then jump and again say, “I can jump”. Do the same for another flashcard (e.g. run). Then pull out the “fly” flashcard. Look surprised and shake your head, saying ,”No. I can’t fly”. Motion trying to fly but falling on the ground.

You can also ask some students, “Can you fly?” – some are bound to say, “Yes”, but look shocked and say, “No. No I don’t think so.”. Next do a few more actions (turn around, hop) and then pull out the “ride a bike” flashcard. Again, say, “I can’t ride a bike” and motion trying to but falling off. Then finish with the remaining flashcards (you can choose whether to say you can or can’t swim).

Now, pull out a flashcard (e.g. hop) and say to the class, “Can you hop?”. Encourage everyone to say, “Yes, I can hop” and show you how. Do this with all of the flashcards – try and encourage some to say they can’t do some actions (e.g. ride a bike, swim and especially fly!).

5. 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)

6. Sing the “What can you do?” song
Back to the actions! Place the flashcards on the board in order of the song, or pin up the “What can you do?” song poster. Play the song and sing along – encourage everyone to sing and do the actions with you. For the first time you use this song, play it a couple of times.

Lyrics for “What can you do?”

(Each verse gets faster and faster)

Verse 1:
What can you do? What can you do?

Can you jump? I can jump!
Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump,
jump, jump, jump, I can jump!

Can you run? I can run!
Run, run, run, run, run, run,
run, run, run, I can run!

Verse 2:
What can you do? What can you do?

Can you swim? I can swim!
Swim, swim, swim, swim, swim, swim,
swim, swim, swim, I can swim!

Can you hop? I can hop!
Hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop,
hop, hop, hop, I can hop!

Verse 3:
What can you do? What can you do?

[hide_on_uk]Can you stomp your feet? I can stomp my feet!
Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp,
stomp, stomp, stomp, I can stomp my feet![/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Can you stamp your feet? I can stamp my feet!
Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp,
stamp, stamp, stamp, I can stamp my feet![/hide_on_us]

Can you turn around? I can turn around!
Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn,
turn, turn, turn, I can turn around!

Verse 4:
(Let’s do all six!)
Let’s jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.
Let’s run, run, run, run, run, run.
Let’s swim, swim, swim, swim, swim, swim.
Let’s hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop.
[hide_on_uk]Let’s stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp.[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Let’s stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp.[/hide_on_us]
Let’s turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn.
Lets jump, run, swim, hop, stomp, turn.
We can!

Gestures for “What can you do?”

The actions to this song are simple – simply do each action as they come up in the song. It’s probably best for everyone to do the actions on the spot otherwise things could get a bit hectic!

FREE SAMPLE (full-length song):

[hide_on_uk][/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us][/hide_on_us]

7. Do “Basic actions ability” worksheet
Continuing on from the song, give out worksheets which contain the key vocabulary from the song. As your students are doing the worksheets, ask questions (e.g. “What is this?”, “Can you swim?”, etc.).

For the last box on the worksheet, have students come up with another action and draw it. Ask them, “What’s this?” and then ask, “Can you …?” for that action.

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “What can you do?” worksheet
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a writing and circling worksheet. Model by reading some questions and writing in the missing words (e.g. 1. Can you hop?). Then circle the correct answers for you (e.g. Yes, I can). Students have already written these sentences into their notebooks, so it should be easy enough for them to write the missing words.

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 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 show an action flashcard from the lesson and ask, “What’s this?” and then, “Can you …?”.

When each student responds correctly 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!

Future lessons: Reviewing and checking the weather each lesson:

1. Prepare a “Weather board”
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.

We have made a video showing how to make a weather board here:

2. Sing The weather song
In the warm up section of your lesson you can include a weather section – introduce this section by singing the weather song (with 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.