Classroom objects and toys 1 lesson plan

“Teddy is under the table”

Lesson 13 Level 2 Age 5-7

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 13

Classroom objects and toys 1

In this lesson students are introduced to some common classroom objects and some toys to help them interact with their learning environment. They also learn how to ask and respond to questions about their age. Students play fun classroom objects and toys games and activities and read a funny story.

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This is a full course lesson plan.

Materials:

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Age: 5-7 years
Time: 50 mins – 1 hour 10 mins
Objectives: Identifying and saying 5 objects in the classroom and 4 different toys, saying how old you are.
Structures: “What’s this?”, “What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is this?”, “How old are you?”, “I’m (6)”.
New vocabulary: door, window, chair, table, bookcase, toy, teddy bear, doll, puppet, robot.
Review vocabulary: cow, dog, sheep, duck, pig, lion, elephant, monkey, tiger, snake, bird, zebra, bear, panda, zoo, farm.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Farm animals flashcards (cow, dog, sheep, duck, pig, farm)
Zoo animals flashcards (lion, elephant, monkey, tiger, snake, bird, zebra, bear, panda, zoo)
Classroom objects flashcards (door, window, chair, table, bookcase) – enough sets for everyone in the class

Printables:

[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] the classroom worksheet
Classroom objects count worksheet
Find me in the classroom reader worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
The numbers song

Readers:

Find me in the classroom

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
Blu-tack or tape
a box with holes to put arms inside (see the “Feel the toys in the box” activity)
toys in a box: teddy bear, doll, puppet, robot
2 balls (or A4 paper scrunched into balls)
a basket (such as a wastepaper basket)
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

Students learn some classroom objects and toys vocabulary to help them interact with their learning environment. There are lots of fun games and activities based around these themes.

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”.

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

NEW – don’t say goodbye to the puppet yet! (see next point).

4. Introduce “How old are you?”
This lesson we’ll introduce asking about age – kids love to say how old they are. To help illustrate this we’ll have a birthday party for your glove puppet!

If you can, prepare a small cup cake and candles before class – your puppet is going to be around the same age as your students, so prepare enough candles.

Announce to everyone that it is your puppet’s birthday today! Bring out the cake and sing “Happy birthday” together. Then everyone count the candles together. Ask the puppet, “How old are you?” and your puppet replies, “I’m (4)”.

Next have your puppet ask each of your students, “How old are you?” and encourage everyone to say “I’m (4)”. Give lots of praise each time.

Everyone can have a small bite of the cake each time they give the right answer.

Finally, go around saying “Goodbye” and “See you” before going back into the bag and back to sleep.

5. 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]

6. 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 animal/[hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is this?”, “What noise does it make?”, etc.), 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.

7. 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”.

8. Sing “The numbers song”
Let’s review this fun song. Get everyone to stand up and march along and do the actions. Make sure you do the actions with your students so that they can follow you and copy what you are doing.

Lyrics for “The numbers song”

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Jump!
6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 Jump!
Turn around and clap your hands
And jump!

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Kick!
6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 Kick!
Turn around and clap your hands
And kick!

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Wiggle!
6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 Wiggle!
Turn around and clap your hands
And wiggle!

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Jump!
6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 Kick!
Turn around and clap your hands
And Jump!
Kick!
Wiggle!
And Jump!

Gestures for “The numbers song”

First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

As the music is in a marching-style, start off with everyone marching enthusiastically on the spot to the rhythm.
Whilst marching, count off the numbers on your fingers as the numbers are sung.
Do each action word (e.g. jump, turn around, clap your hands, etc.) at the point they are sung in 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]

9. 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.

10. Play the “Zoo or farm?” game
Let’s play a fun game to review the farm and zoo animals. First get everyone to sit in a circle with you. Hold up the farm and zoo flashcards and teach/elicit the words “zoo” and “farm”. Chorus each word x3. Place the cards in the circle.

Next, shuffle all the farm and zoo flashcards from previous lessons and hold up the first card (e.g. a cow) and elicit what it is. Then ask if it belongs in a zoo or on a farm – elicit the answer and then place the card under the farm card. Continue through all the animals until the end of the game.

This can also be played as a team game with points for the first to shout out the correct answer.

New learning and practice:

1. Introduce the vocabulary
Today your students are going to learn the words: door, window, chair, table and bookcase. Before class, print off enough flashcard pictures of each of these words for each student in your class as well as yourself (so if you have 8 students you will need 9 door flashcards, 9 chair flashcards, etc.).

Start off by getting everyone sitting on the floor in front of you. Hold up the chair flashcard. Proceed as follows:

Introduce the classroom vocabulary with flashcards

Teacher: What’s this? It’s a chair. Repeat “chair”.
Students: “Chair” (repeat 3 times)
Teacher: Can you see a chair in the classroom? (Point at a chair).
Students: (Pointing at chairs)
Teacher: Yes! Good job!

Lay the flashcard on the floor. Then do the same for the other 4 flashcards.

Next give each student the same 5 flashcards and have them lay the cards out in front of them. Touch one of your cards (e.g. door) whilst saying the word and have your students touch and repeat on their cards. Go through all of the cards.

2. Play “Stick the flashcards onto the classroom objects”
Give each student a ball of Blue-Tack. Everyone will instantly want to play with it – allow a couple of minutes to play (encourage them to mould objects, such as fruit, etc.).

Then bring the focus of the class back to yourself and demonstrate the activity: hold up the door flashcard, pull off a bit of Blu-Tack and stick it to the back of the card. Then walk over to a window in the classroom and stick the card to the window. Say, “window” as you do so. Hold up the next flashcard and encourage students to point to the object (act as if you have no idea where it is) then walk over and stick the card to the object, again saying the name. Do this for all 5 flashcards.

Now your students can do the same thing. Teacher says an object (e.g. “chair”) and all of the students have to stick their flashcards onto the object, whilst saying the word. Do for all 5 classroom objects.

3. Play “Retrieve the flashcards from the classroom objects”
Now that all of the flashcards are on objects in the classroom, we can bring them back. To do this, the teacher can give individual instructions to students to go and get a different object and place in front of them. Get everyone up and retrieving different cards at the same time, for example:

Teacher: Miki, bring back the door card, please
(Miki stands up and goes towards the door).
Teacher: Jose, bring back the chair flashcard, please
(Jose stands up and goes towards the chair).
etc.

This should be fun and a little hectic. When everyone has collected the items and sat down with the flashcards in front of them the activity is over.

4. Play “Classroom objects” touch
Have everyone stand up in the middle of the classroom. Teacher shouts out a word (e.g. “Touch the door!”) and everyone must run to the door and touch it. This should be a quick and exciting game.

After a few rounds, feel free to add other words that have been covered in previous lessons.

5. Do the “[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] the classroom” worksheet
Hold up the worksheet and model [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] in the classroom objects. Then draw a picture of yourself standing in the classroom.

Have your students take out their crayons and complete their worksheets. Spend time with each student, helping, asking questions (e.g. “What is this?”, “What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is it?”, etc.) and praising. Also, have each student draw a picture of themselves in the classroom.

Finally, hold up each student’s work in turn and ask them to tell you the objects and [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us]. Tell your students to put their worksheets into their bags.

6. Read classroom reader “Find me in the classroom”
By this point your students will have had a good amount of practice identifying the key vocabulary so let’s have some fun with a story which incorporates the classroom vocabulary. Before class, download and print off the reader “Find me in the classroom”. As you go through each page, point to the key vocabulary in each picture and elicit the words. Then get your students to have fun searching for and finding the [hide_on_uk]ladybug[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]ladybird[/hide_on_us] hiding in the classroom, for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 1) “Hello, I’m Liana [hide_on_uk]Ladybug[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Ladybird[/hide_on_us].” … Look, she’s in a classroom. What’s this (points at the door)?
Students: Door!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right. And what [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is it?
Students: Red!
Teacher: Yes, it’s a red door!

(teacher elicits the other classroom objects)

Teacher: (reading from page 1) “I’m going to hide” … Let’s look … (turns to page 2) … Where is Liana [hide_on_uk]Ladybug[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Ladybird[/hide_on_us]
Students: (pointing) Chair!
Teacher: Oh yes, there she is – under the chair! Repeat “Under the chair”.
Students: Under the chair.
etc.

Continue through the story, asking where the [hide_on_uk]ladybug[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]ladybird[/hide_on_us] is hiding. Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] and where the other insects are) and even ask yes/no questions about where the [hide_on_uk]ladybug[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]ladybird[/hide_on_us] is hiding (making mistakes, of course), for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 4) “Where am I? Can you find me?” … Let’s see, is this Liana [hide_on_uk]Ladybug[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Ladybird[/hide_on_us]? (points at the caterpillar).
Students: No!
Teacher: No? Well, is she here, on the table? (pointing at the beetle)
Students: No!
Teacher: Well, where is she?
Students: Bookcase! (pointing)
Teacher: (Looking more closely). Oh, yes! Well done! She’s on the bookcase! Repeat “On the bookcase”
etc.

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 mark on their sheets the different places the ladybug hides. Then go through the answers as a class.

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

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. Play “Feel the toys in the box”
This is a fun activity that will introduce some toys. Before class, prepare the following toys: teddy bear, doll, puppet, robot.

You will also need a big box with two round holes two holes cut in it – big enough for your students to put their arms in.

Get everyone to close their eyes as you put a toy in the upturned box. Model first: put your arms through the holes and feel the toy. Pull a face to show you are feeling something and don’t know what it is. Then finally, look happy and say, “It’s a puppet!” and lift up the box to show everyone what you have found.

Also, a great idea is to add some other objects that students have studied in previous lessons (e.g. a crayon, plastic fruit, plastic animals, etc.) – this will give you more objects and allow for vocabulary review.

9. Play “Shout it out”
Have all your students sit down. Start by holding up each toy and eliciting, chorusing and passing the toy around (when passing make sure each student says the word for the toy as they pass it).

Next put all of the toys in a box and have everyone close their eyes. Pull out a toy and say, “Open your eyes” – everyone must open their eyes and shout out the word for toy that you are holding. Play this for all of the toys.

10. Play “Fetch it”
Throw all of the toys around the classroom and place the box at the front of the class. Say to one student, “Please fetch the robot”. That student gets up, goes to the robot, picks it up and takes it over to the box and drops it in. Then do the same for another student with another toy. Keep going until all the toys are back in the box.

You can use the other items from the “Feel the toys in the box” activity as well to give you more things to throw and fetch.

11. Play “Vocabulary basketball”
Let’s finish with a fun game which will review vocabulary from this lesson as well as previous lessons. You will need a basket (a [hide_on_uk]trash can[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]wastepaper basket[/hide_on_us]) and 2 balls (or 2 pieces of A4 paper scrunched up into a ball). Also, have flashcards for the vocabulary from this lesson as well as previous lessons – shuffle them well.

Form 2 teams and line them up so that two players from each team are facing the front with the basket in front of them. Let both players throw their ball – if they get their ball into the basket they can try and win a point by saying the correct word of the flashcard you hold up. Then they go to the back of the line. Play until all of the flashcards have been answered correctly – the team with the most points is the winner!

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “Classroom objects count” worksheet
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a simple counting and [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] activity. Model [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] the classroom objects – count as you [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] each object.

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 a toy or point to a classroom object from today’s lesson 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!