Weather lesson plan

“How’s the weather?”

Lesson 17 Level 2 Age 5-7

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 17

Weather

In this lesson students ask about and describe the weather. They learn 8 weather adjectives and say which weather conditions they like. They play fun weather themed games, sing a weather song and read a fun story.

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Age: 5-7 years
Time: 50 mins – 1 hour 10 mins
Objectives: Asking about and describing the weather, saying 8 weather adjectives.
Structures: “How’s the weather (today)?”, “Look outside”, “It’s [ sunny / cloudy / rainy / windy ]”.
New vocabulary: sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy, snowy, foggy, hot, cold, look outside.
Review vocabulary: sun, cloud, rainbow, moon, stars, land, mountain, sea, river, lake, field, forest.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Weather: sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy, snowy, foggy, hot, cold (two sets for each group of 4 students)

Printables:

[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] the weather pictures! worksheet
Weather draw! worksheet
What weather do you like? reader worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
The weather song

Readers:

What weather do you like?

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
a Blu-tack or tape
small ball
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

In this lesson students learn to ask and answer about weather using 8 simple adjectives for weather conditions. They play exciting weather themed games, sing a song about the weather and read a fun weather reader.
NOTE: please check the end of this lesson plan for details on constructing a weather board for future lessons.

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):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
<br /> [/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 this?”, “What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] are the trees?”, 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.

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. Play “Shout when you see it!”
Let’s review the vocabulary from last lesson with a fun game which will test your drawing skills. You are going to draw the sky objects from last lesson onto the board: sun, cloud, rainbow, moon, stars. For each one, draw slowly and pause often – encourage everyone to shout out what it is.

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

If you feel that your students are able, have some volunteers come up and draw one of the objects on the board for everyone to guess – you’ll be surprised how much they love drawing on the board!

New learning and practice:

1. Talk about the weather outside
Motion for your students to come over to the window (or even outside). Say a few times, “How’s the weather? Look outside”. Look up and gesture to the sky and do some other gestures, such as shiver if it’s cold or wipe your forehead if hot.

Your students already know the nouns “sun” and “cloud” – at this point introduce them to the adjectives by saying, “Look at the sun, it’s sunny” or “Look at the clouds, it’s cloudy”.

2. Teach the weather vocabulary
Before class, prepare the 8 weather flashcards and stick them around the walls of your classroom.

At this point of the class, walk around the classroom touching the weather cards – say the words and do the following gestures:

sunny: spread arms out
cloudy: make cloudy shapes with your hands
rainy: wiggle your fingers downwards like rain
windy: blow out of your mouth
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

As you do this encourage your students to do the gestures and say the words with you.

Next, get all your students to stand up. Teacher shouts out a weather word (e.g. “It’s rainy!”) and students run over to the correct picture, touch it and do the gesture.

If you have a lot of students, it is worthwhile having multiple pictures of each card placed around the walls of the room.

3. Play weather flashcard concentration
Divide the class into groups of 4. Each group will need two sets of weather flashcards (8 flashcards x 2 sets = 16 flashcards in total).

Model the activity first by having everyone watch you play with one group: shuffle the cards and lay them out face down on the floor. Turn over two cards. If they are different, turn them back over – it is the end of your turn. If they are the same (e.g. two sunny cards) you keep the cards (remove them from the game) and have another go.

At the end, all the cards will have been removed. The player with the most cards is the winner!

4. Sing “The weather song”
First 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. Play the song two or three times.

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]

5. Do the “[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] the weather pictures!” worksheet
This is a simple [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] in activity. Demonstrate first – hold up the sheet and [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] in some pictures, eliciting the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] and the weather words. Next, give out the worksheets and have everyone enjoy [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] them in. Circulate and ask questions, such as “What is this?”, “It is rainy?”, etc.

When finished, have everyone hold up their worksheets and give lots of praise for a job done well!

6. 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)

7. Read classroom reader “What weather do you like?”
This reader ties in nicely with the lesson and allows students to say which weather conditions they like. Before class, download and print off the reader “What weather do you like?”. As you go through each page, point to the pictures and elicit each key word, for example:

What weather do you like? classroom reader

Teacher: What is this?
Students: It’s a flower.
Teacher: And how’s the weather?
Students: It’s sunny!
Teacher: That’s right! …(reading) … “I am a flower. I like sunny weather”. Do you like sunny weather Ken?
Student (Ken): Yes, I do.

Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. eliciting [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] and other objects) and getting them to tell you which weather they like.

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 match the characters in the story to the weather they like. Then have students draw the weather they like in the box.

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

8. Play flashcard basketball
We’ll finish with an exciting game! Students, in teams, take shots with a ball (or a scrunched up piece of paper) at a [hide_on_uk]trash can[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]bin[/hide_on_us] / box / etc.

First show a weather flashcard to student 1 and ask what it is. If s/he answers correctly then s/he can have a shot at the basket. If the student gets the ball in the basket, then s/he wins 2 points. If the student hits the basket without going inside, then s/he wins 1 point.

You can show weather flashcards mixed up with other flashcards from previous lessons for review. The team with the most points at the end is the winner.

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “Weather draw!” worksheet
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a drawing activity. Model reading the sentences and drawing the correct weather image.

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):
<br /> [/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
<br /> [/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 flashcard from today’s lesson and ask, “How’s the weather?”.

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!