Body and family 1 lesson plan

“Big eyes, small ears”

Lesson 16 Level 3 Age 7-9

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 16

Body and family 1

In this lesson students talk about parts of the body and practice describing family members’ physical features. They also play fun games, do an active listening activity with a song and ready a funny story about a monster family.

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This is a full course lesson plan.

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Age: 7-9 years
Time: 1 hour – 1 hour 20 mins
Objectives: Identifying key parts of the body and describing family members’ physical features.
Structures: “He [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] big ears”, “She [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] a small nose”.
New vocabulary: head, shoulders, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, big, small.
Review vocabulary: ride a bike, cook, play [hide_on_uk]piano[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]the piano[/hide_on_us], speak English, do ballet, drive a car, sing, play golf, dance, fly, use a computer, ski, mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Exercise and actions flashcards: jump, run, swim, hop, kick, turn around, fly, ride a bike, cook, ski, sing, dance, drive a car, play [hide_on_uk]piano[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]the piano[/hide_on_us], use a computer, do ballet, speak English, play golf, dance, fly, use a computer, ski
Body flashcards: head, shoulders, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose
Missing body flashcards: head, shoulders, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose

Printables:

The monster family reader worksheet
Body match up worksheet

Songs:

Head, shoulders, knees and toes

Readers:

The monster family

Supplies:

name tags for each student
board with markers / chalk
weather board (from previous class)
a clock (or your clock craft from lesson 10)
1 or 2 dice
things that make a noise (see “Review dice quiz”)
sheets of A4 paper – one for each student
device to play the song on

Notes:

In this lesson students review verb phrases and talk about family members’ abilities. They learn vocabulary for different parts of the body as well as two simple adjectives to describe physical features.

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

1. Greetings and name tags
Greet the students as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down. Before class prepare some blank name tags (stickers or pin-on tags). Give these out and have everyone write their names and put their tags on. If you use pin-on tags, you can keep and give out every class.

2. Review dice quiz
Let’s start with a fun team quiz. Put students into teams of 3 or 4, each team sitting around a table. Give each team a “buzzer” – basically something that makes a noise (a bell, a toy buzzer, a squeaky toy, an instrument, etc.).

The teacher asks a review question – the first student to “buzz” can answer. This is where the dice comes in (you can use one die or for larger number practice, 2 dice). If the student answers correctly, s/he rolls the dice – the number it lands on is the points they win for their team. However, if they get the question wrong (or make a mistake) they roll the dice to lose points!

Questions on the following topics can be asked:

Numbers 1-30 – hold up a number card and ask, “What number is this?”.
Likes & dislikes for food and drink – “Do you like milk?”, “Yes, I do / No, I don’t”.
Clothes – “What are you wearing?”, “I’m wearing a t-shirt and jeans”.
Clothes and weather – “What do you wear on rainy days?”, “I wear a coat and boots”.
Days of the week – say all the days in the correct order.
Time – hold up a clock and ask, “What time is it?”.
Daily routines – hold up a flashcard with a daily routine and ask, “What is this?”, then “What time do you get up?”.
Ability – hold up a flashcard and ask, “Can you …?” and “Can your (mother) …?” questions.

3. Homework check
Check each student’s homework that you set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet by asking about their family members’ abilities on their sheet, e.g. “Can your mother drive a car?”, “Yes, she can. She can drive a car”. 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.

4. Talk about the weather using the “Weather board”
Use the weather board that you created in the previous class. Ask, “How’s the weather today?” and have students put up their hands. Allow one weather condition per student (e.g. “It’s rainy”) and have each student come up and put a weather picture on the weather board.

Depending on weather conditions, you can introduce more weather words (with pictures … you can get students to draw them), such as:

stormy
misty
showery

freezing
humid
frosty

icy
drizzly

5. Play “Family ability chat”
Let’s review ability questions and family members. Bring everyone’s attention to the following flashcards that you used in the previous lessons: ride a bike, cook, play [hide_on_uk]piano[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]the piano[/hide_on_us], speak English, do ballet, drive a car, sing, play golf, dance, fly, use a computer, ski.

Hold up each flashcard and elicit the verb, then stick it on the board. Once you have all the flashcards on the board, write, “Can …?” at the top of the board and “Yes, I / her / she can”, “No, I / he/ she can’t” on the sides of the board. Finally, add the family members words to the board, like in the picture below. Chorus the family vocabulary and questions / answers.

Model with the first question (ride a bike) by having students ask you the questions, e.g.:

Student 1: Can you ride a bike?
Teacher: Yes, I can. I can ride a bike.
Student 2: Can your mother ride a bike?
Teacher: No, she can’t. She can’t ride a bike.

Board layout for the Family ability chat activity

Then put students into pairs. For each picture, student A asks student B three questions (about their partner and/or their family members).

Students take turns asking and answering questions until all the pictures have been used.

New learning and practice:

1. Introduce the parts of the body vocabulary
Use the body flashcards – show each picture and chorus the word x3. Have everyone touch that part of their body as they chorus. Next have individual students say the word. Then move onto the next picture and do the same for all the pictures.

Once you have completed all pictures, start again, this time getting everyone to shout out the correct word as each picture appears.

2. Play the “Head, shoulders, knees & toes” song
Put the body flashcards on the board and write the word under each flashcard. Have everyone draw the pictures of the body parts into their notebooks or on a piece of paper. Have them write the vocabulary as well.

Tell everyone they are going to hear a song about the body. They need to listen and write the body words in the correct order. They will hear the verse three times, so they will have plenty of time to write down the words (they only need to write each body word once).

Check by writing the answer on the board and playing the song again – if your students are up for it, have them stand up and touch the body parts in time with the song (use the video this time).

Answer: head, shoulders, knees toes, eyes, ears, mouth, nose.

[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]

3. Play “What’s missing?”
This is a fun and crazy flashcard game that your students will love. Use the missing body parts flashcards and simply encourage your students to shout out which body part is missing from the boy each time you show one of the cards.

4. 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 touch your (knees)”. Do the action and make sure everyone else follows along. Do a few more “touch your eyes, touch your toes”, etc.

Then at some point give a command without the “Teacher says” part (e.g. “Touch your mouth”). First time round, everyone will touch their mouth, 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.

5. Play “Draw on the board big and small”
We are going to teach the adjectives “big” and “small” with body parts. On the board, draw two faces that look the same – eyes, nose, ears, hair … then on one draw a really big mouth and on the other draw a really small mouth.

Elicit “mouth” and the teach:

He [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] a big mouth.
He [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] a small mouth.

Write both sentences on the board and chorus x3. Erase the face and invite a student up to the board. Say a sentence with a body part and big or small, such as …

She [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] small knees.

… the student needs to draw that picture.

Keep inviting students up to the board to draw what you say. Once everyone has had a go, put everyone into pairs. Each partner takes turns saying the structures and drawing pictures.

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 “The monster family”
Before class, download and print off the reader “The monster family”. As you go through each page, point to the pictures, and ask what special body part each monster [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us], for example:

Teacher: (Reading on page 1): “Hello. My name is Little Monster”. Now, what is big on his body?
Students: Head!
Teacher: Let’s see … “I [hide_on_uk]have[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]have got[/hide_on_us] a big head”. Yes, that’s right, his head! He [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] a big head!
etc.

After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and have everyone match the monsters to the parts of their bodies and write sentences under each picture, such as:

She has big shoulders.

Then go through the answers as a class.

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

8. Do “Funny monster” drawings
Give a piece of A4 paper to each student and yourself. On your piece of paper, model drawing a monster head with eyes, nose, ears, mouth, teeth and hair. Make it a really funny picture and use big and small features. Then tell everyone to draw their funny head.

Next show everyone how to fold the paper so only the neck shows (so the head is folded behind). Then get everyone to pass their paper to a different student. Now model drawing the body starting from the neck and going down to ankles – make it either a really short or long body and make it as funny as you can. Now have your students draw their bodies. Again, show everyone how to fold the paper so only the ankles are showing and have everyone pass their paper to another student.

Finally, model drawing funny feet (with big or small toes) and get everyone to draw feet on their pictures. Then get everyone to fold up their papers and return each piece to the person who drew the head. Let everyone open up their paper and have a good laugh at the pictures.

9. Present “Funny monsters”
Now tell everyone they are going to “present” their monsters to the rest of the class – you model first, e.g.

“This is Lizzy Monster. She [hide_on_uk]has[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]has got[/hide_on_us] big, green eyes and a small, blue nose …”

Feel free to add more details and make it a lot of fun. Then have students present each of their monsters – help out with vocabulary and structures.

Give lots of encouragement and praise.

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “Body match up”
Hold up the homework worksheet and model matching up the body part pictures to the words and then writing the words in the blanks.

Give out the worksheets and say, “Put your homework in your bags”.

2. 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 point to a part of their body and ask, “What’s this?”.

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!