Our world 2 lesson plan

“A river on the land”

Lesson 24 Level 1 Age 3-5

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 24

Our world 2

In this lesson students continue to learn common vocabulary related to nature, this time objects on the land. They play lots of games and activities based around this theme, sing a nature song and read a story about a superhero!

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Age: 3-5 years
Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Talking about objects in the sky and on the land.
Structures: “What’s this?”, “What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is this?”.
New vocabulary: land, mountain, sea, river, lake, field, forest.
Review vocabulary: sky, day, night, sun, cloud, rainbow, moon, stars.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Our world: sun, moon, stars, cloud, rainbow, mountain, sea, river, lakes, fields, forest

Printables:

The nature song song poster
Rainbowman saves the day reader worksheet
Our world draw worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
The nature song

Readers:

Rainbowman saves the day

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
a picture showing a scene with the sky and land
two large A4 envelopes
2 large sheets of construction paper / card (one blue, one green)
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

In this lesson students continue working on the theme nature, this time learning about objects on the land. There are lots of games and activities based around this theme as well as a new song and reader.

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 blank name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) and some cards, each with a student’s name written on clearly – students will use them to copy their names onto their name tags. Sit down with your students and lay out the name cards in front of you. Pick up each card and encourage the student to recognize his/her name. Do this for everyone.

Finally, have everyone take out a crayon or pencil and copy their name on their tags and stick them 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 talking to the glove puppet …

Teacher: “Hello”, What’s your name?”
Puppet: “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 this?”, “What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] are the stars?”, 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. Review vocabulary “sky” and “land”
Use the same book / magazine picture that you used last lesson showing a scene with the sky and land. Using this picture, point to the sky and elicit/chorus “sky”. Then say, “Let’s touch the sky!” and jump as high as you can and mime touching the sky. Get everyone to copy you.

Then point to the land in the picture and elicit/chorus “land”. Say, “Let’s touch the land!” and crouch down and touch the ground, with everyone else following.

Next, line everyone up and shout out instructions: “Touch the sky!”, “Touch the land!” with everyone jumping and crouching down. Make a game of it by going quickly but sometimes calling out sky or land twice in a row.

2. Play “Sky and land envelopes”
Now we’ll introduce vocabulary for land objects. Before class, prepare two large A4 envelopes (color one green for land and one blue for sky) and flashcards for sun, moon, stars, cloud, rainbow, mountain, sea, river, lake, fields and forest. Pin both the envelopes to the wall, opened, with the green one low down on the wall (to represent land) and the blue one higher up (to represent sky).

Start with a flashcard everyone knows (e.g. sun). Show the card and ask what it is. Also, elicit the color. Then ask if it belongs in the sky or on the land. Finally, give the card to a student to put into the right envelope. For example:

Teacher: What’s this?
Students: Sun!
T: Yes, that’s right! Good! What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is the sun?
S: Yellow!
T: Good job! Yes, yellow. And does the sun belong in the sky (pointing at the blue envelope) or on the land (pointing at the green envelope)?
Ss: The sky!
T: Yes, great! Emi, put the sun into the sky envelope (student takes the flashcard and puts into the blue envelope).

Continue with all the flashcards. Mix in the land flashcards with the sky ones, each time chorus new vocabulary x3 and pass the flashcard around with everyone saying the word as they pass it.

In the end the flashcards will all be in the envelopes.

3. Play “Slow motion” and “Jump on it” with flashcards
Now that all of the flashcards are in the correct envelopes, we’ll test to see if everyone can remember the words by playing a guessing game.

Take one of the envelopes and slowly start pulling one flashcard out, bit by bit. Encourage your students to guess and shout out what they think it is until it is guessed correctly. The person who guesses first gets a high-five from the teacher! Do this with all of the flashcards in both envelopes.

Next, spread the flashcards, face up, over the floor and get everyone to stand up. Shout out, “Jump on the (mountain)”. The first student to jump on the correct flashcard wins a point.

4. Sing “The nature song”
The first time you play the song, put up “The nature song” song poster on the board. Quickly elicit the vocabulary. Play the song and sing along, touching the objects on the song poster as you sing. Get everyone to sing along and do the “sky” and “land” gestures, as described above in Gestures below. Play 2 or 3 times.

Lyrics for “The nature song”

Verse 1:
Sun, moon, stars, Sun, moon, stars,
Sun, moon, stars, In the sky.

Sky, sky, sky, sky.

Verse 2:
Mountain, sea, river, Mountain, sea, river,
Mountain, sea, river, On the land.

Land, land, land, land.

Verse 3:
Cloud, rainbow, sun, Cloud, rainbow, sun,
Cloud, rainbow, sun, In the sky.

Sky, sky, sky, sky.

Verse 4:
Lakes, fields, forest, Lakes, fields, forest
Lakes, fields, forest, On the land.

Land, land, land, land.

Gestures for “The nature song”

The gestures in this song are very simple – even very little ones will be able to join in.

For verses 1 and 3: these verses are about the sky, so have everyone sway their arms in the air in time with the music as they sing.
For verses 2 and 4: these verses are about the land, so have everyone sway their arms low down near the ground in time with the music as they sing.

[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. 5-minute play time
This is an optional segment that can be part of all your lessons at this level. Allow your students to play with any games or toys you have. If possible, use large tubs or boxes to hold the toys and bring them out for a few minutes each lesson. Tubs filled with animals, plastic fruit, building blocks, kitchen sets, plastic food, cars & vehicles, Mr. Potato Head dolls and so on.

Encourage your students to ask you for the toy they want to play with, circulate during the play time and ask students about their toys. It’s also a good opportunity for a quick rest room break!

6. Read classroom reader “Rainbowman saves the day”
This reader follows on perfectly from the song and helps to reinforce the new vocabulary with a fun story. Before class, download and print off the reader “Rainbowman saves the day”. As you go through each page, point to the different features and elicit what they are, for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 2) “Into the sky” … What is this?
Students: Sun!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right. (pointing at a cloud) … And what’s this?
Students: Cloud
Teacher: Yes, a cloud! (continuing to read from page 2) “Past the clouds and sun. No one here!”.
etc.

Continue through the story, eliciting the key vocabulary. Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. about the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] on the rainbow and Rainbowman’s costume, the different transport vocabulary, 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 draw the route Rainbowman took on his adventure. Then go through the answers as a class.

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

7. Play “Sky / Land run”
This is similar to the game we played last lesson. You are going to say the words for the “our world” objects and have students run to a side of the classroom that represents sky or land.

On one side of the room pin a blue sheet of construction paper (representing the sky) on the wall high enough for everyone to touch. On the opposite side pin up a green (land) sheet of construction paper. Next, take out the flashcards from earlier in this lesson – hold them up one-by-one, elicit the word and then stick to the correct [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] paper (e.g. sun on the blue sheet, forest on the green sheet).

Then model the activity: Shout out one of the vocabulary items, e.g. “moon” and then run to the moon picture and touch it, shouting “sky” as you do so. Do the same thing, but this time for “lake”, running and touching the lake picture and shouting “land”. Now have everyone stand up and gather in the middle of the classroom. Say a word and have everyone run to touch it and shout “sky” or “land”.

Continue for all the words … it will be hectic but a lot of fun!

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “Our world draw” worksheet
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a simple drawing activity. Read out the things that need to be drawn and model drawing them onto the picture and [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] them – say the word for each as you draw and [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us]. 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 [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] 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 flashcard from today’s lesson and ask, “What is this?”.

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!