Zoo animals 1 lesson plan

“Roar like a lion!”

Lesson 17 Level 1 Age 3-5

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Lesson 17

Zoo animals 1

In this lesson students learn about zoo animals and the noises they make. They also play lots of fun zoo-related games and sing a song about visiting the zoo. The lesson ends with a wonderful zoo animals craft activity.

Members get accompanying flashcards, worksheets and songs.

This is a full course lesson plan.

Materials:

Our lesson plans are FREE!

Sign up for accompanying:

✔ worksheets
✔ homework sheets
✔ craft sheets
✔ flashcards
✔ PowerPoint lessons & multimedia
✔ song downloads & videos
✔ classroom readers & videos

Click to see lesson details, materials and supplies

Age: 3-5 years
Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Saying zoo animals and animal noises.
Structures: “What animal is that?”, “What noise does it make?”, “What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is that?”.
New vocabulary: lion, elephant, monkey, tiger, snake, bird.
Review vocabulary: cow, dog, sheep, duck, pig.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Farm animals flashcards (cow, dog, sheep, duck, pig) – 3 sets
Zoo animals flashcards (lion, elephant, monkey, tiger, snake, bird) – 2 sets per group

Printables:

Zoo animals craft sheets (6 different kinds)
At the zoo worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
Old MacDonald
Let’s go to the zoo

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
plastic zoo animal toys (in a small cloth bag)
glue, scissors, paint, toilet rolls (for the zoo animals crafts)
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

Students learn 6 zoo animals and the noises they make. They also sing an upbeat song about zoo animals. There are lots of fun games and activities based around this theme.

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”.

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

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

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 out the farm animal”
Let’s play a fun game to review the farm animals. Before class, print off 3 sets of farm animal flashcards. Have everyone sit on the floor in a circle and place the 15 flashcards, face down, inside the circle. Ask a student to touch a flashcard, then the teacher turns the card over – everyone must race to shout out the animal word. The person to shout out the word first can touch the next card. Each time remove the card. Play until all cards have been removed.

9. Sing the “Old MacDonald” song
Either stick the flashcards in the order of the song on the board or use the Old MacDonald song poster. Play the song and encourage your students to sing along with you as they do the actions.

Lyrics for “Old MacDonald”

Verse 1:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O!
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there,
Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

Verse 2:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a dog, E-I-E-I-O!
With a woof-woof here and a woof-woof there,
Here a woof, there a woof, everywhere a woof-woof,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

Verse 3:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a sheep, E-I-E-I-O!
With a baa-baa here and a baa-baa there,
Here a baa, there a baa, everywhere a baa-baa,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

Verse 4:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a duck, E-I-E-I-O!
With a quack-quack here and a quack-quack there,
Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack-quack,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

Verse 5:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a pig, E-I-E-I-O!
With an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there,
Here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink-oink,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

Verse 6:
(Ok! Let’s do all the animals!)

“Cow!”
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there, Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo.

“Dog!”
With a woof-woof here and a woof-woof there, Here a woof, there a woof, everywhere a woof-woof.

“Sheep!”
(Sung): With a baa-baa here and a baa-baa there, Here a baa, there a baa, everywhere a baa-baa.

“Duck!”
With a quack-quack here and a quack-quack there, Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack-quack.

“Pig!”
With an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there, Here an oink, there an oink, every-where an oink-oink.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

Gestures for “Old MacDonald”

There are a number of activities you can do as you sing along to the song:

as you sing “Old MacDonald”, pretend to pull out your overall straps with your thumbs
as you sing the cow part, gesture milking a cow
as you sing the dog part, use your hands to make dog ears on your head
as you sing the sheep part, gesture [hide_on_uk]petting[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]patting[/hide_on_us] a sheep
as you sing the duck part, open and close your hands in front of your mouth like a duck’s bill
as you sing the pig part, push the tip of your nose down with your finger

[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 zoo animals vocabulary
If you have plastic toys for the animals you can use them or you can use zoo animal flashcards. Before the class put the toys or flashcards in a bag. Bring out the bag and peer in – make surprised noises to get the full attention of your students. Slowly, inch by inch, pull out the animals – elicit /teach/chorus the animal name “e.g. What’s this? It’s a (lion). (Lion), (Lion), (Lion)”. Then teach/chorus the animal noise (E.g. “What noise does a lion make?” “Roar!”).

2. Play “Pass the animals”
Pass one of the animals or animal flashcards to the nearest student. As you pass, say “(lion) (roar)”. Have the students pass all the animals around the circle, all the while saying the animal name and noise.

3. Play “Animals match-up concentration”
You’ll need two sets of zoo animals flashcards per group. Shuffle them and spread, face-down, on the floor or table. Turn over one card and then another. The object of the game is to find the same two cards, which wins you a point. If you turn over the same pair of cards (e.g. two tigers) you keep the cards and remove them from the game. If you turn over two different cards, turn them back over and the next player gets a turn. The game ends when all cards have been removed and the player with the most cards is the winner.

If you have completed the Farm animals lesson previously, you can include the farm animal flashcards in this game.

4. Play “Animals walk” game
Have everybody stand at one end of the classroom. First model: hold up a flashcard of a lion. Shout, “Run like a lion!” – then get down and crawl across the room like a lion all the time roaring. Then have everyone do it. Then do for all the other animals (e.g. “[hide_on_uk]Stomp[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Stamp[/hide_on_us] like an elephant!”, etc.).

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. Sing the “Let’s go to the zoo” song
Before the song, run through the actions in the correct order of the song. It will help to have the flashcards in order on the board or use our song sheet. Play the song and have everyone doing the actions as they sing along.

Lyrics for “Let’s go to the zoo”

Chorus:
Zoo, zoo,
Let’s go to the zoo,
What will we see at the zoo?

Zoo, zoo,
Let’s go to the zoo,
What will we see at the zoo?

Verse 1:
Lion, we will see a lion,
Elephant, we will see an elephant,
Monkey, we will see a monkey,
Let’s go to the zoo!

Chorus

Verse 2:
Tiger, we will see a tiger,
Snake, we will see a snake,
Birds, we will see some birds,
Let’s go to the zoo!

Gestures for “Let’s go to the zoo”

The gestures are fun and mimic the animals being sung about:

1. For the “Zoo, zoo, Let’s go to the zoo”, have everyone walking on the spot as they walk to the zoo.

2. For the next line, “What will we see at the zoo?”, have everyone put their hand above their eyes as they search for animals.

3. For the animal parts do the following:

lion: look fierce and roar
elephant: make a trunk with your arm and make the trumpet noise
monkey: do the money scratching head and armpit gesture whilst saying “ooh-ooh”
tiger: look fierce and roar
snake: make a snake shape with your hands and hiss like a snake
birds: flap your arms like wings and say “tweet-tweet”

[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]

7. Do “Zoo animals crafts”
There are 6 different craft sheets – one for each of the zoo animals we have learned about today. Before class, print out enough craft sheets so there is one per student. In class, let your students choose which animal they would like to make. Then help your students [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us], cut, glue and construct their animal crafts.

Finally, have everyone display their crafts and play with them. They can take home their crafts to show their parents.

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “On the farm”
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a simple and fun [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] in activity. Model [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] in the animals while saying what they are and the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] you are using. 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 an animal flashcard from today’s lesson and ask them to say what it is and its noise.

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!