In this lesson students practice by talking about different members of the family. Students play a fun family photos game, make a family tree poster, make and play with finger puppets, sing a song and read a funny story.
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Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Talking about different members of the family.
Structures: “Who is this?”, “How are you?”, “I’m fine thank you”, “See you soon”.
Target vocabulary: father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, family.
Lesson materials
Printables:
Songs:
Readers:
Additional materials:
Supplies:
Notes:
This is a great lesson to younger students as they completely understand the concept of family. The materials include finger puppets for the lesson activities.
IMPORTANT: if possible, ask parents before class to arrange for their kids to bring in family photos – parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, themselves. Also, bring in a few family photos of your own.
The beginning of your lesson is extremely important: this is where you set the tone of your lesson and get everyone in the right frame of mind for learning English. It is also an opportunity to check homework and review previous lessons.
Click for warm up suggestions for the start of your lessonsThese activities can be done in the following order at the start of your lesson:
1. Welcoming
Greet the students by name as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down. If you have space on the floor, it’s a good idea to have a cushion for each student as this makes sitting arrangements easy to [hide_on_uk]organize[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]organise[/hide_on_us]. Try and arrange the cushions beforehand spaced out in a fan-shape around you.
2. Name tags
Before class prepare some name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) with each student’s name written in lower case letters. Sit down with your students and lay out the name tags in front of you. Pick up each tag and call out the name. Try and encourage each student to put their hand up and say “yes”. Hand over the tags and help to pin / stick on. Later on as your students recognize their written names you can have each student in turn pick out their own name tag.
3. Greetings
Use a glove puppet (such as a Sesame Street puppet) to greet the students. Keep him in a cloth bag. Bring out the bag, open it enough to see in and shout into the bag the puppet’s name (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Then move your ear to the opening to listen – nothing. Go to each student and encourage them to shout the puppet’s name into the bag – each time nothing happens. Finally, get all the students together to shout the name at the same time. This time the puppet wakes up and jumps out of the bag! The puppet then chats to each student:
Puppet (teacher): Hello, What’s your name?
Student Hello. My name is….
Puppet: Goodbye / See you!
Student: Goodbye / See you!
As your students learn more phrases, you can include them in the conversation, such as “How old are you? Do you like …?, Can you …?, etc.
Finally, the puppet goes back into the bag and back to sleep.
4. Sing the “Hello song” or a review song
Sit in a circle and sing along to the song. Encourage students to clap along or pat their laps in time with the music. The Hello song is a good song to start the lesson with, especially as it has an accompanying Goodbye song to sing at the end of the lesson.
Lyrics for the “Hello song”
Hello, hello, Hello, hello,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine, thank you,
We’re ok, We’re ok.
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.
[hide_on_uk] Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us] Short sample (members get full-length song):
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5. Read a classroom reader again
As you progress through the lessons you will start to build up a catalog of classroom readers. Kids love going back to old stories and reading through them again. Invite a student to pick a classroom reader and read through it as a class. Make the story as interactive as possible by asking questions (e.g. what [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] there are, the names of different objects, etc.) and getting students to speculate what is going to happen next in the story.
6. Homework check
Check each student’s homework set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “what [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is it?”), 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 your students follow your lead: “Stand up (teacher stands and so does everyone else), “Hands up / hands down” (x 3-5), “Jump” (x3-5), “Run! / Stop!” (x3-5), “Turn around! / Stop!” (x3-5), finally “Sit down”.
Throughout the course you can introduce other commands, such as “Hop”, “Star Jump”, “Wiggle”, “Crouch” and so on.
Extra activity: Once your students have got to know these exercises you can play “Teacher says” using these actions.
How to play … Teacher says:
This is basically the game ‘Simon says’ but using the words “Teacher says” instead. The teacher tells the students to do an action and they do as asked (e.g. “Teacher says … jump 3 times”). The teacher keeps on giving instructions with different actions using “Teacher says …”. At some point the teacher gives a command without using the phrase “Teacher says” (e.g. “Hop 5 times”) and the students must not do that action – they have to stay still. Any students that do the action have to sit out for the rest of the game. The last student standing is the winner.
8. Name writing practice
If your students cannot write their names yet, this is a great activity. For really young ones, don’t worry if their effort is a scrawly mess – always encourage and praise.
You will need to prepare a writing sheet for each student before class with their name written in dots for them to practice tracing their names (also prepare one for yourself so you can model the task). You can either make these yourself (hand draw the dots for each name) or use a font typed into a Word document – we like to use the “National First Font Dotted” font (you can download it for free here: http://www.fontspace.com/roger-white/national-first-font-dotted).
Prepare the sheets something like this:
Tip:
Make a few extra copies of each student’s name writing sheet so you can use them in future lesson or for homework.
When everyone has finished writing their names, get each student to hold up their sheet so you and everyone can see. Give lots of praise to each student.
9. Review past lessons
Reviewing past lessons is very important – students need constant practice of new vocab, structures, songs, games and so on. Always review parts of your last lesson as well as some parts from other previous lessons. You can spend 5-10 minutes reviewing – it’s fine to recycle games and activities from your past lessons to review as kids enjoy playing familiar games (although be careful not to play a game to death!).
Note: You can also include review activities in the main body of your lesson. Kids can have short attention spans so it’s good to be able to pull out lots of activities during different stages of the lesson.
Other ideas to include in your warm up:
What’s in the bag?
This is a great activity to do at the beginning of your lessons. Fill a large cloth bag with items from your previous lessons (e.g. plastic fruit, animals, etc.). You can also throw in a few other objects (e.g. a pencil, a plastic bottle, a plastic cup – anything lying around (and safe!)). Show the bag to your students and shake it to rattle the objects inside. Pull out different objects, teach/elicit their names, have students hold and pass the objects around. You can even have students pull objects out of the bag. Pull out 1 or 2 objects per student. Finally, place the objects around the classroom and have each student retrieve each object as you call out its name and put it back in the bag.
Knock-knock
This can be used at the beginning of each class. Teach the students to knock on the door before entering the classroom. There are 2 variations for the next step:
Spin the bottle
Sit students in a circle with a bottle in the middle. Teacher spins the bottle. When it stops spinning the student it is pointing at has to answer a question. If the answer is correct then that student can spin the bottle. For example, How are you? What’s your name? What is this? (show an object or flashcard) Do you like _?, etc.
Talk about the weather (do after you have taught the weather lesson plan).
1. Do “Teacher’s family photos time” activity
If you can bring in photos of your family, this is a great activity to do. Also, try to encourage your students to bring in photos of their family – you’ll need to arrange this with the parents before the lesson. If you can’t bring in photos, see the alternative below.
Draw 7 squares on the top of your board in a row (see image below). Hold up a photo of yourself and ask, “Who is this?”. Elicit that it is you, stick the photo inside the middle square and write your name under the photo.
Next take out another photo (e.g. your father) and again ask, “Who is this?”. Elicit and teach the family vocabulary and stick the photo in one of the squares and write the word (e.g. “father”) under the photo. Do for all of the following: father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother – you may not have some of these family members, but for the sake of this lesson, use photos of friends, etc., and pretend they are your brother, grandmother, etc.
Your students will really enjoy seeing your family photos and will probably ask questions – feel free to extend the information you give on your family members, especially if it reviews previous lessons, such as ages and jobs. Also, you can practice/review describing vocabulary (e.g. blond hair, big eyes, etc.).
Alternative:
If you can’t bring in family photos: instead of using your family photos, cut out pictures of people from magazines and pretend they are your family members. Younger kids will generally believe you (and may even be quite impressed!).
2. Do “Students’ family photos time” activity
If your students have brought in photos of themselves and their families, this is a great activity to do. If not, go to step 3.
On the board, under the row of 7 photos of your family you are going to place photos from each of the students’ families. First, hold up the photos of the students in your class and elicit who they are – each time, stick their photo in the middle column and write their names underneath.
Next, you are going to play a guessing game – hold up a photo of one of your student’s family members (e.g. Hugo’s sister) and get everyone to guess whose family the person belongs to. Elicit family vocabulary (e.g. “It’s Hugo’s sister”) and place the photo on the board in the correct place (e.g., for Hugo’s sister, it would go in the row of Hugo’s photo and in the sister column).
Keep holding up randomly selected photos of your students’ family members and placing on the board until your board is full of family photos.
3. Make “My family tree” posters
Give out a piece of [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] construction paper / card to each student. They are each going to make a family tree poster of their family. Begin by demonstrating the activity – with a green and brown crayon/pen draw a large tree, filling up the whole piece of paper. At the top write in large letters “My family”. Then, either stick your photos family photos onto the tree or draw pictures of your family (grandparents at the top, next your parents and you and your siblings at the bottom). Finally, under each family member photo/picture write the vocabulary (grandfather, mother, etc.).
Now get your students to do the same. If they brought in photos they can use them on their poster – if not, encourage them to draw pictures of their family members. Students can copy the words from your poster (display it clearly).
Finally, have each student pin their poster to the walls of the classroom. Ask each student questions (e.g. Is that you mother? What is your brother’s name? How old is your sister?).
Note:
Depending on the level of your students you can have them write more information about their family members on the poster (e.g. names, ages, jobs, etc.). Students can even draw pictures of their pets.
4. Make and play with finger puppets
For the song we are going to use finger puppets (use the “Finger family craft” sheet). Before class, print and cut out the finger puppets. We have [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] and black & white versions of the craft sheet – if using the black & white version, have your students [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] in the puppets before starting the song. Then attach the puppets to each students’ fingers by taping the straps around the finger – 3 puppets on each hand.
Next, check everyone understands which puppet is which – say, “Everybody wiggle grandfather” – make sure you are wearing your finger puppets as well so you can demonstrate. Go through each puppet, wiggling fingers. Then play a quick game: say, “Wiggle the sister” and everyone has to quickly wiggle the right one. Do for a few rounds until everyone has got the hang of it.
5. Sing “The family song”
Play the song and sing along – wiggling the correct puppet for each verse (e.g. verse 1 is “father”). If everyone enjoyed the song, play it once more.
Lyrics for “The family song”
Verse 1:
Hello father, Hello father,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Verse 2:
Hello mother, Hello mother,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Verse 3:
Hello brother, Hello brother,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Verse 4:
Hello sister, Hello sister,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Verse 5:
Hello grandfather, Hello grandfather,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Verse 6:
Hello grandmother, Hello grandmother,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Verse 7:
Hello family, Hello family,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine thank you, I’m fine thank you,
See you soon, See you soon.
Gestures for “The family song”
For this song students use finger puppets – cut out the puppets from the “Finger family craft” sheet:
[hide_on_uk] Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us] Short sample (members get full-length song):
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