T eaching weather vocabulary to children is a

good idea because it is something that students

can learn easily and practise regularly during
class warm-ups. The students will feel confident
Rain, rain rhyme
Teach this traditional rhyme to your students:
www.rhymes.org.uk/rain_rain_go_away_rhyme.htm. You may change
and encouraged to use the target language to speak the last line to have fun. Say or chant it in a very loud voice
about the weather which is a very common subject of (so the neighbours can
conversation among people in general. hear), or very softly (so
nobody can hear them
Poster 2 presents a pack of flashcards specially designed for outside the classroom).
children at kindergarten age. They will be handy during varied Children love this!
activities as the ones shown below.
First of all cut out the flashcards and laminate or paste them
on cardboard. You may also prepare a weather board. Just
take a rectangular piece of cardboard and cover it
with blue felt or cloth. Write, What’s the weather
like today? on top and below add, Today it’s…
You may skip these last steps if your students are
too young. Then stick some Velcro on the back of
each flashcard and put all of them around the
edge of the board.
Present the words touching the cards and saying
It’s sunny/ cloudy/windy today. Have the children
repeat after you and encourage them to
touch the flashcards for the words you
say. Through choral repetition, children
will get familiar with the new
vocabulary and get confident to speak
individually in a later stage.
As a warm-up activity, at the beginning
of each lesson, ask the children to tell
what the weather is like, choose the
matching flashcard and pin it in the
centre of the weather board.

Touch the weather

Prepare copies of the flashcards and scatter
them around the classroom. Make sure
you have multiple pictures of each card.
Shout out a weather word; have the
students stand up and touch the right
picture.
If you want to revise colours, ask them,
What colours can you see? What colour
is...? You may also use the rainbow
flashcard to go through all the colours.
Weather fun
Follow-up activities
The children use the same cards you scattered around the
classroom. They pick up a card and walk around showing On the following pages you will find activities for your
their card and asking their mates, What’s the weather like? students to round up this topic.
Their mates have to answer the question according to the card
shown.

Weather and numbers

To practise numbers, you can record the
weather during the month on a calendar. At
the end of the month count how many
sunny/rainy/cloudy days there have been.

Weather and days of the week

Draw seven columns on the board and write a
day of the week as the heading of each column.
Tell the children that they are going to complete
the weather forecast for this week. So have them
stick a flashcard under each heading. Then they
should take turns to ask and answer questions,
What’s the weather like on Tuesday? It’s rainy or It’s
rainy on Tuesday.

Weather and clothes

Revise or introduce items of clothing. Have the
students say what clothes to wear in different
weather conditions. Point to the scarf and
hat flashcard and ask, When can you wear
these/ a scarf, a hat, and gloves? When
can you wear a cap?, etc.
Include this routine in the warm-up
section, when the students
update the weather board. Have
them say, Today it’s rainy. I’m
wearing a raincoat and
gumboots.

My favourite
season/weather
Have the students talk about
the weather they like or don’t
like, I like rainy days because I
can stay home./ I don’t like rainy
days because I can’t play outside./
I like the summer because I can go
to the beach. / I don’t like the
winter because it is cold!
Level: Beginner/Kinder Age: Children
WEATHER

Match and colour.

1 a

2 b

3 c

Key: 1) c; 2) a; 3) b.
Level: Beginner/Kinder Age: Children
SEQUENCING
Cut, put the sequence into the right order, and colour.
 W e tend to
consider mind
and body as
separate entities;
Addressing learning differences
In a class with more than ten students,
trying to match your teaching strategies
the mind as the field with each of the students’ learning style
of thought and the body as the would be an impossible task for any
field of action. However, our teacher. However, a multisensory approach
motor and sensory systems are to teaching is a more suitable alternative.
vital parts of our brains and What does this mean? Multisensory
cognitive systems since we teaching helps your students to
experience the world and gain acquire new information through
information through them. In more than one of the senses.
fact, it is proved that the more Multisensory stimuli promote
senses are involved in an participation, increase engagement
experience, the more memorable and enhance cognitive skills.
the experience will be.
Traditional classrooms, both
Multisensory teaching
language and regular ones, are Multisensory teaching is very simple
based on a lot of abstraction: to put into practice; you are probably
giving a text, reading the text, practising it without knowing! You
answering questions about just need to integrate multisensory
the text, etc. However, elements into the lesson, that is to
researchers have found that say, activities and stimuli that activate
as abstraction increases, different mind pathways in your students.
sensorial reception
decreases (Baines, 2008) Activities and stimuli for auditory
and so cognitive skills. So, learners
why don’t we try to • Reading Aloud • Debates • Panel Discussions
include the motor and • Informal Discussions • Interviews • Radio
sensory systems into the programmes • Audiobooks • Music & Songs.
whole teaching-learning
experience? Activities and stimuli for visual learners
• Movies & Videos • Pictures • Posters • Maps,
Learning styles Charts and Graphs • Field Trips • Dramatizations
Common sense, self-experience and research suggest that • Experiments
people learn in different ways. The learning styles movement Activities and stimuli for kinesthetic-tactile learners
of the 1980s taught us that each student has a preferred way
• Games • Models & Diagrams • Arts & Crafts • Hands-on
of absorbing information. According to their natural learning
practice • Experiments • Field Trips • Gardening • Dressing-up
preferences, they are identified as visual, auditory or
kinesthetic-tactile learners. This theory is also known as VAKT • Drawing and colouring • Highlighting
theory.
Reference:
Notice that, in the past, these natural learning preferences Baines, Lawrence (2008). A teacher’s guide to Multisensory
were exclusively known as “learning styles”, as it was thought
learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum
that individuals could only learn in one style. Now, it is
Development.
widely spread that learners use three ways to acquire
information; however, only one seems to be more dominant or http://iteslj.org/Articles/Putintseva-LearningStyles.html.
more frequently used than the others. In fact, learners use
different sensory receivers for different tasks. Diana Valeria Bauducco
 T his lesson plan has been designed for young
and very young learners in a 50-60 minutes
class. The activities are aimed at stimulating
learners’ senses and addressing their different
Stage 3 – Practising
a) Tell your students that you will make an animal sound or
gesture, and that they will have to stand up and speak up its
learning styles. name. Say Woof, Baah, etc. so that students name the
corresponding animal. You can also ask a volunteer to make
Materials the sound or gesture.
• Animals flashcards • Youtube videos
b) Give your students the first part of the photocopiable
• TV or screen • Worksheets
activity on page 6. Ask them to cut out the pieces of the
Stage 1 – Engaging puzzle in the first activity. Then, they should try to fit the
pieces by matching the picture of the animal with its
(This stage might be left out) onomatopoeia.
The use of L1 in the English classroom is not a sin and it
might be a good idea to start this lesson by asking your Stage 4 – Creating
students in L1 what their favorite animal is. A second a) With your animal flashcards still on the board, ask for a
engaging question might be What sound do they make? After volunteer. Tell a student to touch an animal card or point out a
loads of Meows, Woofs, etc. (they will sound different in L1), colour. Repeat it more than once at different speeds and with
tell your students that animal sounds are produced differently different volunteers. You can also ask students at their desk to
in English. Show them either of these videos and encourage do the same with the animals in the puzzle activity.
them to repeat the sounds after a second view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5VfeIkKYhM b) Give your students the second part of the worksheet and
ask them to read the description. They have to draw a scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99ULJjCsaM with those animals in the colours they have been instructed,
but they can put them anywhere in whatever scene they want.
Stage 2 – Presenting After they have finished, allow them to share and compare
their drawings.
Provided with the animal flashcards or pictures, introduce
them one by one and stick them on the board. Do not Stage 5 – Closing
introduce more than 6 to 8 items at once.
You can close your lesson by
The multisensory aspect of this task is to calling out some animals and
present the word and associate it, first, asking your students to
to a sound, and, then, to an action. make the sounds/gestures
For example, to introduce the word associated with them.
‘cat’: show or point out its picture,
say ‘cat’, and, finally, Meow Meow
while miming the cat’s whiskers.
After the presentation, encourage
your students to repeat the sequence.
Do the same with the rest of the
animals.
Notice that, when teaching
animals, the sounds you make
will be the specific
onomatopoeic
sound, but the
movement might
be anything
related to the
animal in
question.
Level: Beginner Age: Young learners
PUZZLE
A) Cut and match.

B) On a sheet of paper, draw:

• Two pink pigs • Four yellow birds • A grey cat and a white cat
• A brown dog • Two green frogs • Three white sheep
Before reading/telling the story
In order to take advantage of what
literature offers to young children, we,
as teachers, need to set a nice
atmosphere in our classroom, since
each time we tell or narrate a story,
something special and unique occurs. It
is great to have a space in our
classrooms to share books, stories and
poems, so if teacher and students sit
together in a circle (maybe on cushions
or carpets), children will know that It’s
Storytime!
Another useful resource to catch little
children’s attention is to keep the book
or story in a special place, for instance
a big box covered with bright colour
paper and a big ribbon, so it looks like
a present.
man jumped up and ran through the
kitchen and out of the house shouting:
Don't eat me!
The old woman ran after the
gingerbread man. Stop!, she said. But
the gingerbread man ran even faster,
chanting: Run, run as fast as you can.
You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread
man.
The gingerbread man ran into the
garden and passed the old man. Stop!,
the little old man called out, I’m
hungry. I want to eat you. But the
gingerbread man ran even faster,
chanting: I've run away from the old

While reading the story

In this issue, you will find a poster with
drawings of each character in the story.
You can stick them on cardboard paper
so that they are more resistant. You can
also use a lollipop stick to make
puppets. As you mention the characters
in the story, you can place them in a
line on a piece of foam.

These puppets will help students to

retell the story later. At the same time,
children will have fun placing them in
the correct order and imitating voices.

The story
Once upon a time, there were an old
woman and an old man who lived
in an old house. The old woman
made a gingerbread man and put
it into the oven to cook it.

When the gingerbread man was

done, the old woman opened the
oven door, but the gingerbread
woman, and I can run away from you. I
can. Run, run as fast as you can. You
can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread
man. The old man chased the
gingerbread man, followed by the little
old woman. But the gingerbread man
ran too fast for them.
The gingerbread man ran through the
yard and passed a pig. Stop!, the pig
snorted, I’m hungry. I want to eat you.
But the gingerbread man ran even
faster, chanting, I've run from the old
woman and the old man, and I can run
away from you, I can. Run, run as fast
as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the
gingerbread man.
The pig chased the gingerbread man,
followed by the little old woman and
the little old man. But the gingerbread
man ran too fast for them.
The gingerbread man passed a horse in
the field. Stop!, the horse neighed, I’m
hungry. I want to eat you. But the
gingerbread man ran even faster,
chanting, I've run from the old woman
and the old man and the pig, and I can
run away from you, I can. Run, run as
fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm
the gingerbread man.
The horse chased the gingerbread man,
followed by the pig , and the little old
woman and the little old man. But the
gingerbread man ran too fast for them.
Then, the gingerbread man reached a
river, but he didn't know how to swim.
A sly and hungry fox saw the adjectives they already know (and
gingerbread man and said, Jump on my some which are new to them). Then,
tail, and I'll take you across the river! you can encourage children to make a
So he jumped on the fox's tail and they rhyme. After that, each group can draw
started to cross the river. Halfway a different character and you can
across the river, the fox barked, You're transcribe the rhyme. Finally, you can
too heavy for my tail, jump on my back. stick their productions on the wall so
So the gingerbread man jumped on the their families and the rest of the class
fox's back. Soon, the fox said, You're can admire them.
too heavy for my back, jump onto my
nose. So the gingerbread man jumped • Let’s cook! Invite your kids to cook
on the fox's nose. But as soon as they together some delicious gingerbread
reached the riverbank, the fox flipped men cookies. Follow the recipe you
the gingerbread man into the air, like. There is one available at
snapped his mouth shut, and ate the allrecipes.com/ recipe/gingerbread-men-
gingerbread man. And that was the end cookies.
of the gingerbread man.
Story adapted from:
After reading the story www.enchantedlearning.com/stories/folktale/
gingerbreadman/story
Teachers can encourage children to
discuss their opinion on the story itself.
By asking some questions, teachers can
check students’ comprehension. To
work individually, tell the children they
are going to retell the story. Ask them
to listen carefully to remember the
order in which the characters appear,
and do the activity on page 11.
Extra ideas:
• Compare different versions: As this is
a traditional story, you will find several
online versions, so it would be a good
chance for your students to compare
and contrast them, and to choose the
one they like the most.
• Invent a rhyme: Students can
describe each character using
Level: Kinder Age: Very Young Learners
THE GINGERBREAD MAN
A) Listen to your teacher, find the character, write the number and then, colour.

B) Listen to the story, cut and paste.