Dear Zoo

Dear Zoo is a firm family favourite that has recently celebrated 35 years of publishing. Small children love opening the flaps making it ideal for individual or small group lessons. For a bigger class it is a bit more of a challenge as the pages are fairly small, but the illustrations are nice and clear.

Topic: The narrator writes to the zoo in order to adopt a pet but the zoo keeps sending unsuitable animals.

Age: 1-5 (Yes, even one year olds will enjoy this book. I'm not sure how much English they will produce though!)

Vocabulary:

Zoo, pet, lion, elephant, giraffe, snake, monkey, frog, camel, puppy. 

Too big, too tall, too fierce (or substitute with dangerous), too grumpy, too scary, too naughty, too jumpy, perfect.

For phrases like "I sent him back" and "I kept him" I would mime the action and chunk it rather than teach the individual words.

Procedure:

• Get your students into their circle time positions and sing your Hello Song in the style of a snake, roar it like a lion or even in the style of a grumpy camel.
• Flashcard time: drill the animals in the story, you can choose whether to include puppy or not for the first reading. Sometimes it is nice to maintain an element of surprise. You can find flashcard game ideas HERE. If your students already know these animals then drill the adjectives instead, with flashcards or by miming.
• Interest gather by asking the students if they have any pets. What would their ideal pet be?
• Read the story, before opening the flaps elicit what animal is on the inside of the box. Encourage the students to repeat the phrases "He was too ..." and "I sent him back" after you. 
• Give the instructions for your 'table time' worksheet activity. For example, see if the students know which colours to colour the animals on the worksheet.

You can find the full colouring sheet on the publisher's website HERE.

• When the children have finished their colouring (fast finishers could draw and colour a few animals of their own on the back) get the children back into circle time and admire any particularly nicely coloured worksheets. 
• If the students have been good listeners there should be time to reward them with a video. Try this Zoo song by Super Simple Songs.

Extensions:

Test their memory with this worksheet.

HERE

Or this one...

From Sparklebox HERE

How about a, cut out and  order the animals in terms of size worksheet.

HERE

Or play Sleeping lions  - every teacher's favourite party game! Students must lie down and pretend to be sleeping lions. The first ones to move are eliminated. Another version of the game sees students lie down and sleep, they are given an animal, when the music plays they must wake up and be that animal, when it stops they must go to sleep again, then they are given a new animal.

Similar: This story could work well in conjunction with the following books: Dinosaur Roar, The Photo, Spot's Birthday Party, and Walking in the Jungle.

Why?

Hello and thank you for dropping by! I've been teaching English in Italy since 2009 and whilst I have taught all levels my young learners pre-schooler classes have been some of the most challenging and rewarding. I, personally, couldn't find much out there that was appropriate for someone with very little resources and no funds.

In the end I made my own syllabus for the 3-7 year olds with the help of Oxfam book shop finds in my summer holidays and then, more recently, gifts to my own son. After some time of making electronic records of all this stuff it occured to me that maybe someone else would want to use it. And so I went ahead and made this blog.

I hope you enjoy it!

I haven't posted in a while but I'll be refreshing the blog over the next few months and checking all the links to the resources on other sites.

Hello Song

If you've read any of my lesson plans, you'll have noticed that they all start with a "Hello Song". Today I want to share that with you, just in case you don't have one of your own.

I start all my little learners' lessons with a Hello Song. It's a great way to establish a routine, review those first few essential phrases and get the students listening, speaking English and participating in the lesson.

My song goes like this to the tune of Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it's off to work we go...


Hello! Hello! How are you?

I'm fine, thank you! I'm fine, thank you!

Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!

With obligatory actions of course (wave Hello, point to the students as you ask How are you? and bobbing along with a thumbs up gesture for I'm fine thank you)...  The more actions you songs and stories include the less trouble you will have maintaining your students attention! Some would say this also helps kinaesthetic learners, others would say there's no such thing as a kinaesthetic learner. I would say, whatever works for you, works.

If you need music try this very popular one from Super Simple Songs...