Charlie Chick

Charlie Chick is a delightful pop up book, good for the end of the year when attentions are getting short as it's short but sweet, with nice large images for using in class. Or you could use it at Easter time as there are plenty of chick themed crafts out there.

Charlie Chick by Nick Denchfield and Ant Parker for Campbell 

Topic: A hungry chick eats lots of corn and gets a great big tummy. Good for using in conjunction when teaching parts of the body or reviewing.

Age: 2-5. I think only your youngest students will fully appreciate the book.

Vocabulary: mum, "Charlie Chick eats lots of barley/corn/wheat", "That's why he's got such... big/fat/strong, tummy, beak, feet"

Procedure:

• Get your students sitting in their circle time positions and sing your Hello Song. I would sing it with a tiny voice and a great big voice in keeping with the books theme.
• Gather interest: See how many part of the body the students know in English already/can remember. Drill the main parts of the body like arms, legs, hands, head making sure to include feet and tummy. Then show them the book front cover and teach eyes and beak. Test them by getting them to point to the different parts of their body when you say the word. Alternatively you could ask them to guess which farmyard animal today's story is about.
• Read the story to the students, (make sure to build some suspense before opening the pop up pages!) and elicit the parts of the body. Repeat once or twice more.
• Set up your table time extension activity. 
• Get your students back into circle time and sing Old MacDonald had a farm or Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
• You could finish with the video of Old Mac Donald, the following is faithful to the version that most people learnt as a child, or a more calming Animal Sounds Song by Kids TV 123.

Extensions:

Pop up chick card HERE

Another pop up card HERE

If that feels a bit ambitious you could always plump for some colouring. Get your fast finishers to add Charlie chick's mum and a pile of corn! Or you could do a colouring dictation and ask your students to colour the chicks beak, eyes, tummy and feet the colours you say.

Click on THIS LINK to download the free Easter colouring sheets or the following worksheet.

Don't forget to count your chickens after they hatch :)

There are other books in the Charlie Chick series which also look fun for doing with ESL children. A good story to follow with would be Little Red Riding Hood.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Topic: a naughty little girl goes for a walk in the woods and enters an empty home... I've chosen the Amanda Askew version of the classic fairytale (curiously not well known in Italy) as it is hardback and has large illustrations.

Amanda Askew version

Age: 3-7

Vocabulary: Goldilocks, bears, mummy, daddy, baby, forest, house, kitchen, bowl of porrige (I'm 'chunking' this one without explanations!), livingroom, chair, bedroom, bed, too hot, too cold, too hard, too soft, too big, just right. 

Procedure:

• Preteach those adjectives by asking them to sing your hello song softly and 'hard' and then whilst being hot and cold.
• Flashcard time: drill Goldilocks, bear, and the rooms and furniture. Recycle house and forest and the family if you think it is necessary.
• Read the story with plenty of actions, especially for the 'too hot.. too cold... just right' parts. Check understanding in L1 if necessary. On follow up readings you will need these actions for eliciting those non pre taught words during the flash card game.
• Table time! Ask the children to draw a picture that represents the story. It could include, a house, a forest and most importantly a little girl and 3 bears.
• Call the children back for circle time. You could review the family finger song.
•  Watch and sing the chorus of the video with actions. I'm a big fan of this series by Debbie and Friends.

Extensions:

This story is begging for a matching activity. Or they could draw the right bear in the right chair...

Found HERE

Found HERE

 Something like a sequencing sheet would be a good second lesson for the older kids to check understanding.

From Sparklebox

Little Red Riding Hood

An absolute classic of a fariytale. It's got more than one version but it's likely your children will know it already. I'm using the ladybird book. The pages are small, but the pictures are nice and clear.

 

Topic: Little Red Riding hood goes to granny's house via the forest, but stops to talk to a big bad wolf.

Age: I've been doing it with 3-7 without too much trouble (although the smaller ones couldn't quite get their tongues around Little Red Riding Hood).

Vocabulary: mummy, daddy - I swapped the hunter for daddy - granny, little red riding hood, forest, bed, cake, house, flowers, the big bad wolf. Also 'What big eyes you have' 'What big ears you have' and 'What big teeth you have' along with  'All the better to see/hear/eat you with!

Procedure:

• Sing your hello song like a little girl and a big bad wolf!
• Drill the character flashcards. In subsequent lessons you can drill the other important words). I like to accompany the characters with their own action so I can use it to elicit them while I tell the story. Little Red Riding Hood takes a lot of drilling so try drilling it backwards. (Hood. Riding Hood. Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood). The littlest students are probably not going to manage the whole phrase.
• Now start telling the story, pointing to the pictures and miming all mimable words. I changed the words to make it simpler, you can find them below... 
• "Once upon a time, there was a small girl and her name was Little Red Riding Hood. She lived in a house next to a big forest. On the other side of the forest in a small house lived Granny. But in the big big forest lived a big bad wolf. One day Mummy says 'Little Red Riding Hood will you take some cake to granny?' 'OK' says Little Red Riding Hood. 'But remember' says mummy, PLEASE don't stop in the forest and PLEASE don't talk to the Big Bad Wolf (BBW).' 'Ok says Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH)."
• "LRRH is walking in the forest when she meets the BBW. (deep voice) Hello LRRH! (high voice) Hello! How are you? - (deep) I'm fine thank you. Where are you going LRRH? -(high) I'm going to granny's house.
• The wolf has an idea. "Why don't you pick some flowers for granny?" "That's a good idea," says LRRH, so she stops and picks a big bunch of flowers, and the wolf runs really fast to granny's house.
• deep voice - "Knock knock knock. Hello!" "LRRH?" Thinks granny. "No! It's the BBW!" And granny hides under the bed. 
• The wolf comes in. 'Hello? Hello? There's nobody here! He has a plan. He puts on granny's hat. He puts on granny's coat and he gets into granny's bed and waits for LRRH. 
• "Knock knock knock! Hello Hello!" - "Come in!" - "Oh Granny! What big eyes you have!" - "All the better to see you with my dear" - "Oh granny, what big ears you have!" - "All the better to hear you with my dear" - "Oh granny! What big teeth you have!" - "All the better to EAT you with my dear!" And the wolf jumps up but the hat falls down over his eyes (I can't see any thing!) and granny says 'Quick! LRRH come under the bed!"
• Here comes daddy! He runs into the house. He sees the BBW and.... SWISH! He kills the wolf. But where's LRRH and where's granny? Here they are! Under the bed! They say 'Thank you daddy!'. And they eat the cake. Daddy says, "LRRH remember! PLEASE don't stop in the forest and PLEASE don't talk a BBW!"
• Now you've told the story you can do an activity... like colouring the characters the right colours.

This one is good as it has the letters to colour as well.

•  Then it's back to circle time for a last flashcard game like Say Yes!! when you see....and the video.

This is an absolute treasure of a video and the tune has stayed in my head for weeks. I like to sing just the chorus and encourage the kids to do the actions with me.


Extensions:

Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes is a good song for teaching parts of the face. You can sing it getting faster and faster, or you can sing it and clap in the place of a new word each time. I changed mouth for teeth, just to help with the story's vocabulary.

Word tracing here

And something like this (I made my own) for teaching the face.

Finger Puppet crafts for those of you with time and resources!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Micheal Rosen was published in 1989 and is real classic. It's rhythmic, repetitive, chantable and full of fun noises. Some report being very scared by the book when they were very small, so maybe don't go over the top with the terror! If this story had a moral it would probably be 'Leave the bears alone!'

Just don't buy the tiny board book like I did!

Age: 3-9

Topic: A family go for a walk to look for a bear. They traverse different terrains only to discover they're actually scared of bears.

Vocabulary: forest, river, mud, grass, snowstorm, cave, bear. (The adjectives are optional) A good teaching moment for mummy, daddy, baby, brother and sister too. Repeated phrases: We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, what a beautiful day, we're not scared, oh no! and We can't go over it, we can't go under it, we're going to have to go through it!

Procedure:

• Sing your hello song whilst being scared and very much not scared!
• Preteach the landscape vocabulary with flashcards. Play some flashcard games. For the first lesson 'say yes when you see the...' is excellent.
• Tell the story with the book. Omit the adjectives at your discretion. I think 'thick oozy mud' is quasi onomatopoeic but teaching it actively would be too much for my students.  Watch the master at work here. You cannot get better story telling instructions than this:

                               

• Worksheet time: I drew a cave, with a forest, river, grass, mud  and a snowstorm for mine, and asked the children to draw the bear in the right place.  Or you could use this:

Printable HERE

• Finish with the animated pictures from the book video.

Extensions:
Teach the family vocabulary with this song:

One printable jigsaw HERE

Printable worksheet HERE

Teach some prepositions of place by making a simple over/under worksheet.

Like this one, but bigger, and printable...

One of my favourite worksheets ever but most definitely for students who can read. Printable HERE

This story is just asking for a board game craft.

Or collage!

HERE