The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a much loved and much translated book, that your students may even have at home already. Students 4-6 love this book for the final transformation.

The paperback version has nice large images that the children at the back can see well and the holes in the pages just add to the magic.

Available on Amazon

Topic: The lifecycle of a butterfly (oh no, I didn't spoil the ending for you did I? You knew he turns into a butterfly, right?)

Age: 4-7years (There's a lot of good recyclable vocabulary here, so you could make it work for older students too)

Vocabulary: Fruit (apple, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges, watermelon). Older kids could also learn or review food items, sausage, salami, cake, cheese, lollypop, pickle, ice cream and pie. Numbers 1-5. Days of the week. Lifecycle stages (egg, caterpillar, cocoon/chrysalis, butterfly). Also sun and moon and the adjectives tiny, small, big, fat and hungry.

Procedure:

• Sing your hello song hungrily and thirstily, or even more fun, pretend to be very big (slowly and loudly), small and then tiny (fast and squeakily).
• Preteach the flashcards of the fruit or food depending on what your students know already. For the 4 year olds the five main fruits is really the maximum you can hope for them to learn at a time.
• Get the students settled and listening. Let them know how you will indicate when you need their help. You can tell the story using the words in the book as they are already very simple. Add gestures for hungry, tiny, big fat, stomach ache and much better. As you say the days of the week, see if they know them in L1. It's cross curricular and the chances are they will be learning them currently. I like to get the children to count out the fruit with me and tell me the colour and the name of it to get them as involved as possible.
• When the caterpillar makes a cocoon/chrysalis, it might be a good idea to use some L1, as many of the students will be convinced it is a poo! I also ask them how long they think the caterpillar stayed in there for in L1, to get them thinking and build up the suspense for the inevitable transformation.
• As a final activity I get them to tell me all the colours they can see in the butterfly's wings. 
• Then they can do this beautiful colouring sheet. From memory they have to colour all the fruits the right colour (warning this takes a long time to finish)!

Available on Eric Carle's website.

Extensions:

• Tell the story again, pre-teaching and then eliciting the life cycle stages. Ask volunteers to reorder the flashcards for you and then put them in the right order. There are many worksheets out there:

There are many worksheets out there...

• This video is a nice way to review that language (probably stop at 2.45mins)

• Butterfly colouring sheets are out there in abundance, or they can draw their own. Don't forget the old classroom favourite of painting half a butterfly on one half of an A4 piece of paper, folding it shut and then peeling it open again. Remember to use poster paints (or acrylics but they don't wash out) not tray paints. 
• This lullaby is a good settler for the end of the lesson.

• The days of the week chant to the Adams Family. Days of the week *clap clap* days of the week *clap clap* days of the week, days of the week, days of the week *clap clap* There's Sunday and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and then there is Saturday. Days of the week *clap clap* days of the week *clap clap* days of the week, days of the week, days of the week *clap clap.* The key thing is to remember to start with Sunday or the rhythm doesn't work.
• This worksheet even has a caterpillar theme!

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Three Billy Goats Gruff is a great story for group storytelling whether with pictures or without. The range of voices and repetitive speech is perfect for VYL but also older kids. I have done this with 7-8 year olds who loved it nearly as much as the 4 year olds.

This version gets 5 stars on Amazon

Topic: Three goats want to cross a bridge but an angry, hungry troll wants to eat them.

Age: 4-8

Vocabulary: Goat, troll, bridge, big, middle/medium, small, angry, hungry (I like to add thirsty to the lesson) 'Who's that tippy tapping on my bridge?' 'I'm hungry and I'm going to eat you.' 'Please don't eat me!'

Procedure:

• Sing If You're Happy and You Know It to review/introduce the adjectives happy, angry, hungry and thirsty. Suggested lyrics: If you're happy happy happy, clap your hands. If you're hungry hungry hungry, eat a banana. If you're thristy thirsty thristy, drink some water. If you're angry angry angry, stamp you're feet. If you're happy happy happy, shhh be quiet!"
• Introduce the story using the front cover. Count the goats. Show how there was BIG goat, middle goat and small goat using gestures. Start the story. The goats are hungry and they want to eat the long green grass, BUT under the bridge there lives an angry, hungry troll who likes to eat goats.
• The small goat goes first. Get everyone to tap the noise of the goat's hooves on the floor/tables lightly. STOP roars the troll. "Who's that tippy tapping on my bridge?" I say this twice whilst clapping it encouraging the children to repeat with me. Now squeaky voice for the small goat. "It's me! Small goat." On later tellings I elicit the word small from the students. Big booming voice again and rub your tummy. "I'm hungry and I'm going to eat you!" Clap it out and repeat twice, whilst encouraging the children to say it with you. Back to small goat, who squeaks with hands praying. "Please don't eat me!" (Children must repeat this bit really well  or the troll is not satisfied ;). I finish the conversation"I'm only small. Wait for my brother, middle goat. He's much bigger than me!" "Ok go ahead" grumbles the troll.
• Repeat for middle goat. Big goat arrives and speaks with a BIG voice and on cue says! "Oh no you won't." Then with your hands gesture the horns and charge. SPLASH the troll falls into the water and is swept away. The goats are happy and eat lots of grass. The small goat becomes a BIG fat goat. If you have the Steven Carpenter version then go around and point out the the troll floating away down the river, because he's very small.

Extensions:

This makes a great worksheet for all VYL, although the four year olds will need help to complete it.

In follow up lessons I drew a bridge and photocopied it and the students added the characters for me.

Another great activity is a sorting activity with shells, buttons, bottle caps or other objects into the three categories or big, medium an small.

If a worksheet seems easier then make a photocopy with three boxes of different sizes and ask them to draw something big, small and medium sized in the right box.

I've watched a lot of 3 Billy Goats Gruff videos on Youtube and this was my favourite. The children won't understand much of the speech but the drawings and music are lovely. The students have all got very involved when watching this video.

The Christmas Story for Very Young Learners

Isn't this one of the best times of year? Working with children makes you feel extra Christmassy and there is so, so much material out there. This year I'm focussing on the Christmas story and the song 'We wish you a merry Christmas' with my 4-6 year olds.

Topic: the Christmas Story

Age: 4-6

Vocabulary: Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, Angels, Shepherds, 3 kings, star, knock knock, no sorry, let's go!

Procedure:

• Drill  flashcards of the angels, sheperds, star, kings and mary joseph and the donkey. 
• Pre teach gestures that go with these flashcards.
• Play musical statues, with a christmas song, like rocking around the christmas tree and call out the actions, eg. "Angel!", everybody must stop and stand like an angel.
• Draw Bethlehem on the board and stick mary, joseph and the donkey far away. Start to tell the story of Christmas. Children can knock with you and say 'sorry no' each time they find nowhere to stay. 
• Then on the fourth time, draw a stable, with a star and place the characters there. 
• Now back to the hills near bethlehem! The shepherds are sleeping so get the children to snore. The angels wake them up 'A king is born! go to Bethlehem!" and the shepherds reply "lets go!" and the sheep can baa 'let's go!' too. Get the children to repeat these phrases after you. Add the characters to the nativity scene. 
• Next it's the 3 kings' turn. Stand even far away from the board and point to the star over the stable and say " a star! a king is born! let's go!"  and make them proceed around the classroom to the board and add them. 
• When you retell the story the following lesson give everychild a mini flashcard and get them to come and stick them on the board at the right moment.

lucypaintbox.org.uk has this lovely nativity scene to colour in.

Here is a link to some memory cards, which you could use in many many ways. (I plan to play memory with just the shepherd, king, mary, jospeh, angel and donkey). 

And here is one very silly Mr Bean video!