At the Beach!

Matt Jones

PROCEDURE:

1. Greetings

2. Review: Colours: Play a quick game of ‘Colour Touch’: say a colour and have them run amok in the room locating that colour on any and every object.

3. Flashcards: Show flashcards of the following beach animals and objects:

Seagull jellyfish beach ball octopus fish crab

dolphin squid starfish shell yacht

4. Grammar Point: Demonstrate the Grammar Point “What’s this? It’s a_______” with the teacher, holding up the different flashcards. Pick on random kids when you think they’ve got it.

5. Move them into lunch groups. Hand out a B3 size (I found A3 a bit big) hand-drawn template of a ‘beach scene’ (mine is very simple, just a diagonal wavy line for water, a similar line for sand, and a sun in a corner. Thank Dave and his e-submissions for my inability to include it for you here).

6. Hand each kid a sheet of small pics of the above beachy bits from the flashcards. Easily found in clipart or in those little cartoon template books they have hidden in the staffroom. Ideally have multiple of each on the sheet (i.e. 3 beachballs, 2 crabs etc). About 16-20 on each sheet is good. I made 4 different sheets with different amounts on each, distributed randomly, just to mix it up a bit.

7. Game: Crayon Karuta! Call out a colour and a beachy bit and have the kids colour it on their sheet (i.e. “a red octopus!”). Continue until they have enough to make a decent looking beach scene.

8. Activity: Make a Beach Scene! (Leave a good 15-20mins for this). Have the kids cut out their coloured bits, and stick them onto the beach scene template. Encourage them to a) colour more themselves and b) colour/decorate the entire B3 sheet (time permitting).

9. This should bring you to the end of the lesson, so have them hold up their awesome beaches and be overcome with pride.

NOTES:

For the 5+6 nensei, I adapted the Grammar Point to “Is there a __ at the beach? Yes there is/No there isn’t”, and instead of doing a colour review at the beginning, launched straight into the Flashcards, and then had them play the Lucky Card Game, trying to guess each other’s card using the Grammar Point before swapping cards and moving on.

An alternative Warm-up to the Colours review is to play a game of “What’s this???” Row Races (all the kids in the front row stand up, first to answer gets a point for their row/team, then they go to the back of the room and everybody moves forward, repeat. Bonus rounds of double/triple points always works a treat, as does a used Australian postage stamp as a reward.)

Have the teachers hang the finished products somewhere in the room or on the notice boards in the hallway.

Having only taught this lesson in summer, I can vouch that it works. Doing it in winter you may not have the same success.

Let’s enjoying happy beach scene making!