Fish, Fish: teaching K students about things that live in the sea

Maria Filippone

OBJECTIVES:

PROCEDURE:

Beginning (5 minutes):

ALT: "Okay everyone, let's begin English class. Please stand-up.

Good Morning Everyone."

Kids: "Good Morning Maria."

I tend to do a warm-up total response type activity with the kids first thing. From the first class I teach this by doing.

ALT: "Let's stretch."

We use words like up, down, left, right, turn,... and just move around. I have the kids repeat the words as they do the action. I tend to lull them into a false sense of comfort with the whole Up, Down, Up, Down,... and then BAM! Turn.

Word Presentation (5 minutes):

They sit-down and we calm down for a second. I then use the magic that is colored in printed pictures to show them the new words for today. In this case we are going to focus on three words: fish, octopus, and crab (kindergarteners can usually retain anywhere from two to five words depending on when during the school year you use the lesson, beyond that it gets too difficult and frustrating). I introduce the words and we do the basic listen and repeat action. After a decent run of that we stand up and make faces, act like, make sounds, etc... to re-enforce the words. The whole stand up and act crazy thing comes with its own set of listen and repeat, more like listen/watch and mimic/repeat.

First (Main) Activity (15 to 20 minutes):

Octopus Tag.

We isolate two words, fish and octopus. We are going to play octopus tag. Through a series of gestures and blackboard writing I explain the game very briefly. All the students will make one line at one side of the classroom. The student who is IT (the octopus) will stand in the middle of the room. The students will attempt to run past "the octopus" without getting tagged to the opposite side of the classroom where they will again make a single line, ready for the next attack. I get them to stand-up and we cement the understanding of the game by doing. Everyone lines up. I pick an "octopus" from eager hands thrust in the air. We realize that a) the person who is IT is "the octopus" (I put an octopus necklace on that person, ie. string and a picture) and that everyone else is a fish. The octopus will say "fish, fish" ("fish, fish come swim in my sea" for first and second graders or advanced kindergarteners) and the kids will make a run for it (I try to get the kids to swim or otherwise fish their way to the other end, but that's seldom the case as pandamonium often, thankfully, ensues). If a kid gets tagged they are frozen on the spot (with first and second graders you can tell them that if they get tagged they become a tentacle of the main octopus, when the fish come past they can reach out, without moving their feet, and tag them to help out the octopus' cause). The game is played a few times and then we revert to a clean slate and pick a new octopus.

Second Activity (15 minutes):

Crab!

The kids are pretty exhausted at this point so I tend to make sure that my activities compliment one another and toss in something less active for a breather. The kids get in a circle (or two depending on how many kids you have). I give each kid a set of chopsticks. I place an empty bucket in the middle of the group and I place ten bean bags next to one kid. They are puzzled and thoroughly enraptured by the possibilities. I tell them that we are now crabs. Crabs use their pinchers to pick-up things, enter chopsticks, the kid next to the bean bags will pick one up and hand it off to the next kid and so on, sending another bean bag down the circle as soon as they can. If they drop the bean bag in the exchange (chopsticks to chopsticks) that bean bag starts at the beginning again. When the last kid, on the other side of the first kid, gets a bean bag they are to stand up and walk it to the center bucket. The kids get into it just for the sake of not letting the bean bags fall. You can also turn it into a race between groups. I find it's best not to make the kindergarteners too competitive because they would rather not have a clear winner or loser, but work as a team instead. The first and second graders can handle it with more grace and less tears.

Final Activity and Goodbye (10 minutes):

Hidden Pictures.

The last activity is some kind of review typically. I hand out a half sheet picture in which the kids are going to find the hidden pictures related to today's lesson. Before they all begin with their colored pencils we practice the three words of the day one last time. I shuffle the image cards I use to first introduce the words and ask them what they are. Typically the class is beside itself with yelling out the correct word. Then they work on their hidden pictures in clusters while I go around and give hints and very overt praise. With two minutes left in the class I ask them to stop and please stand-up. We say goodbye to one another and call it a day. That's their cue, somehow, to bum-rush my legs.

NOTES:

I don't normally stick to specific time markers. You get a sense for how long you have and what you can accomplish in that time after a while. If they get bored we move on, if the like it we stay overtime and I drop one of the other activities. In general it's good to be flexible and to give into their energy.

Utilize anything that occurs to you from your own childhood. That's where the whole hidden picture thing came from. Use dot to dots to re-enforce numbers or the alphabet and as emergency activities if you finish five minutes early. Remember what your own teachers and parents used to occupy your time and what you enjoyed doing.