The Frog Family

Justin Day

OBJECTIVES:

• To involve the children in storytelling

The teacher tells a story about the Frog family and the children act out the parts of the characters

PREPARATION:

1. Practise telling the story. Include very explicit actions that the children will be able to imitate.

2. Prepare pictures of the Frog family.

3. Draw a large lily-pad and make an area of the floor into a ‘pond’ with chalk or string.

PROCEDURE:

1. Ask the homeroom teacher to tell the children that you are going to tell them a story about the Frog family and either draw the frogs or put up pictures on the board. Check that they know who is who.

2. The homeroom teacher should ask the children questions like: ‘Have you ever seen a frog?’ ‘Where do frogs live?’ ‘What do they sit on?’ ‘Do they like to be hot or cold?’ and ‘How can they get cool?’ Then show them the outline of the pond on the floor and the big lily-pad in it.

3. Tell them the story, remembering to use lots of gestures to make the meaning very clear.

4. Tell the children you are going to tell the story again, but this time five of them are going to be the Frog family. Ask for volunteers and line them up by the edge of the pond.

5. Tell the story again, and as each child hears their character they put up their hand. Encourage them to do the gestures with you as you tell the story.

6. All the children will want to have a go at acting out the story: once they have heard it several times you can divide the class into several ‘ponds’ and tell the story with several Frog families at a time.

NOTES:

I have used this activity with 1st, 2nd and 3rd year elementary school students. This activity is taken directly from Young Learners, by Sarah Phillips (Oxford University Press, 11th ed. 2003).

WORKSHEETS/MATERIALS:

The story

The book at amazon.co.jp