Birthday Unit Resource for Elementary English Language Learners
Let’s start by
introducing: Happy Birthday! And the
response: Thank You. Have the students
sit in a circle and say Happy Birthday ! to the student next to
him/her and that student responds Thank you and does
the same to the one next to him/her.
I
made the ‘s wand
out of fun foam using the template in this product and glued it onto a thick craft stick. Use it to introduce:
It’s Ann’s birthday.
Birthday Vocabulary Flashcards. Great for introducing the new party vocabulary and food .
Activity 1. Write the three words on the board: food,
drinks and things. Have the students look through the flashcards and sort them
out and place them where they belong.
Teacher: name the flashcards under things.
Students:
flower, candle, balloon, hat, present, lollipop.
Activity 2. Play the birthday game. Place 10 flashcards on the board and
assign a number for each one. You can use the ten numbers as well. Say
something about the flashcard and have the students say which one it is.
Teacher: It’s round. You can eat it. It has pepperoni.
It is big.
Students:
Pizza!
Teacher: What number is the pizza?
Students:
Number 2!
Teacher: What is number 1?
Students: It
is a gift!
Teacher: What color is the gift?
Students: It
is pink and blue!
For extra practice
students can write sentence with a white board marker on the flashcards placed
inside a clear plastic sheet.
Introduce the plurals of the nouns using the S,es,ies puppet.
I made mine out of fun foam. You can make a puppet for each case and use it for
any unit.
Use the puppets and the flashcards to explain each plural case.
Teacher: What is it?
Students: It
is a hot dog!
Contrast!
Teacher: What are they?
Students:
They are hot dogs!
Plurals lead to counting Birthday objects and food.
Teacher: What are these?
Students:
They are cookies!
Teacher: How many cookies are there?
Students:
There are six!
Have the students use the adjective noun word order: six brown cookies
And introduce the uncountable nouns using the flashcards. I would place the drinks which are
usually uncountable unless in comes in a glass of juice, for example. I did
those flashcards as well.
Finally, brainstorm
Birthday party nouns with your students. Place the Birthday party flashcard on
the board and make a mind map by asking them what should be at the party. Write
down the words that you don’t have a flashcard for it. Then students can create
their own mind map on their notebooks.
Teacher: There are streamers.
Students:
There are invitations.
Teacher: There is a cake.
Ask students:
Teacher: Peter, What do you want?
Peter: a
cupcake.
Take the cupcake from
the board and give it to Peter. Continue with more examples.
And done with the
nouns, let’s move on to the verbs.
Children do things at the party. Here are the flashcards.
Teacher: Point to
a flashcard. What is he doing?
Students: He
is taking a picture.
Continue with more.
Use the verb
flashcards for making collocations.Place the verb eat on the board and have the
students find the flashcards to create the collocations.
Teacher:
eat ice cream!
Student
1: eat corn dog !
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