Zoo animals Eat Activity

 This resource is included in the Zoo Animals for EFL. Click here: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Zoo-Animals-Flashcards-for-EFL-3611842

Learning about zoo animals and their eating habits makes English learners review the vocabulary related to animals, food, and eating behaviors. This can be included into the prioduction parts of the lesson plan in english.

Introduce What Zoo Animals Eat

There is a set of small cards in color for making a sorting activity. Includes the animals and the food.Students learn to associate each animal with its food.

Sorting What Zoo Animals Eat

Exploring how zoo animals eat provides English learners the opportunity to describe their observations on what and how the animal’s eating habits.             I used a pizza box as a sorting mat.

Place the animal cards on the top line of the box and then have the students place what the animals eat cards under each animal.

 You can also have the learners sort the cards into carnivores, omnivores and herbivores

Match Animals to Their Food Worksheets

Teaching English learners about zoo animals incorporates elements of science enhancing their overall knowledge and understanding of the natural world. Use the set of worksheets to do their own sorting mat for these animals.

Exploring how zoo animals eat can stimulate critical thinking as they start coloring and gluing the cards on the cardboard. It can be an individual lesson or a group activity.If your students created one, please show me!

And find here a list of what zoo animals eat.

Build what zoo Animals eat using flashcards

Print and display the cards to introduce the vocabulary related to what food animals eat. Place several flashcards on the board.
Teacher: What is number 1?
Students: It´s a giraffe.
Teacher: What does the giraffe eat? (Have the students guess and say what they know even if in the native language)
Then, start placing the food cards.
Teacher: The giraffes eat leaves, twigs and fruit. (Emphasize leaves, twigs, fruit).   Continue with the other flashcards.

Place the food cards and have the students place the common animals that eat that food.

Sort the food that the animals eat. Have the students make and write sentences. Give examples.

Teacher: The kangaroo and the elephant eat grass. They don´t eat fish.

Use the cards to review countable and uncountable nouns related to the food the zoo animals eat.

                                       

This zoo animals printable folded book is a simple activity to help elementary ESL students practice vocabulary, reading, and writing.Go to this blog post: 

https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2024/04/zoo-animals-printable-folded-book.html

Go to my Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/rosamelia_eslteacher/

Zoo animals Move Flashcards.

 This resource is included in the Zoo Animals for EFL. Click here:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Zoo-Animals-Flashcards-for-EFL-3611842

Teaching zoo animals movement vocabulary helps elementary ESL students learn action verbs in a fun and interactive way. Using flashcards, students can practice verbs like walk, jump, swim, and fly while participating in engaging activities.

Introduce How Zoo Animals Move

Teach your learners about how the zoo animals move and review the vocabulary related to the locomotion expanding their language skills.

Practice Movement Verbs with Questions

Perfect for introducing or reviewing the verbs. Write a verb under each flashcard to show what each zoo animal is moving. Encourage the ELLs to observe and describe how the animals move in each flashcard.

“CAN” STRUCTURE

Then, place two flashcards on the board. Ask the students what the animals are doing. Write the verb and ask questions.
Teacher: Can the bear climb trees?
Students: Yes, it can.
Teacher: Can the elephant climb trees?
Students: No, it can´t.

MOVEMENT GAME

Sort what the animals can do using the flashcards: walk. Gorilla, monkey, hippo and ostrich!

Animals have same abilities. Sort them out.
Teacher: Which animals can climb?
Students: the monkey, the bear.

Follow Commands with Animal Movements

Some zoo animals can fly. Write the words can fly and have the students guess which animals can do the action, as they do it themselves in a mime.

Or create a sorting table on the board and students can come up t place the flashcards to the corresponding verb.

Integrate the animal movement with the physical education activities. Have the students imitate the movement of the animals on each card. Use my movement verb table.

This giraffe-themed numbers resource gives teachers a visual, engaging, and ESL-friendly way to help students understand numbers 1–20 while building confidence in counting and speaking, all in the zoo unit pack. Go to this blog post:   https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2025/03/giraffes-numbers-1-to-20-for-elementary.html 

Check my Pinterest account for even more ideas: https://www.pinterest.com/ei98srl/esl-animals-unit/esl-zoo-animals/

The dog and the Prepositions for Elementary ELL

 This resource (The Dog and Prepositions — ESL Prepositions of Place Activities for Elementary) is included in the Pets Unit and it is ALSO available as an individual resource   here, LINK: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-dog-and-the-Prepositions-for-Elementary-ELL-11385429

Teaching the Prepositions of location are essential in constructing longer sentences to express the relationship between objects and the pets, in this case I focused on the dogs. Proficiency in prepositions facilitates language development. It is all here to write the lesson plan for your elementary ELLs.

Students will practise:  Prepositions of place (*in, on, under, next to, behind, between*)  with the flashcards.

Start by printing your dog and the prepositions flashcards to provide clarity to describe spatial relationship with precision using the dog as the center of the activity.

Teacher: The dog is on the bed.

There is a set of cutouts in color and b/w to aid the comprehension of the prepositions. They work well for listening and speaking activities. Have your set ready and the students will create their own by coloring the cutouts and adding an opened clip behind each cutout to have them stand. This works well for Describing locations with simple sentences.  

Listening and responding to commands.Learners will understand instructions and use the cutouts to physically show what was said.

Teacher: The dog is next to the doghouse.

Students can give directions for the class to perform.

Print the quilt mats, it comes with the pictures only and the words only, use it either way. This is my example. I used the picture quilt and cut all the words to do the match. 

Students will place the preposition word on each picture and say the sentence: The dog is between the dohouse and the ball.

Or use the quilts as cards to match and check the understanding of the new language.

Use the picture cards to play with the puzzle templates. This game will help your students understand the sentence structure, word order and the grammatical rule for the use of prepostions.

A few worksheets to practice writing and understanding sentences with prepositions. Students will show that they are able to comprehend the prepositions effectively.

This is a reading comprehension worksheet that can be easily assigned as independent tasks, promoting self-directed learning to reinforce their reading skills

The worksheets can be used as a review for the students to check the understanding of the prepositions and for you to identify if the learner needs more support.

When to Use This Dog Prepositions Activity

✔ After introducing prepositions of place  

✔ During a pet or animal themed unit  

✔ For partner speaking practice  

✔ In ESL centers or stations  

✔ As review or formative assessment

This resource is also available separately or in a bundle, here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Prepositions-Bundle-Hands-On-ESL-Activities-for-Elementary-ELLs-13387265

 

Printable pets unit books for elementary ESL/ELL learners — engaging reading and writing activities to practise animal vocabulary, comprehension, and simple sentences are also part of this complete pets unit pack. Go to this blog post:    https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2024/01/pets-unit-books-for-elementary-ell.html 

I do have another blog for Kindergarten English Language Learners with more resources for the pet unit. Click here:  www.eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com

Zoo animals have a body

 This resource is included in the Zoo Animals for EFL at this link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Zoo-Animals-Flashcards-for-EFL-3611842

Teaching zoo animals and body parts vocabulary helps elementary ESL students describe animals and compare them in meaningful ways. Using flashcards and guided questions, students can identify similarities and differences while developing speaking skills.

Identify Animal Body Parts

Place a zoo animal flashcard on the board and write the parts of the body.
Hand in more flashcards and have the students do the same using your model.
Have the students say which body parts are similar to a person and which are different.
Teacher: Which body parts are similar to ours?
Students: eye, nose, mouth, ear, leg!
Teacher: Which body parts are different to ours?
Students: whiskers, fur, paw, tail!

Comparison Activity

Then place 2 flashcards, write the body parts, the similar ones in one color and the different ones in another. Talk about the difference between the animals. I suggest you read a little before doing this and use my research table and complete it even more.
Teacher: Which body parts are the same?
Students: head, eye, ears, legs, feet, tail, claws!
Teacher: yes! But, Which head is bigger?
Students: The bear´s head is bigger.
Teacher: Which body parts are different?
Students: fur, feathers, snout, beak!
Teacher: yes! But, Which animal has fur?
Students: The bear has fur.
And continue with more questions!

Write body parts words and have the students sort the zoo animal flashcards by their characteristics, such as tails, beak, horn, stripes, scales.
Animals have similar and different body parts. Have the students sort out the flashcards depending on a body part.
Teacher: Which animals have tails?
Students: Lions, monkeys, kangaroo!

 

Sorting by Body Features

Sort the animals by the tail using the adjectives flashcards long and short to describe the tail of the animals: The monkey has a long tail. The penguin has a short tail.

Sort the zoo animals by the length of the arms.

Sort the zoo animals by the size of the ears.

Venn Diagram

Draw a Venn Diagram on the board, have the students understand what it is for. Compare any two animals that you want. I made an example. Students should give you details of what they observe that are different between them and what is the same or common.

Order by size Animal 

Place the animal flashcards on the board in random order. Have the students order them by size.
Ask questions:
Teacher: Which is the first animal?
Students: The elephant.
Teacher: Which is the second animal?
Students: The giraffe.
Teacher: Which animal comes next?
Students: The camel.

Matching Game

Cut the animal flashcards in 2 or in 4.  I made these without borders or words. Hand them out randomly. Have the students stand up and walk around asking the classmates for the match to complete the card.

Student: Do you have the camel ?

Cut the body parts in each animal flashcard.

 Body Parts Matching Table

Set up a table on the board with only the body part word. Have the students come up and place each body part under each word.

This Monkey & Box prepositions resource helps elementary ESL students practice prepositions of place through hands-on activities, games, and worksheets.Go to this blog post:    https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2025/04/monkey-box-prepositions-fun-hands-on.html

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