[janette_in_china]

hello everyone,
OK. this week I've decided to teach a few animals to my very young beginner class (2-3 years old) and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas to get them involved... so far I have got only half the class to participate in my activities, the others are VERY shy and will not get involved.
I figure some sort of game would be useful, but my mind is blank

For my other classes, which are a bit more advanced (ages 3-5) I'm trying to think of activities/games to teach them classroom commands (ie raise your hand, point to..., sit in a circle, stop, go, etc.)
Any ideas you may have would really help
Janette

[simplyesl]

I LOVE teaching animals to young learners, it's really fun. Use plenty of TPR. For example teaching 'bee' - introduce with a soft toy or a puppet (or a flashcard). Drill the word and sentence structure (It's a bee.) Pretend that the bee (puppet/toy) is alive (I use my hand and make a buzzing noise if I'm using a flashcard). Go around to the students and pretend that the bee is biting them. You'll get a good reaction from them, sometimes unpredictable, ask them "What is it." they should answer "It's a bee." I would settle with 'bee' for the younger kids.
Charades is a great activity for animals.
Old McDonald's Farm is a good song to use.
You could try playing "teacher says (Simon says)" for classroom commands.

[Pix]

For my other classes, which are a bit more advanced (ages 3-5) I'm trying to think of activities/games to teach them classroom commands (ie raise your hand, point to..., sit in a circle, stop, go, etc.)

For this you could play a version of grandmother's footsteps.
All the children can be at their desks except one at the front facing the board. You give the commands and the class do them, but at any time grandmother can turn round - at which point the class have to freeze and grandmother has to catch someone moving - who then becomes grandmother, or who sits down for one go, but can stand up and carry on playing the go after that.

You don't want to be swapping grandmother over all the time or it'll get boring and be too slow.

[emile]

Maybe it's a bit expensive, but you could bring in a menagerie of stuffed animals for them to play with. That would get them involved.

Don't forget to teach them about meerkats, that's my favourite animal. ...and red pandas, too, they're really cool.
http://images.google.com.my/images?q...O-8859-1&hl=en
http://images.google.com.my/images?s...59-1&q=meerkat

[janette_in_china]

thanks a bunch for the ideas folks!