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TeachingEnglish Young Learners Activity Book
Activities
Activity 11: Plants and seeds
Erica Cimarosti – Italy
Age: 9+
2 lessons Large classes? Yes Mixed level? Yes
Materials: Coloured paper (A4).
Organisation: Individual, whole class.
Aim: To learn science through English, to practise listening,
speaking and writing.
Description: The children choose a seed and/or plant to describe
and write notes and information about it in a leaflet.
Preparation: The teacher does not need to prepare anything for
this activity as the children bring things from home. However, you
might prefer to prepare an example of a leaflet to show the children.
Procedure
1. In the first lesson, ask the children what they have learnt about seeds and plants in science.
Allow them to use the L1 if necessary, repeating what they say in English. Ask them to
choose a plant they have studied in their science lessons for their English project.
2. For homework, ask the children to find out as much information as they can about their plant
and to cut out pictures of it, or bring in sample of seeds and plants. Make sure none of the
plants is toxic!
3. In the second lesson, give each child a sheet of coloured paper and ask them to fold it
in half, top to bottom. Make sure the children then turn the paper so that it opens like a
book with 4 pages.
4. Make sure the children leave the first page blank. On the second page, tell them to write
the name of the plant at the top and stick a picture of the plant or seed (or their sample).
They should then write the main information about the plant: popular name, scientific name,
colour, size, preferred soil, propagation.
5. On the third page, tell them to write a description of the plant by answering the following
questions: Where does it come from? Where does it grow? What is it useful for? What other
interesting things do you know about this plant?
6. Encourage the children to decorate their leaflet, but make sure the first and last pages
are left blank.
7. Join all the leaflets together by gluing the back page of one leaflet to the front page
of the next leaflet to make a class accordion book.
Notes
This activity works particularly well if you can decide the topic with the subject teacher.
Erica agreed this with her learners’ science teacher as the children had studied seeds and
plants in science and also worked in the school garden.
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© British Council 2012