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TeachingEnglish Young Learners Activity Book
Activities
Activity 13: Fly the airplane, pilot!
Juliana Cavalieri Gonçales – Brazil
Age: 5–10
10–20 minutes Large classes? Yes Mixed level? Yes
Materials: A piece of paper for each child.
Organisation: Whole class.
Aim: To revise language from previous lessons.
Description: The children make paper airplanes. They then answer
questions and if they get the right answers, they have the opportunity
to throw their planes at ‘targets’ in the room to score points for their team.
Preparation: You will need to prepare a set of questions based on work you have been doing
with the children. This might be some vocabulary, a story, some grammar.
Procedure
1. Give each child a piece of paper and then show them how to fold a paper airplane.
Be prepared to help children who struggle.
2. Let the children play for a short time with their airplanes.
3. Divide the children into teams.
4. Now decide with the children which parts of the classroom are going to be ‘targets’. Assign a
number to each target. Easy targets will have a low number, for example the table could be worth
5 points. Difficult targets will have a high number, for example the trash can might be worth 20
points. The most difficult target should be worth a good lot, for example, 50 points for the clock.
5. The children stand in lines in their teams at the front of the class with their airplanes. Ask the first
question to the front row of children. The first child to raise their hand has to answer. If the answer
is right, they get the chance to throw the airplane at a target of choice. If the airplane hits the
target, the child gets the points. If the answer is wrong, another child can try to answer. All the first
row must then go to the back of their lines so the next set of children can have a turn.
6. The team that scores the most points is the winner!
Notes
Once the airplanes have been made, they can be kept for the next time.
You can have any number of teams, depending on the number of children in the class and the
space you have.
In a mixed ability class, try to make sure that children of similar ability are in the same row so that
you can adapt the question to the children.
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© British Council 2012