Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners

4.17 Earthquakes and floods
Level
***
Language focus
Personal recount, simple past and past continuous tenses,
time-sequencing signals
Skills focus
Reading for main idea
Thinking focus
Analysing, sequencing
Teaching approach
Promote accuracy – correct errors
Interaction
Group work, suitable for large classes
Preparation
Either photocopy the sentences from Box 91, or write them
on an overhead transparency. If you have time, you could cut
the text into the sentence strips.
Note: This subject may need to be treated with sensitivity.
The world around us
97

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Procedure
1 Write the words Earthquake and Flood on the board and check that the
children know the meaning of these words.
2 Divide the class into small groups and tell the children that you want
them to read some information about earthquakes and floods. The
information is in the form of a personal recount. The problem is that the
sentences have been mixed up. It is their task to sort the sentences into
two groups: earthquakes and floods.
3 Encourage the children to talk about their choices when deciding where
each sentence belongs. They do not have to rewrite the sentences – just
sort them into two groups.