Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners

Box 84
Ant, person, elephant
Instructions
Put out your little finger. Little finger = ant
Put out your pointing finger. Pointing finger = person
Put out your thumb. Thumb = elephant
Play the game
Count One, two, three and everyone must quickly put out one finger.
Who is the winner?
An ant can climb into an elephant’s ear and bite it, so an ant is stronger than an
elephant.
An elephant can stand on a person and hurt him/her, so an elephant is
stronger than a person.
A person can stand on an ant and squash it, so a person is stronger than an ant.
© Cambridge University Press 2007
Follow-up
For other procedures, see Activities 2.9, 3.4, 4.15, 4.18, 5.8, 6.10, 6.13, 6.16.
4.13 Natural disasters
Level
***
Language focus
Vocabulary: geography and weather
Skills focus
Listening and speaking
Thinking focus
Sorting, matching and justifying
Teaching approach
Promote creativity – accept errors
Interaction
Group work, suitable for large classes
Preparation
Draw the diagram on the board. See Box 86.
Procedure
1 Briefly explain the meaning of each of the natural disasters given in the
diagram on the board. You may want to use the children’s first language
to do this. See Box 86.
2 Divide the class into small groups and ask each group to draw the
diagram from the board.
3 Next, ask the children to listen to the vocabulary as you read out each
word. See Box 85. Tell them you want them to sort the vocabulary
according to the natural disasters in the diagram. See Box 86.
Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners
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4 Allow the children time to discuss where they want to allocate each
vocabulary item. They write the vocabulary item next to the natural
disaster in the diagram.
5 When they have finished, ask each group to share their answers with the
class. There will obviously be some words that fit into a number of
categories, e.g. hot could apply equally to forest fire, volcano or drought.
Provided that the group can justify their choices, accept the answers.
Sample answers are in Box 87.