CLIL lesson: Natural sciences - Animals

Below is a great lesson that you can use to teach natural sciences.

Level: Elementary -  Pre-intermediate

Age: 9 - 12
Materials: Kids encyclopedias of animals, fact file template, paper, crayons, pencils, Koalas gapfill, words, blindfolds, pictures, soft ball
Pre-class: Put books in each corner of the classroom. Cut the words for the reading like  a grass skirt.

In class

1) Put students into teams and get them to choose team names. Each team gets a castle when they win they choose whether to build their castle or destroy another.

2) Warmer: Blindfolded pictionary with animals - Bring one person up from each team and get each of the participants to draw an animal. When finished change participant.

3) Lead in: Make a circle - A soft ball is passed around and questions about animals are asked e.g what is your favorite animal? what animal are you scared of?... To make this extra fun you can put a bomb timer on.

4) Vocabulary: Meaning - Give students a list of words in the reading: Show pictures for 3 seconds for each word. Students then check with a partner.
Pronunciation - Drill the vocabulary.
Form - Take the words away and do a board race, teams are given a word and have to write it letter by letter.

5) Reading for gist - Students have 30 seconds to read and find out what country koalas live in. pass the ball to the student who knows and get them to answer.

6) Reading for specific information -  Students read and complete the factfile on koalas. Use the softball for answers asking on student for one answer.

7) Project skills research: Corners - In each corner put some facts about one animal. Choose tropical animals like tigers, elephants, monkeys etc. Students are given a blank piece of paper and told to work in pairs to choose an animal, find the information, and make a poster. Students will either be a runner or a writer but should find 1 fact and change runner.

8) Project skills presenting- Students have to present the poster and the information they have found to the class.

9) Extra craft activity: Make animal masks - If you have any extra time you can make animal masks.

Below is a link to the reading and fact file activity.

Koalas