EFL Teaching Recipes » crafts

Foldables

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:39:24 +0000

Foldables are a great way to make your lessons “active” and also more about fostering thinking skills.

They can be of all sorts. Just start with a piece (or pieces) of paper and get the students folding and labeling. Like HERE.

They can be as elaborate as Accordion Books or as simple as a 4 square graphic organizer. Go here for lots of great ideas and downloads of foldables. This site, has lots of photos showing you many examples.

Graphic organizers are another sort of foldable. Get many HERE on EFL Classroom 2.0 – but even better, get your students to “fold” them and then draw in the lines! There are a million ways to use them and they can be used for almost any type of lesson – Vocabulary / Stories / Grammar etc…

I’d also recommend TALKERS or Cootie Catchers. Also, Origami. Find out more about both HERE.

This post was submitted by david .

Real Recipes – Play Dough!

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:02:17 +0000

Arts and crafts are great for young learners. Get cooking and using these “real recipes” to create some clay and play dough for language learning.

Get the students to challenge each other by moulding something while the others guess what it is! Or, create combination things to practice compound words “dog chair” or a Bat plane” Enjoy these delicious “real recipes”!

Magic Clay

2 2/3 C. Water
1 C. cornstarch
1/2 C. cold water

Heat the 1st measure of water over low heat until bubbly. Remove from heat and stir in the cornstarch that you have dissolved in the 1/2/ C. cold water. Stir quickly. Mix with hands if needed. Mold into desired shapes. Dry for 36 hours and paint.

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Sand Sculpture

2 C. fine white sand
1 C cornstarch
1 C. water

Mix ingredients together in old saucepan over low heat stirring constantly until mixture thickens. Let mixture cool. Store in airtight container. Mold as wanted and let air dry 2-3 days. Paint as desired.

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Playdough

2 C. flour
1 C salt
4 tbs. creme of tartar
2 tbs. oil
2 C. water
2 pkgs. of unsweetened koolaid (for color and smell)
Cook above ingredients over medium heat mixing thoroughly and stirring constantly until dough pulls aways from the edge of the saucepan. Turn onto counter and knead warm dough until smooth. When cool, store in an airtight container.

This post was submitted by david.

Pop-Up Cars

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:41:56 +0000

Children, especially young boys, love cars!

Pop up cars are great for talking about colors and car vocabulary. Get the children coloring their cars and then cut them out, fold and show and tell to the whole class! They will love their cars!

Get the pop up cars on EFL Classroom 2.0 , here. The old pop up cars website seems to have disappeared! Here’s a direct link I found online to a van.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

Picture Dice

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:31:05 +0000

This is a wonderful idea. Just go to this site (or make your own) and print out great dice! Put your own pictures on the dice or have the students draw or use theirs.

Next, students use the picture dice to practice your target language. For example, if you have pictures of actions, and are practicing the past tense, students ask….

What did you do yesterday? They roll the die and then must answer. Point for a correct answer. Even use two dice to complicate things!

You can also use this site for just making regular dice or using letters so when students roll the dice they must make a sentence/word beginning with that letter… Coooooool!

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.