English Sensei Spirit: “From Head to Toe”

(Printouts are at the bottom of the post)

A while back, one of my elementary schools requested that I read some English picture books to my sixth graders.  So I ran to the nearest Junkudo (an hour away) and picked up the three most interesting (but still simple) I could find from their small selection.  I was surprised how well it went over, considering that this was one of my more difficult classes that didn’t really seem to have a lot of confidence or interest in English.  So I started always bringing the books with me as sort of ‘break glass in case of emergency’ tool.  They proved to be especially useful in my younger classes when I had extra time because other activities went shorter than expected.  The reception was even better than with my sixth graders – little kids love pictures books regardless of what language they’re in.  The books were probably even more exciting because they were in English.

It came time to teach animals to my first and second graders at the same elementary school.  One of the books I had happened to pick up was From Head to Toe by Eric Carl (a classic for many of you, I’m sure).  The book introduces twelve or so animals and gestures commonly associated to them in simple English.  So I thought to myself, “Hey, why not use this book as a jumping off point for the animal lesson?”  What was a spur of the moment idea turned into a three lesson mini unit that was really fun for the kids and got them to remember the names of the animals in the book really well.

The lessons go as follows (please note that each “lesson” was actually only about fifteen or twenty minutes out of the class period).

Lesson 1:

For the first lesson I read the book twice.  The first time the kids just listen.  The second time I have the kids do the gestures as written in the book after each page – cat arches its back, gorilla thumps its chest, etc. (be careful on the donkey page! I usually just have the kids do a small one foot kick, but some kids may actually try to stand on their hands and kick as pictured so make sure they don’t accidently hit anyone).  Each page ends with ‘I can do it! I can do it!’ which I try to have the kids repeat as they’re doing the gestures (though some kids will just say it on their own – super cute!).

After we finish with the book, I use flashcards and drill the kids on the animal names and gestures.  Since it’s all still new at the point they may need quite a bit of repetition, especially with the more unusual animals: buffalo, camel, crocodile, parrot (the parrot doesn’t actually have a gesture in the book so it’s your choice if you want to include him or not.  When I did, I used an arm flapping motion).  After enough drilling, we play a simple gesture game.  First I do the gestures and the kids have to guess what animal I am.  Then I call out an animal and the kids have to do the correct gesture.

Lesson 2:

In this lesson we review and consolidate what we did in the first.  I read the book for review, but only once, and I have students do the gestures as I read.  Afterwards we drill the animals again with flashcards and gestures.  They should be starting to get the hang of them now, but make sure to work on the ones they have trouble with.  We ran out of time this lesson due to other activities, so we finished with a quick round of the gesture game for practice.

Lesson 3:

This was the grand finale.  We drilled the animals with flashcards and gestures one more time, though this time I asked students, “What animal do you like?” because we had also been working on that as well (but with fruit).  By this time, the kids have all the animals and gestures down (the HRT and I were so proud of them!) so we played the Mysterious Animals game from Englipedia.  The kids have a secret animal card on their back and have to guess what it is by having another student perform the right gesture for them.  If they get it right they would come to me or the HRT, say the animal name, and then get a new card.  There are sets of cards on Englipedia, but since I used From Head to Toe, I made my own set using clip art I found on Google.  I laminated the cards (since the little ones have a habit of destroying things), punched a hole in each one, and then tied a string through it so I could easily put it over the kids heads.  The kids had a ton of fun!  The only problem was, the kids were so good at the animal names and gestures that the HRT and I had our hands full giving the kids new cards so they could keep playing!

Points to be careful of and resources:

• Some of the animals in the book are a little ‘unusual’ (I’m pretty sure Japan doesn’t have anything like a buffalo) so check with your HRT if it’s ok to just stick with the ones in the book.  I’ve never seen anything saying you should teach these animals and not those, but better safe than sorry!
• Many large bookstore chains such as Junkudo and Kinokuniya carry some English picture books, but they are a little expensive (From Head to Toe cost between 1100 and 1300 yen).  However, if you are OK with online shopping, Amazon Japan (amazon.co.jp) carries From Head to Toe for only about six hundred yen (wish I had known this)!  What’s also great about Amazon Japan is that domestic shipping is free, you can pay at your local conbini, and the site can be viewed in English!
• Detailed instructions for Mysterious Animals can be found on Englipedia here: http://epedia.sharepoint.com/Pages/ES_Game_MysteriousAnimals.aspx

Click below to download the word document…