Time Trek: Mastering the Clocks

Grade level: Elementary School (3rd-4th grade)

Objective: By the end of this lesson, students will be able to tell time accurately using both analog and digital clocks.

Materials:

• Analog clock display
• Digital clock display
• Flashcards with various times (analog and digital)
• Whiteboard and markers
• Printed worksheets with clock faces for practice
• Classroom clock (optional)

Duration: 45 minutes

Lesson stages

Stage 1: Introduction (10 minutes)

• Begin with a brief discussion about why telling time is important in our daily lives.
• Show students an analog clock and a digital clock. Explain that they will learn how to read both types of clocks today.
• Display the analog clock and explain the parts: hour hand, minute hand, and clock face.

Stage 2: Learning to Read Analog Clocks (15 minutes)

• Use flashcards with various analog clock times (e.g., 3:15, 11:30) and ask students to identify the time.
• Explain the concept of the hour hand and the minute hand. The hour hand is shorter and points to the hour, while the longer minute hand points to the minutes.
• Practice reading analog clocks together as a class using flashcards and a classroom clock (if available).

Stage 3: Learning to Read Digital Clocks (10 minutes)

• Introduce digital clocks and explain that they display time using numbers.
• Show digital clock flashcards (e.g., 2:45, 8:20) and ask students to read the time.
• Compare the analog and digital representations of the same time to reinforce the connection between the two.

Stage 4: Guided Practice (5 minutes)

• Distribute printed worksheets with clock faces. Ask students to draw the hands on the analog clocks to represent specific times (e.g., 4:30, 10:15).
• Review and discuss their answers as a class.

Stage 5: Independent Practice (5 minutes)

• Hand out additional worksheets or provide a list of times for students to write in both analog and digital formats.

Stage 6: Conclusion (5 minutes)

• Review the key points of the lesson: understanding analog and digital clocks, identifying the hour and minute hands, and converting between analog and digital time representations.
• Encourage students to practice telling time at home and in their daily lives.

Homework (Optional):

• Assign a few practice problems or ask students to write down the time they see on the clocks they encounter at home.

Assessment:

• Evaluate students based on their ability to correctly read both analog and digital clocks and their completion of the practice worksheets.

Note: Adapt the lesson as needed to suit the specific needs and proficiency levels of your students. Use interactive activities and real clocks whenever possible to make the learning experience more engaging and practical.

Five Engaging Flashcard Games for ESL Learners

Flashcards are versatile and effective tools for language learning, and they can make language lessons more engaging and enjoyable for ESL learners. In this blog post, I'll share five creative flashcard games that will add an element of fun to your classroom while reinforcing vocabulary, grammar, and language skills. These games are suitable for learners of all ages and language proficiency levels.

1) Memory Match Madness

Objective: To reinforce vocabulary and improve memory retention.

Instructions:

a. Prepare a set of matching flashcards with vocabulary words on one side and corresponding images on the other side.

b. Shuffle the cards and place them face down on the table.

c. Students take turns flipping over two cards at a time, trying to find matching pairs of words and images.

d. If a student successfully matches a pair, they keep the cards and have another turn. If not, they flip the cards back face down, and it's the next player's turn.

e. The game continues until all pairs are matched.

f. The student with the most matched pairs at the end wins.

2) Race Against the Clock

Objective: To enhance vocabulary recall speed and accuracy.

Instructions:

a. Divide the class into small groups and give each group a set of flashcards.

b. Set a timer for a specific duration (e.g., 1-2 minutes).

c. Students must work as a team to go through their flashcards, one by one, as quickly as possible, calling out the correct word or definition for each card.

d. After the time is up, each group counts how many flashcards they correctly identified.

e. The group with the most correctly identified flashcards wins the round.

f. Repeat the game with different sets of flashcards to keep the excitement going.

3) Story Starters Showdown

Objective: To promote creativity in using vocabulary and sentence construction.

Instructions:

a. Prepare flashcards with various nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

b. Divide the class into teams.

c. Each team selects one card from each category (noun, verb, adjective, and adverb).

d. The teams then have a set time (e.g., 5 minutes) to create a unique and creative story using the selected words.

e. After the time is up, each team presents their story to the class.

f. Encourage other students to ask questions about the story to reinforce listening and speaking skills.

4) Flashcard Charades

Objective: To improve communication and non-verbal language skills.

Instructions:

a. Prepare a set of flashcards with actions or verbs (e.g., dance, swim, jump, eat, etc.).

b. Have one student pick a card without showing it to others.

c. The student must act out the action on the card without using any words.

d. The rest of the class tries to guess the action based on the student's gestures.

e. The student who correctly guesses the action gets the next turn to act out a flashcard.

5) Flashcard Pictionary

Objective: To develop drawing and guessing skills while reinforcing vocabulary.

Instructions:

a. Divide the class into two teams.

b. Each team takes turns sending one member to draw a word from a flashcard on the board or a large sheet of paper without speaking.

c. The team members must guess the word based on the drawing within a time limit (e.g., 1 minute).

d. If the team correctly guesses the word, they earn a point.

e. Rotate team members, and the game continues until all flashcards have been used.

f. The team with the most points at the end wins the game.

In short, flashcard games are an excellent way to engage ESL learners and make language learning more interactive and enjoyable. These five games incorporate competition, creativity, and collaboration, while also reinforcing vocabulary, grammar, and language skills. Incorporate these flashcard games into your lessons, and watch your students' enthusiasm for language learning soar!

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In this resource you will find 16 ESL vocabulary flashcards sets with the following topics:

Actions
Alphabet
Animals
Appliances
Body parts
Clothes & accessories
Family
Food & drinks
Furniture
Jobs & occupations
Musical instruments
Numbers
Places in town
Sports
Transportation
Weather

Lesson Idea: Kids' Choice Awards

Hello everyone, in this post you will find an idea for teaching superlatives.

This lesson is intended for children, but you can use it with higher levels as well, just make sure you change the title of it.

The class begins with the teacher writing on the board several positive adjectives of personality (hard-working, responsible, friendly, competitive, happy, etc.).

Then, the teacher divides the board into three columns, each column represents a 'rule' for the superlatives (-est, -iest, the most). If you want to include an extra one for the irregular adjectives, you can do it, but for this activity you will not need any irregular adjective.

As always, the teacher writes in the correct column one adjective, Then, he/she asks the class to complete the rest of them. Hopefully with enough examples they will be able to figure the rules out. If not, explain hem directly.

After this, you can have them writing their own examples with their family members. This is done for personalizing the new information. Have them sharing their examples in pairs, and then ask them to share them with the whole class.

To conclude the lesson, the teacher writes on the board one positive adjective of personality per student and asks the class to vote for one of their peers on each category. They cannot repeat the name of their classmates, so everyone wins a category. You can make it better by printing trophies templates and give them to your students. They will enjoy it so much.

As I say, you can modify the lesson and adapt it to your needs. Have fun.

Lesson Idea: Biographies

Hello bloggers, today I will share with you a lesson idea for teaching the Past Simple.

This lesson is intended for intermediate learners with a general knowledge of English.

Before the lesson starts, it would be a good idea to present and define some words that students may struggle with.

Then, ask them if they know something about the following people: Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, and Princess Diana. It is important at this stage to accept every single answer. If a student is getting it correct, encourage him/her to keep going. In case they do not know anything, give them a grasp of each one of them.

After that, display the following file on the board.

Biographies

Publish at Calameo or read more publications.

You can read the first biography and then ask them to help you reading the next ones. After each biography is read, select two or three students to go to the board and underline the verbs in the simple past tense. In this point, if you want to make sure they are doing a good job, ask them what is the base form of the underlined verbs. In this way, they will be making connections between the simple present and simple past forms of the verbs.

When the fourth biography is read, ask them to talk about their favorite one and their reasons why they liked this person. After students have participated, show them the questions at the end of the presentation. They can work individually or in pairs. After 2 minutes, choose some students to answer the 8 questions.

As a follow up activity, you can ask them to write a biography they know very well, or ask them to imagine they are dead (if the environment of the class allows it and there is a strong rapport between you and the class) and write their own detailed biography. Once they have finished it, ask them to share it with their classmates as an oral presentation.

I hope you can find this useful, and as always, try to adapt it to your needs.

Lesson Idea: Life Manifesto

Hello bloggers, today I will share with you a way of introducing the topic of Imperatives.

For this lesson, you will need either a computer and a projector, or copies of the following posters.

In these posters, you will find plenty of examples of imperatives. As you may notice, this lesson is not for beginners because of the vocabulary used.

You can divide the class into two teams and having them analyzing the content of each poster. After that, you can ask them to read each command aloud and have a short discussion about it.

Once all of them are read, you can give them some time to brainstorm about their own life rules.

Since imperatives can be used in many ways, this is only the introduction of them to the class. After this, you can adapt the following activities according to your theme.

Lesson Idea: Complaint Box

Hello visitors, today you will find an idea for teaching 'Much & Many' with the adverb of degree 'too'.

First, you have to make a complaint box (a small one) and cut out some paper cards. You have to give these cards to your students. Then, you tell them that they have to complain about something that bothers them. As always, you have to model what they have to do, for instance, you can write in the paper I don't like eating in ______ restaurant because there are too many people all the time.

After your example, they can brainstorm about what they do not like. Give them time to think and then ask them to put their complaints in the box. When everyone has done it, you take the papers out and read them aloud. They have to guess who is the person who is complaining. While reading the papers, check if they are using correctly 'much and many'.

Next, you explain how to use them by writing some examples on the board. They will notice if they had done it right or wrong without being exposed to it.

To conclude with the lesson, you can ask them to create a role-play where they are complaining about something. Let them write the script and choose the characters, however, be there to guide them and to clarify their doubts.

I hope you can find this useful, and as always, you can adapt it to your needs.

Lesson Idea: Guinness World Records

Hi everyone, in this post you will find an idea for teaching 'Superlatives'.

This lesson is for lower-intermediate learners. Of course, this lesson is taught after teaching comparatives.

To begin with the lesson, you can show the following video in order to let them know what the Guinness Records are.



Guinness World Records LIVE - Augmented Reality. Garden State Plaza, NJ USA from Appshaker Ltd on Vimeo.

As you can see in the video, it only includes a few adjectives, however, this is just the beginning of the lesson.

Right after the video, you can ask them if they know any GWR. If so, let them explain in their own words what it is about.

After that, explain them the structure for using superlatives and check for understanding.

In the following activity you can write on the board sentences with missing superlatives, so they can answer them by using the correct form of the adjectives.

To conclude with the lesson, you can have a trivia about world records. This is a very attractive activity for them; if you have fake money they will love it.

I hope you can find it useful for your classes.

Lesson Idea: Dream House

Hello visitors, in this post you will find an idea for teaching 'there is / there are' as well as the rooms of a house.

Firstly, you will have to show the following video from the TV show MTV Cribs, where people show and describe their awesome houses.



After that you will elicit the grammar structure there is / there are and the vocabulary you want to present by pausing the video in order to show such vocabulary. At this stage, is very important to use the negative forms and the interrogative forms as well. If necessary, write on the board some examples of them.

After that, by using cardboards, ask them to draw their dream house. In this process you can help them to get ideas, although some of them will have a very clear idea of what they want. Let them know that they have to use the grammar point taught and the target vocabulary.

In the end, have them presenting their job in front of the class. Pay close attention to how they use there is / there are or the rooms of the house in order to give effective feedback.

Lesson Idea: Global Warming

Hello bloggers, today I want to share with you an idea for teaching 'Should and Shouldn't'. This is a very trendy issue in our days, global warming. Besides teaching an English lesson, we will be teaching a bit about ecology as well.

The aim of the class is that by the end of it, students will be able to use 'should and shouldn't' for giving advice, and also, they will learn how to 'save' the world.

The lesson starts by presenting the following video.





After that, the teacher writes on the top of the board: 'to stop global warming we...' and divides it into two. The two columns will be 'should' and 'shouldn't'. As always, the teacher writes at least one example in each column. For instance we should plant trees and we shouldn't waste water.

After that, the teachers asks the students to go to the board and write an advice. The class goes on until everyone has written an advice and the board is filled with them.

To conclude with the lesson, you can divide the class into teams of two or three students, give them a cardboard and an advice, and ask them to illustrate it. In the end, you can post their work on the walls of the school and spread the message.

Lesson Idea: Facebook

Hello everyone, in this post you will find a way of teaching 'Likes and Dislikes' by using Facebook's most famous feature. It is really easy to get started with the topic because Facebook is the most popular social network of the world, so your students will be familiarized with it.

For the lesson you will need to print the 'like' and 'dislike' hands, so students can use them for the main activity. Also, you will need to write on strips of paper what you want to ask them if they like it or not.

The lesson starts by dividing the board into two; likes and dislikes. The teacher writes two examples on each section. For instance, I like pizza and I don't like vegetables.

After that, the teacher starts asking students Do you like [what the paper says]? The students should not answer the question orally, they have to show either the 'like' hand or the dislike' hand. When they do so, another student has to answer by saying He / She likes soccer or He / She doesn't like basketball.

In case of someone making a mistake, try to provide feedback in a way that he / she does not get exposed to it, by asking the whole class for the correct answer.

The lesson continues until everybody has participated and the board contains enough examples for them to understand how to talk about likes and dislikes.

Lesson Idea: When I Was Young

Hey everyone, I hope you are having a wonderful time. In this post I will share with you a lesson idea for teaching 'Could & Couldn't' (for abilities in the past). Well, I came across with this video by Aniboom and I thought it would be useful for using it as a warmer of the lesson.

This is the video.



After the video, you can elicit the grammar point by saying 'when he was young, he could fish with his father'. If you see that someone got the example, ask him/her for another.

The following activity that you can do, is that you can ask them to create a collective diary of the activities that the old man could or couldn't do. Make sure that all the class is using correctly the grammar structure. If you have a name for the man would be a good idea.

Well, this is it, I hope you can apply it in your classes or adapt it to your needs.

Lesson Idea: Quotes

Hello bloggers, I hope you are doing great. Today, I will share with you a way of teaching the second conditional.

The topic is about 'quotes'. As its name suggests, the presentation contains quotes that have the structure of the grammar point. Also, it has a matching exercise, so students will be thinking about how second conditional works. In the end, there is the direct explanation for clarifying any doubts at this point.

Here is the presentation. I hope you will find it useful.

Quotes from JoelRiveraMora

Lesson Idea: Super Powers

Hello everyone! In this post you will find an inductive idea for teaching 'Can / Can't' (for abilities).

The topic is 'Super Powers',  in the presentation I chose 5 different superheroes and their abilities as well as their weaknesses.

A way to start the class is by asking them about who is their favorite superhero. After that, we can start eliciting their skills.

It is not necessary to ask each student, however, if the whole class wants to participate, let them do it.Next, show them the presentation and stress can and can't. If you want, you can add other skills to them or name another superhero.

Finally, there are two questions for them, which they have to answer by using this grammar point. If you notice that they are having problems, you can explain it in a direct way by using common examples.

As an extra, you can personalize learning by asking them to project themselves as superheroes. Thus, they will use the grammar structure and they will be able to recall it later.

Super powers from JoelRiveraMora