Footprints Recruiting

Spring is in the air and with it teachers can clean out their closets and bring out some fresh ideas. Students are ever-curious at all ages and with the sun shining, trees in bloom and the general energy on the rise there is no better time to "spring" into action.

Young Learners

What is a garden?

This is a great opportunity for teachers to introduce new vocabulary, take students on a field trip and introduce "What is ..." questions.

Color Garden

Use colored construction paper and books with various pictures of flowers and ask children to name the flowers they know from the books. If you show roses, make sure you have roses of different colors so you can reinforce colors as well as identification.

Then get the students to make a paper flower garden on the bulletin board or the wall of the class. The goal is to include as many different colors of flowers as possible.

Garden Journal

This is a great way to reinforce adjectives - tall flowers and tasty peas. Cut thick poster paper into 2 equal pieces to make up the covers of the Garden Journal. Punch three holes into the pieces of poster paper and use a piece of string to make a book. Next, get the students to draw and cut out all kinds of things found in a garden and get them to write a description of each of the things they draw. Be sure to do this on extra paper before adding to the journal so you don't waste the poster paper.
 

Adolescents and Above

Spring is a great time to introduce poetry to your class. Alliteration and teaching syllables is a great way to work on your students pronunciation.

First, teach the structure. Ask the class if they know how to put a limerick together.

• How many lines?
• How many syllables per line?
• What is a syllable?
• What is the rhythm of the limerick like?
• What is the pattern of rhyming in the limerick?

Give them some examples. Work on the board to find words that rhyme:

make, shake, cake, bake, take, rake
fun, run, sun, gun,

You can make a game of this by dividing the class into teams and giving them a set time period to write words down on the board. Give them the ending and let them come up with the words that fit:

IE) __ine, __ate, __et, __ot, __oot

Once you have warmed the students up then move into reinforcing the structure of the limerick.

Then get the students to create limericks. Once you've checked them, you can take lines of the limerick mix them up and get the students to put them in order. You can do this with other limericks you find as an intro exercise when teaching the structure.

Limerick Structure:

First of all, the structure behind the limerick - It is a five line poem that consists of a triplet & a couplet. The 1st, 2nd & 5th lines rhyme, with 3 beats per line, while the 3rd & 4th lines rhyme, with two beats per line. The last line is usually the punch line.

Here are a few ways of using limericks. For reception, limericks are good for helping students to become aware of rhythm. As you read out the limerick get them to beat the stress by knocking on their desks or clapping their hands. They can then go on to read limericks out loud to each other.
 

Introducing Limericks

Asking students to produce limericks can be fun but challenging. You might want to start off by giving some limericks with gaps the missing vocab jumbled up. The students have to choose the most appropriate word to fit the limerick. For example:

Example 1
There once was a ______________ from __________________.
All the while s/he hoped _______________________.
So s/he _______________________________.
And _________________________________.
That ___________________ from ___________________.

Example 2
I once met a _________________ from ___________________.
Every day s/he ________________________________.
But whenever s/he ______________________.
The _________________________________.
That strange ___________________ from ______________.

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