All You Need is Paper (and a little love) ESL/EFL activities

 Studying about food always makes me hungry! We've been talking about picnics and what people in Brazil usually take to one. My first-graders painted a white sheet of paper to look like a picnic towel then they made ants by dipping their fingers in black paint and stamping another white sheet. They then drew the legs and antennae. When eveything was dry, they cut the ants out and pasted them onto the picnic towel. Last, they made playdoh food and presented their picnics to the class.

 This was pretty easy for my first-grade students to make. They drew and colored their seahorses on white paper, following a step by step image. I made a loop with a strip of blue paper and glued it onto the blue paper base. Then they cut out their seahorses and glued them onto the loops so the seahorses looked like they were floating in front of the paper. Some kids also added some seaweed to their oceans. What I enjoy the most about what my students make is being able to use their creations to teach and review structures and vocabulary. And, the best part is that students pay more attention then if I just used random images from the internet. Look at all the questions I was able to ask them with this craft: How many seahorses are there? Where do seahorses live? What color is your seahorse? Which seahorse is bigger/smaller/the biggest? These questions can be also asked using the craft during a game of hot potato or even during a game of hide and seek and whoever finds the craft fi...

We're still under the sea and this time with hammerhead sharks! After watching a video about sharks, my first-graders were able to choose which one they wanted to make and surprisingly, they all chose the hammerhead. We used light and dark blue paper for the ocean and the head, and then purple paper for the mouth. The kids just drew everything with a pencil, cut them out and glued them all together. They also drew triangles on white paper, cut them out, and glued them onto the mouth and we were then able to practice answering how many teeth are there. I made sure they gave me complete answers: there are (ten) teeth. The eyes were pretty easy because they just glued googly eyes to the head. The sharks look friendly, don't they?  

So, we made turtles out of egg cartons. Took us 3 classes because we, by we I mean me and my first graders, had to wait for the green paint to try before drawing the details on the shell with black markers. I glued the legs and heads on with a hot glue stick just because it was faster but it can be done with liquid glue just as well. The last class the kids made their "sea" so their turtles could be under the sea like they were supposed to be. I gave them some blue strips of paper to glue on their blue paper base and then they added the sequins. We are studying sea animals and still working on the prepositions in, on, and under, and this fit perfectly. Of course, I played the song Under the Sea for them to try to sing and mostly to look for the turtle in the music video.  

My first-graders are studying the letter F as in fox and forest. It took us 3 classes to get this whole craft done because we had to wait for the paint to dry but it was definitely worth it. I cut the heads and ears from egg cartons and had them paint only the white the first class. The following class they painted the orange part of the head including the ears. Then, finally, the third class, they added the details with a black marker and we used a hot glue gun to glue everthing onto this little black paper frame I already had. I pre-cut the leaves, they added the details and then used regulat white liquid glue to paste them around the fox. Last, on a small white paper they wrote: fox in the forest, and glued it onto the back of the black paper. They were all excited to take their work home to show their families. 🦊🌳  

 My first-graders are studying what objects we can find in different parts of the house and of course, there are chairs. We watched a short video about Van Gogh's bedroom painting which they were flabbergasted to find out had sold at 117 million dollars. Then, we got busy making our own chairs (I made one too). I used a pencil to limit where they were supposed to draw their chair and they could add anything else they wanted to their bedrooms. When they were done, I cut the paper and glued their work onto another paper so it would stand up more firmly. I love to be able to use the kids' work to review vocabulary and that's what we did the following class with their chairs.