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

The first day of class is always crucial to set the tone to what kind of teacher you are and how you hope the semester will unfold. I remember the butterflies which frantically flew around my stomach on the many first days of school I had as a child. This year with the many different kinds of classes, online, in class or even hybrid (some students online while others are in our classroom), students might be even more anxious than ever. Here are some ideas and suggestions to make your students feel welcome and to immediately get to know your students better. Remember the ideas have to be adapted to fit your age group. If you live in a country where you are already in the classroom with all your students, tape a slip of paper under their desk or chair with a personal message for them. It can be something like: John, I'm so happy your are my student this year/semester or Alice, I can't wait to learn what your favorite pet/color/cartoon is. They really get excited when you tell th

 In Brazil, the new school year starts in February, so once again we're about to have the first day of class. One thing that has helped me a lot teaching online is having these different mouths I can use at the beginning of the class as I ask students or they ask each other how they are. I have a happy, sad, excited or wonderful, and hungry mouth. I've showed these cardboard props here on the blog before. We made them when we were learning about different parts of our face: eyes, nose and mouth but I was able to use them the whole year to start the class. They also come in handy if you have to wear a mask and students can't see your mouth. I keep them right next to my computer along with my pens and pencils. If there's one thing I will for sure use again this year, it's these cute funny mouth props.

Here's another idea to practice talking about the weather. I used a strip of a thin cardboard from a cake box I had. I stapled the strip to make a circle and cut 2 slits on the sides so I could insert different clouds: cloudy, snowy, rainy. I glued a blue paper circle on the back and drew the house and the full moon on the same thin cardboard and glued them onto the blue background. I also glued a string to the back to be able to hang the craft somewhere. I used creative paper for the clouds. Since I made this last year, I ended up hanging it on my Christmas tree. So, the idea is to insert or better have your students insert the different clouds and ask each other: How's the weather? You can also let them be creative and instead of a house, they can draw something else, like a tree or a pet. Enjoy! 😊

My first grade bilingual class made this 3D cactus to practice answering how's the weather . The city we live in is known for its hot and dry days so the craft was very appropriate. Since they had been online for more than a semester, it was pretty easy for them to follow all the steps from the slides.  I made the vase from an oatmeal box. A cereal box works perfectly too. You need 3 circles for each part of the cactus so the students need 9 circles total. Everything except the vase was made on creative paper, then cut out and glued onto the orange paper which I thought gave the idea that it was a hot day but it's okay if the don't have orange paper. They can use another color as the base paper or color a white sheet. We all loved the final product. 😍        

Who doesn’t like ice cream?!?! Teachers can use this easy-to-make pack to practice colors and numbers.  It can be used for fast finishers or each student can make their own.  I used an oatmeal box to make the cone, pieces of cardboard to write the numbers and creative paper to make the ice cream scoops and the bag to keep everything in. The students can pick a popsicle stick with a sequence of colors for them to copy with the colors of the ice cream. They then can be asked which color comes first, second and so on. Teachers can add plain popsicle sticks for students to color their own sequences for other students to order on the ice cream cone.  I made the paper bag using the handles of a shopping bag I had which I tore off and glued onto the inside of the pocket.  This little pack will let students work on their own, in pairs or small groups to maybe even time how fast they can copy the sequence from the popsicle stick onto the ice cream cone. You can also have students be creative by