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

My 5-year-olds are studying nature and the animals we can see in a forest. We made these owls out of cardboard, some leftover paper, and plastic bottle tops. We added a little stick for the owls to perch on. They could also finger paint some parts of the owl if they wanted to. We glued them onto black paper so it would look like it was nighttime.  When they were completely dry, we hid them around the room for students to find. We would help the kids by telling them if they were hot or cold. When they finally found their owl, we asked, what is it, and they had to say, it's an owl. I thought they all came out amazing!  

My third-graders are still on the topic of how animals grow and change. After listening to a chant about changes in animals as they grow, we made these 3D spiders. Before they glued the spider legs to the yellow paper, they drew a spider web and wrote the sentence: spiders grow and change. The following class they made little playdough spider eggs and glued them to the web. We'll be using these spiders on the last day of class when parents come to our open house to see what their kids have been doing.  Just look at all the happy spider faces protecting their eggs! 💗  

We've come to the end of our unit on animals and what they need to survive. One of the last texts was about how porcupines and sea urchins use spikes to protect themselves. I didn't want to use the usual toothpicks to make an animal so, of course, I decided to use paper.  I first explored the images of the animals with the students and discussed why spikes can be important to some animals. They then wrote a sentence about it and glued their sentence onto a black piece of paper. Next, we rolled up different-sized paper squares and rectangles to make the spikes and cut 2 or 3 slits on the sides to glue them to the black paper. Last, we glued the black paper to a yellow sheet and cut the sides to look like spikes. I loved how the final product looks like some modern art project. 😍  

 We made a game! Remember the standing paper I've used before? Well, we used it to make a habitat game. We first made four habitats using different colored paper, crayons, markers and sequins. We drew some of the details on white paper, like the trees for the forest and the cactus for the desert and glued them onto their habitats. We glued all the habitats together with a paper handle added to the middle. I wrote the names of the animals on paper circles and glued them onto bottle tops. Each student wrote on a white sheet of paper which animals lived in each habitat, for example, in the desert, there are snakes, lizards and spiders , and glued the paper on the bottom of all the habitats. Students then played the game. They had to mix the animal names up, and we timed how fast they could place them in the correct habitat. They were excited to see how fast they could do it. It was a fun way for them to not only practice thinking and discussing each habitat but to also practice readin...

 Still on the topic of camouflage and hiding in habitats, students used paint to create a colorful and then brownish background for their bugs and small animals to hide in. We first placed different colors of paint on a cardboard paper, spread the paint out with popsicle sticks (I think that was the best part), waited for the paint to dry, and then drew the animals with a black pencil. We glued some green paper to resemble the forest floor at the bottom. When they were done, they wrote about which animals they added to their forest. I wanted them to practice the plural there are , so they drew 2 of each animal. They glued their text to the back onto a paper handle, so they could easily take their work home and hang it up somewhere. We all loved the final result, and it was one more way for them to creatively practice the content and vocabulary from the story we read in class.

Our studies of what animals need and do to survive continue. This time, we wrote about owls. I introduced a story we are going to read called Twilight Hunt. It talks about different owls hunting at night to feed themselves and their babies.  We made our owls with paper, some gold sequins, and coffee pods for the eyes. My family got a coffee machine recently, and I have been waiting for a chance to recycle and/or reuse those plastic pods! The kids loved the idea. They said the activity smelled good. 😁🦉 Have you ever used these pods for a craft? Let me know!  

 Had my bilingual group rip paper to create stems for flowers, a sun and part of a tree. They were doubtful but it worked. They used scissors for the flowers which they cut from paper circles into spirals and then rolled the paper up around a pencil to get a flower effect. They had first written about what butterflies need to survive on a white sheet of paper and glued it to the back of the black paper. I asked them to highlight the important wordds from the texts. Today they will read their texts to the class and present their butterfly houses. Here are some examples of their work. The text is mine, I forgot to take pictures of their texts.😬

  We are finally all back in the classroom, still wearing masks and maintaining our distance, but back. It was easier for my third-grade kids to use the "standing paper corner" idea to create a 3D Easter card. They enjoyed themselves and were so happy to take their cards home to decorate their homes. I also made a little paper bunny pocket with some chocolate for each student which they were very excited about. Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

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 group has been studying seasons. We made this 3D paper tree to reinforce spring vocabulary. Even though we are still having online classes, it was pretty easy for them to follow along. I used a peice of cardboard I had as the base for the tree. I also used half of a tea box so I could stand my tree up. My students didn't have the same colors of paper I had but all the trees cames out great.