Lesson Topic

How Animals Hide

Grade/Proficiency Level

Grades 1-2 advanced beginner to intermediate ESL; Grades 2-6 advanced beginning ESL

Content Concepts/Skills

How animals hide; observation; cooperation; spatial relationships

Materials

PDF our files Frog pattern; frog log page

Vocabulary

On, in, under, next to, behind, between, over, camouflage.

Instructional Sequence

• Photocopy 10 frogs (or one for each student in your ESL group) Use PDF files Frog Pattern. and Find the Frog Log. You can also have your students color and find butterflies, depending on your unit of study. Download Butterfly Pattern if you want to have students find butterflies.
• Ask students to look around the room and color a frog the same color as something in the room. Encourage students to color their frogs creatively. You want to end up with all different colors. Ask them to cut out the frogs they have colored.
• Before students come into class the next day, hide 6 -10 animals in places they can see without moving other objects. Animals can be out of reach but not out of sight.
• Review prepositions such as “on, in, under, behind, between, next to." Divide students into pairs. Pass out one log sheet per pair and explain the rules to students.
• Students must search quietly and not give away their answers to the other groups.
• Only one students per team may be out of their seats at any one time. At any given time one student searches and other takes notes.
• The searchers should go around the classroom looking for a camouflaged frog. When he/she finds one, it should not be touched. The searcher should then return to his/her partner and quietly explain the location of the animal.
• Together partners fill in the blanks on their log sheet describing the frog’ s location, and the notetaker writes it on the answer sheet. This description should include the color of the frog and the exact location. Example: The blue frog is in the flowers near the window.
• The notetaker then becomes the searcher, and the searcher becomes a notetaker. The roles should always be rotating, students taking turns, searching, writing, and correcting (equal participation).
• Have students review their logs. They should be able to tell where they found each frog.

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