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Writer's pictureEwa Górna

There are a couple of activities to teach "there is/there are" 😉

Updated: May 3, 2019



The next few weeks with grade 5 will be devoted to practising "there is/there are" sentences. We'll be also studying vocabulary connected with rooms in the house and various parts of houses in general. As you know I like to create a couple of different materials for my kids to work with independently and this post is a sum up of all the materials I have prepared for "there is/are" up to this point 😊


Practising vocabulary

Spell check

As always, my kids will be practising spelling of the new vocabulary items using spell-checks. Spell-check is a list of words designed in a way that lets students practise and check their own spelling. They simply fold the page to see only the L1 vocabulary and write the the L2 equivalents next to it. Later, they unfold the page and compare their spelling with the correct one and fix any mistakes they've made. For this spell-check I've used vocabulary from unit 2 of Brainy 5. Feel free to use it with your students.

If you'd like to read more about spell-checks read this post.

Kaboom!

This game is also always available for my students. They get to practise the pronunciation of all the words in a fun and engaging way. My Kaboom sticks have pronunciation of words recorded onto them. If you'd like to know how that's even possible read this post. Also read it if you have no idea what "Kaboom" is 😅


This time round I have also created an extra set of Kaboom for those of my students who already know all the basic vocabulary from this unit and would like to study something more challenging. I based in on a picture dictionary we have in our classroom which I love and highly recommend: Longman Picture Dictionary by Julie Ashworth and John Clark.


I used both "Homes" units from this dictionary to create my Kaboom set. To make it more challenging I have also put loads of "Kaboom!!!" sticks in it 😅

Quizlet

I created a Quizlet set as well for the vocabulary from Brainy 5 Unit 2. My kids started working with Quizlet last month and they absolutely love it 😍

Practising Grammar

Scrambled Sentences

My pride and grammatical joy 😝 Scrambled Sentences sets let students practise sentence formation of various grammar structures. The sets are available in my shop. The "there is/are" set is composed of 8 sets, 8 sentences each. This is how it works:


Short Answer Velcro Cards

You know I love these if you read my blog. Short Answer cards help practise ... short answers 😅 I noticed that creating short answers is something a lot of students struggle with, for some reason. So each time I introduce something grammatically new to them I create a set of cards to go with it.

There is/are cards

I have created these a couple of years ago together with my friend Barney Potts. Barney creates beautiful pictures so I asked him to draw some for me. This is how my beloved cards are born. Just look at them 😍 Aren't they beautiful?!


What you can see above are the answer cards. On the other side of those there are no sentences, just pictures. Students have to assemble the sentences using phrases. Originally I made those cards with velcro dots. This time round, to spice things up 😝 I used magnets 😃

You can read more about the cards in the original post about them here.

Projects

You can read all about my love for projects and what I understand as "project" here. I do not have as many ideas for you as I did last time (check them out here) but I do have some 🙂

Project 1: Design your dream house

In this project my kids will have to create an illustration of their dream house. It can be as crazy as they wish it to be as long as they're able to describe it using "there is/are" sentences. We will make a classroom display of those.

Project 2: Say hello to Vocaroo

I am going to teach my students how to use Vocaroo. If you don't know what it is: Vocaroo is a website which lets you record what you're saying and then save it. You can save it in various formats. My students will be given a choice of 4 pictures (from the picture dictionary I told you about). They will pick one and describe it using 'there is/are' and prepositions of place. . They will record their description using Vocaroo and save it as a QR code. We are going to make another display with all the descriptions.

Project 3: The next letter

If you've read my previous post you know that this year we'll be exchanging letters with a school in England. We already wrote our first letters. This month we are going to write one describing our houses and our rooms.

So ... there you are! A whole bunch of ideas on how to teach "there is/are" structures and some lovely materials for you to help your kids study new vocabulary. I hope you'll find any of it useful 🙂 Let me know if you do, nothing makes me happier than seeing my ideas and materials being used.

Have fun creating,

Ewa :)

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