Learning Objectives

1. Develop students’ listening skills through model reading and asking simple questions based on it.
2. Develop their speaking skills by narrating a story in their own words, taking part in group activities and role play.
3. Develop learners’ writing skills through simple guided activities.
4. Develop learners’ reading skills and their vocabulary.

Major Concepts

To know about plants and vegetables; importance of plants and vegetables in our lives

Learning Resources

Story chart, activity sheets, flash cards and finger puppets, vegetables like turnips, carrots, onions etc. and text book.

ENGAGE

Activity 1: Identifying vegetables

The teacher asks each student to bring a vegetable that is easily available in their homes. Students could be intimated the previous day itself. The teacher can bring some vegetables that aren’t so easily available - vegetables that students may not have seen like turnip, capsicum, beans and spring onions. In class, they can discuss the size, colour, shape and taste of the vegetables. If multiple students bring the same vegetable, it can be used to introduce the concept of singular and plural.

Assessment: Prior knowledge, readiness to participate and speaking skills are assessed by the teacher. (Note: Initially, the students may not be able to say the names of the vegetables in English. In that case, they can do it in their mother tongue.)

Activity 2 – Discussion on vegetables

The teacher poses some questions related to vegetables’.

1. What is your favourite vegetable?
2. Name the vegetables that your mother often cooks.
3. Have you eaten raw vegetables? Which vegetables have you eaten raw?
4. Have you seen a Turnip?

Students recall their prior knowledge about vegetables and orally answer the questions asked by the teacher.

EXPLORE

Activity 1 – Unity is strength

The teacher brings a set of small sticks and asks one of the students to break it. When the student finds it difficult to do it alone, he may ask the other students to help him break it. Now the students will be able to break the sticks easily. The teacher then explains the theme of the story - Unity is strength. An alternative to using sticks would be to use newspapers for this activity.

Activity 2 – Visualizing the story

The teacher asks the students to look at the pictures given in the text book and visualise the story with the help of the colourful pictures in the book.

Assessment: The teacher assesses the students' speaking skill, cognitive thinking, and group participation.

EXPLAIN

Activity 1 – Model reading

The teacher reads the story with correct pause, stress and intonation. The students are asked to repeat along with the teacher. Students may also be given chance to read in random order. New words like turnip, enormous, etc. can be written on the board and students can write them down to learn the spellings.

Assessment: The teacher assesses the reading, listening and writing skills of the students.

Activity 2 – Story poster

The teacher gives a picture chart or poster of the story to the students. The teacher also gives sheets containing the dialogues. Teacher asks students to paste the respective dialogues in the picture chart or poster.

Assessment: The teacher assesses the students through their participation in the activity and ability to identify the dialogues and paste them in proper sequence.

Activity 3 – Role Play

Teacher can involve the students in a role play with different vegetables like carrot, potato, turnip, tomato, drum stick as characters. The script can be a dialogue between the vegetables where each describes their appearance and the qualities they possess. It could also include the last time it visited the school for mid-day meal. The script can be made humorous and entertaining for the audience so that even students are excited about performing the play. Teacher can support the students in their dialogue delivery. Chart papers can be used to draw and design the mask of vegetables to use it in the play. The setting can be that of a market place, school, farm or even a dish.

The teacher can also encourage students to first write their own dialogues in Tamil and support them in translating it into English. To make it more contextually relevant, the script can include the nutritional value of every vegetable.

Dramatize the story by using masks and perform it in the class as well as in the morning assembly for other students.

Assessment: The teacher assess the students’ speaking skill and their ability to reproduce the story and its details through role play.

Activity 4: Let’s Write (Text book Activity)

Teacher gives a worksheet to the students that contains the names of various vegetables. Teacher asks students whether they like the vegetable and prefer to it eat it raw or cooked.

Note: Before starting this exercise, teacher has to guide the students to understand the difference between raw and cooked vegetables.

Students read the names of the vegetables and selects the appropriate box.

Assessment: Reading and listening skills. The teacher also assess the students’ ability to identify the vegetables and understand the difference between raw and cooked vegetables.

ELABORATE

Activity 1 – Match the sentences

The teacher gives a worksheet containing a set of sentences or dialogues taken from the story. These sentences or dialogues are given in the form of match the following. The teacher asks the students to match the correct sentences.

Match the following exercise

Assessment: Reading and speaking skills.

Activity 2 - A Game of Opposites (Text book activity)

Teacher divides the class into two groups, where one group says the word and the second group says its opposite and vice-versa (Words can also be taken from the previous grades).

Example:

Assessment: Teacher assesses the students’ participation, their vocabulary, active listening and speaking skills

Activity 3 - Singular – Plural

The teacher divides the class into groups depending on the class strength. The teacher gives flash cards containing singular and plural names of the vegetables to each group. The groups are supposed to match the pairs and the group that gets the maximum right answers in the shortest time will be the winner.

Examples:

• Carrot – carrots
• Turnip- turnips
• Onion- onions
• Potato- potatoes
• Tomato-tomatoes

The teacher gives a worksheet containing multiple choice questions to all the students. The teacher asks the students to read them and choose the correct answers.

The teacher divides the students into various groups. The teacher cuts the vegetables brought by the students and makes vegetable salad. The teacher gives each group one cup of salad and asks them to write the names of the vegetables found in the salad in the given worksheet.