This document outlines a 6-session didactic unit for teaching primary school students about physical appearance. Each session includes 3 activities focused on vocabulary development, grammar practice, and descriptive writing related to appearance. Activities incorporate photos, videos, games, and group/partner work. The goal is for students to learn to describe physical characteristics, clothing, and cultural differences in appearance across countries.

1. DIDACTIC UNIT FOR
PRIMARY EDUCATION
ISABEL MATEO, JULIA RODRÍGUEZ AND IRIS SÁNCHEZ

2. How do I look like?
TOPIC: PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

3. How much I know?
Description: The teacher will give a photocopy. In one side there
will be images about physical appearance and in the other side
the words that correspond to those pictures.
Materials: Photocopies
Type of grouping: Individually
Time: 10 minutes
ACTIVITY 1
SESSION 1

4. Grammar
Description: The teacher will copy the syntactic structures (Present Simple, To Be and
Present Continuous). Then, the teacher will give to the students a photocopy with
incomplete sentences, and they will complete it.
Materials: photocopies.
Type of grouping: Individually.
Time: 20 minutes.
ACTIVITY 2
SESSION 1

5. ACTIVITY 3
SESSION 1
Stand up!
Description: The students will be divided in groups of 6. Then, five pupils will
place in cercle, and the last one will be in the middle. The kid that is in the
circle will say “curly hair”, and the ones with curly hair have to stand up and
change position, and the student in middle will try to sit down too.
Type of grouping: groups of six
Time: 15 minutes

6. ACTIVITY 1
Take a look!
Description: the teacher will give a cardboard with the
silhouette of a kid, and the students will complete the silhouette
with stickers (about different physical characteristics
and clothes).
Materials: cardboard.
Type of grouping: in pairs.
Time: 15 minutes.
SESSION 2

7. ACTIVITY 2
Reading: Finding the thief
Description: the teacher will give a text to the students, with a description of
one character who should be identify.
Materials: photocopy with the text
Type of grouping: in pairs
Time: 15 minutes
SESSION 2

8. "Last night, a thief robbed a jewelry in Central Park, he took two million dollars. Two old women
saw what happened and gave the police a description of this man. Now we need your help to find
him!
He is a young man wearing a sweater with stripes, jeans and cap. He isn’t ginger, his hair is similar
to the color of chocolate. The jeans aren’t grey. The colour of the cap is like the colour of tomato.
Oh! one more thing, he has a bag with all the money, and it is white. Good luck!”
READING

9. ACTIVITY 3
Who am I?
Description: the students will be divided in groups of five. One of them will describe a
partner that belongs to his group or not. They have to describe his/her physical
appearance and the clothes that he/she is wearing. The first one to solve who this
classmate is, will continue with the game.
Type of grouping: in groups of five.
Time: 15 minutes.
SESSION 2

10. Heads up!
Description: taking turns, the students will make questions of yes/no answers to their
companions until they find out the name that is in their forehead.
Materials: a small piece of paper per student
Type of grouping: groups of 5 or 6
Time: 15 minutes
ACTIVITY 1
SESSION 3

11. Listen carefully!
Description: the students will listen to a recording and they will have to match the descriptions
they are listening to with the pictures they will have in a piece of paper.
Materials: photocopies with the pictures
Type of grouping: individually
Time: 15 minutes
ACTIVITY 2
SESSION 3

12. “Speaker 1: Hello! My name is Tom, and I’ve got a twin sister, Emily. We always play together, she is
so funny! She is thin, ginger and has dark eyes. Right now, she is wearing a green shirt and green
trousers. Can you see her?
Speaker 2: Hi! I’m Lily, and my best friend is Harry. He is a little bit short, but I think he is
handsome! His hair is brown and his eyes green. Today he is wearing a yellow T-shirt and green
trousers. Do you know him?”
SCRIPT OF THE LISTENING

13. “Speaker 3: Hi! My name is Dani, and I’m looking for my friend James, can you help me? He is
brunette, his eyes are also brown and his skin is dark like chocolate. He is wearing a blue sweater
and yellow trousers.
Speaker 4: Hello! I’m Harry and my best friend is Lily. Do you know her? She is blonde and her eyes
are dark blue. I think she is so beautiful! Today she is wearing a light blue dress and yellow shoes.”
SCRIPT OF THE LISTENING

14. Write on!
Description: the students will have to write some sentences about the pictures of the previous
activity.
Materials: they can use the photocopy of the previous activity.
Type of grouping: individually
Time: 15 minutes
ACTIVITY 3
SESSION 3

15. We are different!
Description: First, the teacher will ask the students what they know about other countries,
cultures, etc. After a quick brainstorming, the teacher will play a video that talks about different
cultures and ethnic groups (physical characteristics, clothing, food…).
Materials: a projector and a screen to watch the video in class.
Type of grouping: the whole class
Time: 10 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTxKv5n5M2Y
ACTIVITY 1
SESSION 4

16. Let’s create!
Description: They will be assigned a country. They will have to look for information of this country
(physical characteristics, clothing, food) and make a mural about it.
Materials: books, cardboards, colours, pencils...
Type of grouping: in groups of 4
Time: 20 minutes
ACTIVITY 2
SESSION 4

17. True or False
Description: One of the students will have to say a sentence, for
example “She has blue eyes.” and his/her partner, looking at the
picture, will have to answer with “True” or “False”.
Materials: flashcards
Type of grouping: in pairs
Time: 10 minutes
ACTIVITY 3
SESSION 4

18. Travelling to...
Description: the children will expose their projects about different countries.
Materials: cardboards
Type of grouping: in groups of 4
Time: 30 minutes
ACTIVITY 1
SESSION 5

19. How do we find Rora ?
Description: the students will watch a video and they will repeat the dialogues
Materials: projector and video
Type of grouping: individually
Time: 5 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eJHndmL0SY
ACTIVITY 2
SESSION 5

20. How are we ?
Description: the students have to write a physical description
Materials: sheet and pencil
Type of grouping: individually
Time: 10 minutes
ACTIVITY 3
SESSION 5

21. Guess who?
Description: the students have to guess the character of the other partner through questions.
Materials: flashcards
Type of grouping: in pairs
Time: 15-20 minutes
ACTIVITY 1
SESSION 6

22. Let’s play!
Description: play with vocabulary games
Materials: computer
Type of grouping: in pairs
Time: 10 minutes
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/word-games/describing-1
ACTIVITY 2
SESSION 6

23. Do you want learn playing?
Description: play with grammar games
Materials: computer
Type of grouping: in pairs
Time: 15 minutes
http://www.eslgamesplus.com/action-verbs-present-tenses-esl-interactive-grammar-vocabulary-
game/
ACTIVITY 3
SESSION 6

24. Thanks for the attention!