This document provides a lesson plan for teaching elementary students about different animals. The plan involves students evaluating websites about animals, learning about animal characteristics, habitats and diets. They then create an animal profile of their choice and present it orally. The plan aims to help students describe animals, classify them as wild or domestic, and talk about their lives and habitats. It incorporates various online activities and games to reinforce vocabulary and make learning fun.

1. Assignment Nº 3: Marina Marquez & Laura Rolando<br />Website evaluation<br />1)<br />Sheppard Brad Jr. (n.d). Sheppard Software we make learning fun. Retrieved October 9, 2010, from HYPERLINK \"
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/animaldiet/carnivore.htm\"
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/animaldiet/carnivore.htm<br />Accuracy<br />The page was designed by many people. For example one of them has knowledge on education, another knows about software, another knows about design, etc. The fact that many people worked to create the same site makes it reliable because there is an expert for each “part”.<br />Currency<br />The site contains up-to-date content. (Although it does not have the date of updating)<br />Content<br />The site is stimulating. It has very nice drawings and pictures and fun games. The name of the page is “we make learning fun” which is true.<br />It is easy to navigate. The colours are appropriate for the topic of animals and the drawings are clear.<br />Functionality<br />The site works well (at least what we want our students to use). There is one link that does not work but there is another way of getting to the same game.<br />Everything loads pretty quickly.<br />2)<br />Kurtz Penny, Spataford Guy. (n.d.) Switcheroo zoo. Retrieved October 6, 2010, from http://www.switcheroozoo.com/<br />Accuracy<br />The page was designed by many people. In the page they say they love to create interactive multimedia and they also share a fondness for animals and an interest in weird stuff (like cryptozoology, and anomalies such as unexpected things falling from the sky). This makes the site reliable.<br />Currency<br />The site contains up-to-date content. It was updated in 2009.<br />Content<br />The site is stimulating. The drawings are wonderful and it contains fun games. It also has many interesting links easy. It is easy to navigate. The colours are cheerful and make the page attractive.<br />Functionality<br />The site works well (at least what we want our students to use). <br />Everything loads quickly.<br />3)<br />(n.d.) Resources for school. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.abpischools.org.uk<br />Accuracy<br />The site is reliable as it is the: The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry site.<br />Currency<br />The site contains up-to-date content. It was updated in 2010.<br />Content<br />The site is not that stimulating for kids. The colours, format and typewriting make it “serious”, however, for teachers it is very interesting as it has many links to provide students with worksheets, information and more.<br />Functionality<br />The site works well. Everything loads quickly.<br />4)<br />Mosbacker Linda. (n.d.) UTAH Education Network. Retrieved October 6, 2010, from http://www.uen.org/utahlink/activities/view_activity.cgi?activity_id=3792<br />Accuracy<br />The site is reliable as it is the: Utah Education Network in partnership with the Utah State Office of Education and Higher Ed Utah. <br />Currency<br />The site contains up-to-date content.<br />Content<br />The site is not that stimulating for kids. It does not have many attractive pictures. However, the information is quite complete.<br />Functionality<br />The site works well. Everything loads quickly.<br />5)<br />(n.d.) Animal Planet. Retrieved October 6, 2010, from http://animal.discovery.com<br />Accuracy<br />The site is reliable because it is Animal Planet site.<br />Currency<br />The site contains up-to-date content. It was updated in 2010.<br />Content<br />The site is aimed at “Animal Planet channel followers”. It contains a lot of information and the pictures and images used are all real and vivid. It has got many links, maybe you end up lost when navigating, but the content is complete and reliable.<br />Functionality<br />The site works well. Everything loads quickly.<br />6)<br />Kelly Charles. (n.d.) Retrieved October 6, 2010, from http://iteslj.org/v/ei/animals.html<br />Accuracy<br />The site is reliable. It is just a multiple choice activity. It does not contain information.<br />Currency<br />The activity was uploaded in 2001.<br />Content<br />The drawings are not that nice, however, they are clear and it goes straight to the point.<br />Functionality<br />The site works well. Everything loads quickly.<br />7)<br />(n.d.) NAT GEO Wild. Retrieved June 10, 2010, from www.youtube.com<br />Accuracy<br />The site contains lots of videos. However, this one we used is official because it is an advertisement from NAT GEO Wild (channel)<br />Currency<br />It was uploaded on March 29th, 2010. However, for the sake of the activation it does not matter.<br />Content<br />The captures with the camera are fantastic. Images are great. Beautiful animals can be seen in slow motion.<br />Functionality<br />It loads quickly.<br />Lesson Plan<br />Course: 1st or 2nd year<br />Level: Elementary<br />Theme: Describing animals<br />Final Task: Students will prepare an animal profile of an animal they choose. They will work in pairs and then they will make oral presentations to share their work with the rest of the class. The aim is to introduce “animals”, to learn about them and to revise contents. <br />Objectives: During this unit students will develop ability and knowledge necessary to:<br />Talk about different animals.<br />Describe different animals: write simple paragraphs about their life (where they live (habitat / climate), what they eat), about what they can and can’t do; and give information orally on these topics.<br />Classify them into wild and domestic.<br />Content:<br />Thematic aspects:<br />*animals (new) *habitats (N) *actions (R) *weather/ climate <br />Linguistic content:<br />*Grammar: Present simple to express facts: “the lion lives in the savannah”.; can & can’t to express abilities: “elephants can run but they can’t jump.” <br />* Vocabulary: animals; the weather; biomes; animals’ classification according to their diet (carnivore, herbivore, omnivore); actions.<br />Day 1: Lesson 1 (45’)<br />Activation (15’): <br />Sts will watch a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt5x7URf4ao) containing a few wild animals in order to start talking about them.<br />1- T will ask students: <br /> What do these animals have in common? <br />Can you have the animals on the video at home? Why / why not? <br />Where can you find them? <br /> Do you have animals at home? <br />What do you call the animals you have at home? <br />What about the animals in a farm? Are they domestic or not? <br />Aim: to state the difference between wild and domestic animals and to introduce the topic. <br />2-Students will complete the chart shown below. First they will write under the right classification some sentences I will give them that characterize domestic and wild animals. Then, they will classify the animals they will learn in the following activity/systematization accordingly. <br />Eg:<br />These animals are friendly.<br />These animals attack people<br />These animals hunt other animals.<br />These animals need cold temperature all year long.<br />These animals can live in houses.<br />These animals are dangerous.<br />Domestic animalsWild animalsCharacteristicsExamples / animals<br />Activity #1 (15’): Sts will be given a picture and they will choose (they will have 4 options) which is the correct one. Aim: to systematize the name of the animals they will be working with. <br /> http://iteslj.org/v/ei/animals.html<br />Activity #2 (15’): In this activity Sts will listen to different sounds and they have to match the animal to the sound. They will listen to 6, then to 4 and finally, to 7 animals at the same time and they will have some options to choose from. Aim: to recycle the name of the animals and to associate the names with sounds. <br />http://www.switcheroozoo.com/games/soundmatch2.htm<br />Day Webquest: http://www.webquest.es/wq/animals-22: Lesson 2 (45’)<br />Activation: So as to activate the topic, T will ask Sts the following questions: Which is you favourite domestic animal? And your favourite wild one? What do you know about them? Where do you think they live? And what do you think they eat?<br />Activity #1 (15’): Animal Characteristics <br />Sts will browse the site and read about different animals (http://animal.discovery.com/) so as to be able to answer a quiz on that (http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/) . The aim is that Sts learn about and become familiar with the animals they like.<br />Activity #2 (15’): Animal Habitats<br />First, Sts have to read about the different habitats (http://www.uen.org/utahlink/activities/view_activity.cgi?activity_id=3792). Then, to check if they understood the information, they will complete the Habitat Quiz. http://www.abpischools.org.uk/activescience/module2/home.html<br />This activity is based around a series of questions relating to the suitability of particular habitats for animals. While it can be used in a pure quiz style, its chief aim is to encourage children to explore the information available on the animal and the habitat for each question, and then make a decision based on that research.<br />Activity #3 (15’): Animal alimentation/Diet<br />Sts will read about animal diet: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/animaldiet/carnivore.htm and they will do the following activity: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/games/animaldietgame.htm<br />The aim of the activity is to learn about what do animals eat and the classification of the different diets.<br />Day 2: Lesson 3 (45’)<br />Sts will do the final task. They will choose an animal and they will write a profile. For doing it, they will enter the following web site (http://www.switcheroozoo.com/animallist.htm) and they will choose any animal just to see the format and the kind of information included. They cannot copy the information provided on this site. Once they finish doing it, they will do an oral presentation.<br />The aim of this task is to integrate all the things learnt so far during the project: grammar, vocabulary and information about animals.<br />