Was your childhood any different?

Olia | Sep 02, 2024Sep 05, 2024

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson about childhood are to:

• practise vocabulary to talk about kids’ activities and behaviour;
• watch a video on outdoor pre-schools;
• discuss changes in childhood and parenting over time.

With this lesson, students explore words and phrases to discuss childhood activities and behaviour (e.g. follow rules, play outdoors, risky, etc.). They talk about their personal experiences, identify opposite adjectives (e.g. worried – calm, safe – dangerous, etc.) and discuss childhood safety and parenting concerns. Students also watch a video about forest kindergartens and talk about experiences related to pre-school education and shifts in childhood and parenting through the years. In addition, they read and discuss a text about Montessori education and talk about more education ideas.

WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY

This lesson about childhood starts with a warm-up where students look at pictures of childhood games (blindfold tag, hopscotch and rock, paper, scissors). They discuss if they remember them, explain what they are and how to play them. Students also talk about other games they played. After that, they complete statements about childhood experiences and behaviours with words in boxes (e.g. friends, outdoors, rules, etc.). Next, students look at the sentences and underline adjectives (e.g. safe, worried, risky, etc.). Then, they create pairs of opposite adjectives (e.g. worried – calm, risky – careful, etc.). Following that, students look at some points (e.g. something that helps parents stay calm, a sport that can be dangerous, etc.) and think of examples for each of them. Afterwards, they look at statements about childhood experiences and behaviours again. Students choose two that describe their childhood and add details.

VIDEO AND DISCUSSION

At this point in this lesson about childhood, students watch a video about Denmark’s forest pre-school. They summarise it using sentence beginnings (e.g. The teachers who work in the pre-school…) and target words and phrases from the lesson (e.g. calm, careful, climb trees, etc.). Following that, students discuss questions about their opinions and experiences related to pre-school education. Then, they complete statements about changes in childhood and parenting (e.g. Modern children share/don’t share their toys with friends.), and provide reasons for their answers. After that, students read a text about Montessori education and mark statements as True or False. They also say what they think about that learning approach. Finally, students read about more education ideas (scouting, nature-based education and technology integration) and say what they think about them. 

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson plan also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students imagine they own a modern innovative school. They complete sentences about it using target words and phrases from the lesson. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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