Are you thinking of what to include in your fall lesson plans? I’m right there with you! It’s such a fun season to teach about, what with all the holidays and the changes in nature taking place. I love talking about what we’re seeing around us this time of year. Talking about a season is a wonderful opportunity to get students to open up in a target language, because the topic is easy and close to home.
The fall is always a really busy time, for some reason. I get caught up in rushing through the curriculum and assessing the students with tests. And I don’t particularly enjoy that. So I need to calm down and evaluate what really needs to happen, and what I should be doing with my students to actually get the best results. And that’s how I came up with the fall lesson plans I’ve got planned for this year!
What is my fall teaching all about
What is important to the development of my students are 4 things:
- Autumn vocabulary
- Writing and speaking
- Reading and listening
I need them to learn the vocabulary that is important in autumn. It’s fun for them to learn about acorns and squirrels – and how the first one is actually the Dutch word for squirrel :). I want them to know about leaves, umbrellas, harvest, and rakes.
Autumn activities
As much as I possibly can, I get my students to talk and write about the fall. What do they like best about this season? How does it compare to the other seasons? What are their favorite activities, foods, and types of clothing to wear? I love getting them to tell me what they think in English.
Finally, I want us to read and listen to lots of texts about the fall. Reading is great for improving fluency and it builds vocabulary, and listening has the added bonus of showing them how words are pronounced and how sentences sound when they are uttered.
What are some fall activities I do
Vocabulary games
I have created several games to build or reinforce vocabulary about the fall. I’ve got a dominoes game and a memory game that both contain the words on the one hand, and pictures that match those words on the other. These games are also available to me online in Google Slides, when I don’t feel like printing them off. Another game in my lessons on fall is Match the Pictures, in which students must find matches between pictures and name them out loud.
Writing and speaking
I’ve come up with 8 prompts for writing purposes that are great fun for students to answer. They all ask for an opinion on an autumn-related topic, and I made lined parts for my students to write on. My set of 14 discussion cards can also be used as writing prompts for fall of course, but I use them for speaking activities. I provide each small group with a set of them, laminated, and I tell the groups to discuss the questions in great detail. It’s a great way to get them talking.
Reading and listening
I’ve included a reading activity in my fall vocabulary worksheet autumn, to help students read the words in context. I also love to get small articles and come up with questions about them, such as these on Wonderopolis, or find videos that are about autumn to view with students, like this one that really is for your younger kids.
Fall grammar scavenger hunt
And last but not least, I made a scavenger hunt in which students must find 10 items that are representative of the fall and they must write pieces of text about each of them. The questions are phrased as such that they will have to answer using the Present Simple and Present Continuous. It’s a great activity to move around for a little bit, because students have to physically find the items and examine them. You could also give it as homework, so they could find more of the items in the wild possibly.
Fall lessons done for you
Don’t want to create all these lessons yourself? I’ve got you! I’ve done all of that for you! Click below for:
My autumn in English dominoes game
Or the memory game I made
The Match the pictures game
Or some cool writing prompts (which are FREE by the way)
And of course a fall scavenger hunt!
Fall lesson plans just got easier
I know how hard it can be to come up with cool lessons. That’s why I’ve done that for you, so please take a look in my store if you need any of the things I just mentioned. Let’s make our lives easier, not harder. And let’s have some fun!
Are you looking for ways to celebrate Halloween in your lessons? Check out this article!
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