- Animal Farm Mr. Becker's Classroom Lesson
- Animal Farm Mr. Becker's Classroom Supplies
- Animal Farm Mr. Becker's Classroom Resources
This lesson builds up to the song 'Old MacDonald' and uses the farm animals and their sounds as the basis of the lesson.
Although Animal Farm is an allegory of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the story is just as applicable to the latest rebellion against dictators around the world, which makes it a perfect novel for cross-curricular study. This guide includes chapter summaries, teaching. Classroom Decor & Display. Decorating your classroom is one of the more fun aspects of the job. Not only does classroom decoration add visual interest, decorations should enhance the learning experience. Browse bulletin board sets, trimmers and borders, and cut-outs here. Animal Farm by George Orwell Lesson plans and teaching resources Teacher Guide to Animal Farm How might students use storyboards to demonstrate and to extend their learning? Check the resources here. Includes plot summary/diagram, essential questions, vocabulary, conflict, allegory, more.
Lesson Procedure:
Warm Up and Maintenance:
See our 'Warm Up & Wrap Up' page.
New Learning and Practice:
1. Use farm animal plastic toys for 'play time'
If you have a small class, start off sitting together playing with the farm animals and any other farm toys to go with them (buildings and barns, tractors, pens, other animals, etc.). For larger classes, if you have enough sets you can put the class into groups with the animal toys to play with. At this stage, you don’t need to do any direct teaching – just play with the animals and have fun together!
2. Introduce the vocab
As you are playing, start saying the animal vocab and animal sounds. E.g. 'This is a pig –oink, oink!'. As you and your students play with the animals tell them the animal names and sounds in English.
3. Teach & practice the vocab
After playing for a while collect all of the toys and put them away, keeping the cow, dog, sheep, duck and pig out. You’ll also need the same farm animal flashcards. Put the flashcards on the floor. Hold up one of the plastic animals and chorus the vocab, as follows:
Teacher: 'cow, cow, cow'
Students: 'cow, cow, cow'
Teacher: 'And a cow says Moo. Moo, moo, moo”
Students: 'Moo, moo, moo'
Then ask which flashcard (on the floor) is the cow. Encourage your students to point or touch the correct flashcard. Then place the animal on its corresponding flashcard. Do for all of the animals.
4. Play 'Put the animal on the flashcard'
Now you have 5 animals toys sitting on their flashcards. Pick up each animal toy and throw it somewhere in the classroom. Call out different students to pick up an animal and place it back on the correct flashcard..
5. Play 'Flashcard touch' and 'The missing flashcard' game
Put the animal toys away. Keep the flashcards on the floor. Tell your students to sit around the flashcards on the floor (or on a table) and to put their hands up in the air. Say a flashcard (e.g. 'pig') and students have to quickly touch the correct card. Play a few rounds. After that, tell your students to close and to cover their eyes. Turn over one of the cards. Say “Open your eyes”. The students have to shout out the missing card.
6. Sing 'Old MacDonald'
Either stick the flashcards in the order of the song on the board or use the Old MacDonald song poster. First, practice the gestures (below) for the farmer and the animals. Then play the song and encourage your students to sing along with you as they do the actions.
Lyrics for 'Old MacDonald'
Verse 1:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O!
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there,
Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Verse 2:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a dog, E-I-E-I-O!
With a woof-woof here and a woof-woof there,
Here a woof, there a woof, everywhere a woof-woof,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Verse 3:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a sheep, E-I-E-I-O!
With a baa-baa here and a baa-baa there,
Here a baa, there a baa, everywhere a baa-baa,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Verse 4:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a duck, E-I-E-I-O!
With a quack-quack here and a quack-quack there,
Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack-quack,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Verse 5:
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a pig, E-I-E-I-O!
With an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there,
Here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink-oink,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
Verse 6:
(Ok! Let’s do all the animals!)
'Cow!'
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there, Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo.
Animal Farm Mr. Becker's Classroom Lesson
'Dog!'
With a woof-woof here and a woof-woof there, Here a woof, there a woof, everywhere a woof-woof.
'Sheep!'
(Sung): With a baa-baa here and a baa-baa there, Here a baa, there a baa, everywhere a baa-baa.
'Duck!'
With a quack-quack here and a quack-quack there, Here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack-quack.
'Pig!'
With an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there, Here an oink, there an oink, every-where an oink-oink.
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
(download MP3 here)
Gestures for 'Old MacDonald'
There are a number of activities you can do as you sing along to the song:
- as you sing “Old MacDonald” pretend to pull out your overall straps with your thumbs
- as you sing the cow part gesture milking a cow
- as you sing the dog part use your hands to make dog ears on your head
- as you sing the sheep part gesture petting (patting) a sheep
- as you sing the duck part open and close your hands in front of your mouth like a duck’s bill
- as you sing the pig part push the tip of your nose down with your finger
Animal Farm Mr. Becker's Classroom Supplies
We also have a video that you can stream in class to sing along with (Internet connection required):
7. Read classroom reader 'Old MacDonald's Farm Animals'
Let's follow the song with a reader which continues the story of Old MacDonald. Before class, download and print off the reader 'Old MacDonald's Farm Animals'. As you go through each page make the animal noises for the animal hiding on the page - get everyone joining in and shouting out what animal they think is making the noise and hiding - then turn the page to see if they were right, for example:
Teacher: (reading from page 2) 'What's that sound?'. Yes, what is that sound coming from the barn? ... (points at the barn) ... 'Moo! Moo!'
Students: Cow!
Teacher: Really? What sound does a cow make?
Students: Moo!
Teacher: Ok, let's check ... (turning to page 3) ... Yes! It's a cow. Well done everyone!
Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions and getting them to guess which animals are making the noises.
After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and read through the story one more time (without stopping for questions, etc.) as students circle the animals in the story. Then go through the answers as a class.
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Animal Farm Mr. Becker's Classroom Resources
Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader (Internet connection required):
8. Do 'Match up the Animals 2' worksheet
To finish off this section of the lesson, give out the worksheets. As your students are doing the worksheets, ask questions (e.g. 'What animal is that?', 'What noise does it make?', etc.).
Wrap Up:
1. Assign Homework: 'Farm Animals Match' worksheet.
2. Wrap up the lesson with some ideas from our 'Warm Up & Wrap Up' page.