Meet Frankie, Woody and Jo! As a part of our support for teachers of Pre A1 Starters, A2 Movers and A2 Flyers, we are continuing our series of exam vocabulary worksheets. Each worksheet introduces children to a unique character designed by children from around the world with fun exercises to help them prepare for their exams.
Last week, we introduced you to Bobbie, Skippy and Himmy. This week, we introduce Frankie, Woody and Jo designed by children in Russia, Maldives and Poland. Here are some ideas for introducing the worksheets with classes:
Meet Frankie – Pre A1 Starters
Start with a fun warmer to introduce the topic of clothes. Show learners one
of the Pre-A1 Starters clothes flashcards for a few seconds. If you’re in the classroom, turn it round quickly, or online, show it briefly on the screen. For example (showing the boot flashcard): Ask: What’s this? (It’s) a boot. Vary how you get learners to say their answers: 1 learner, 2 learners in different parts of the class, all learners. Do the same with some more clothes flashcards. (there are 13 clothes flashcards). If you have time, get learners to write all the clothes words you showed them flashcards for.
Point to the pictures on the Frankie worksheet and ask: What are these? (They’re) clothes. How many clothes pictures are there? (6). Point to the example (shoes) and explain that learners have to write the letter ‘s’ on the lines to complete the words.
When you check answers, get pairs/groups/ all learners to spell the words and when they say the ‘s’, to draw a big ‘s’ in the air. As well as colouring the clothes pictures, learners can draw the missing pictures for the clothes (shirt, shorts, trousers) and colour those too.
When checking answers to exercise 5, ask learners to read out the sentences and point to the clothes in the picture. If this is too difficult, you can read out a sentence, and learners say the clothes word and point to the picture. In exercise 6, learners can use the language from exercise 4 to talk about Frankie’s things.
Meet Woody – A1 Movers
Ask learners to write their favourite word on an individual whiteboard or piece
of paper. Then, when you say ‘go’, they show and say their word. If you’re teaching online, ask learners to type their word into the chat box and when you say ‘go’, they press send.
Next, ask them questions about their word: How many letters are there in your word? Can you see any words inside your word? (eg in tomato we can read to, Tom, mat). What letter does your word start with? Ask learners to move into alphabetical order by showing and saying their words. Then, they say their words, together then, along the line, then backwards along the line!
Point to the Woody worksheet and the words she likes. Do the first three words (shower, weekend, vegetable) together as an example, then learners write the other words on the correct lines. Have fun timing learners in exercise 2. Let them have lots of practice saying the words before they ‘race’.
If you have time, learners could share books and stories they like and make a ‘class book about books’, a poster or even a blog page about them.
Meet Jo – A2 Flyers
Start by asking learners questions about days of the week: What’s today? What days do you come to this class? What did you do last Saturday? What are you going to do next Sunday? To make this more fun, you can ask learners to write short answers to your questions, then, they choose one of them and say two or three sentences to answer in groups. The other learners in the group listen and say which question they were answering.
Before you introduce the Jo worksheet, ask learners questions about popular and kind:
Which song/TV programme/video game is popular at the moment? Why do people like it?
Which person do you know that’s kind? What kind things do they do? Is it important to be kind?
Then, introduce Jo.
After learners read and complete the sentences in exercise 4, you can ask them to write another sentence about Jo’s plans for Tuesday, Friday or Saturday. In exercise 2, there are no right or wrong answers. Encourage learners to use their imagination!
After learners finish the worksheet, they could use Jo’s calendar and write and draw their own plans for a week when they will talk to and help different people.
Follow up ideas
Learners can write their own character cards like the ones for Frankie, Woody and Jo, using a photo or drawing of themselves. Or, they could draw a new character and complete the card.
Download the worksheets by clicking on each of the images above. Otherwise, you can download them here:
Pre A1 Starters – Frankie worksheet
A1 Movers – Woody worksheet
A2 Flyers – Jo worksheet
For more ideas on preparing young learners for exams, catch up with our experts in our Catch Up FUN series, here.