Part of Lesson Plan: Basic Animal Terminology

Activity Overview / Details

You need to instruct the students to make a very tight, even, circle with their chairs or desks in the middle of the room. Assign each student an animal term from the list you already have taught them. You can either let them come up with a motion that resembles or signifies that animal or you can assign them a motion to do. Designate one person to be in the person to start the round of animal terms. They are essentially the 1st place person. The person to their left is 2nd place, 3rd place etc...

The person to their right is in last place. As the instructor, I always start in 1st place to teach them how to play this game. The objective is to get to the first place spot. After each person has been assigned an animal term and motion, (i.e. cow and the make the motion like they are milking a cow) you go around the room and tell them all to say their term twice and do their motion twice. I also tell them to memorize at least one other person's sign and term. Starting with the fist place person: Say your animal and do your motion twice...

and then do someone elses...passing it on to someone else. They then have to do their sign twice while saying their term, then say someone elses word while doing their term. This has to be done fast and if you mess up by either saying the wrong term or doing the wrong motion, you move to the end of the line / circle. Everyone needs to move quickly and slide to the next spot. An example of how this should sound: cow, cow, doe doe, ....doe doe, rooster rooster....rooster rooster, gilt gilt....gilt gilt, steer steer.