Take your teaching online

lesson plan

Doodle Town, Level 2, Unit 9: Rainy Day

Lesson 1

This lesson plan, based on pp. T84–T85 of the Teacher’s Book, gives you tips on how to teach the
lesson in an online/distance learning situation.

It is designed for live online lessons in a virtual classroom environment or with a video conferencing
tool like Skype or Zoom.

Length: 45–60 minutes Materials:

• Student Book
Learning outcomes: • Teacher’s Edition
• learn words for talking about the • (The Student’s Book and
weather; ask and answer about Teacher’s Book pages can be
the weather; develop computer downloaded here)
skills • Photo Cards: rainy, windy, sunny,
Key Language: snowy, cloudy
• rainy, windy, sunny, snowy, • Slide displaying Student Book,
cloudy Unit 9, Lesson 1
• What’s the weather like today? • Slide displaying Activity Book,
It’s (cloudy). Unit 9, Lesson 1
Review: • Student Book audio
• beach, flower, grass, sun, trees,
cold, hot Materials for Pupils
• days of the week • Student Book
Receptive Language: • Activity Book
• What day is it today? What can • pink, black, and blue crayons
you see? Is it hot or cold? (one per child)

For further preparation, you could watch these teacher development

webinar from the Macmillan ‘Teach from Home’ webinar series
https://www.macmillanenglish.com/us/training-events/webinar-archive.
Parents:
To help make the lesson effective, cooperation of parents will be needed.

They will need to make sure any materials required are available. You should include this informa-
tion in the lesson invitation, but you can remind them at the start of the lesson. You can do this in
the local language, or alternatively you can prepare a slide with pictures of what’s needed (scis-
sors, glue, crayons, etc.).

Large Groups:
If you have too many pupils to run this lesson as a live lesson, you could record yourself following
the lesson plan below – leaving spaces for students to answer questions at home – and the video
file can be sent to parents for playback.

Age:
Pupils at this age may find it more comfortable to answer questions as a group rather than as in-
dividuals.

You may find it easier to mute all students while you are giving instructions and then unmute all
when you expect a response.

Before the Lesson:

Open the online lesson room or software a few minutes early to make sure your camera and mi-
crophone are working correctly, and you have the materials open in other windows (for screen
sharing) during your lesson.

Follow the teacher’s notes from p. T84 onwards in the Teacher’s Edition. In addition, see the
notes below for how to adapt your lesson for online teaching.

Stage 1

Lesson warm-up Welcome the children by smiling, waving and saying hello. If possible, try to use their
names and encourage children to wave back. For example, “Hello Miguel.”

Play The Days of the Week song and encourage the children to join in.

Stage 2

Listen, point, Display Student Book p. 84 on the class screen. Read the unit title aloud. Ask, “What can
and say. you see?” Use the Highlighter tool to point to each of the weather photos.

Mime the actions for hot and cold and ask, “Is it hot or cold?” (Some weather conditions
can be hot or cold.)

Play the audio. Ask the children to listen, point, and say while the audio is playing.

For further practice, hold up a weather Photo Card but hide part of the photo with
a Post-it note or small piece of paper. Ask, “What’s the weather like?” The children guess
the correct word. For this you can unmute all microphones as pupils might be more
comfortable responding as a group. Once the children have correctly guessed, reveal the
full version of the photo card.

Repeat the activity with the other photo cards.

Stage 3

Listen and say Point to Meg and Dad. Ask, “Who’s this?” Establish that Meg is inside and Dad is outside.
the dialog, then Play the audio. The children listen. You might decide to mute all microphones while you
role play. play the audio.

Play it again. Pause after each line and the children repeat. Unmute all microphones for
this.

Now ask the children to play the role of Dad. For example:

(1)

Teacher (Meg): What’s the weather like today?

Children (Dad): It’s cloudy.

Then repeat with (2) windy (3) sunny (4) snowy (5) rainy. Use the Photo Cards to support
the children. Then switch and ask the children to play the role of Dad and repeat the
activity. With small groups this could be done as a class activity.

With larger groups, one option is to nominate a specific pupil and role play with them
before moving to another pupil. However, some children might not be comfortable doing
this online.

Have the children look out of the window. Ask, “What’s the weather like today?” The
children say what the weather is like.

Early Reading: Captions

Draw the children’s attention back to the Student Book, Lesson 5, displayed on the class
screen. Read the vocabulary (rainy, windy, sunny, snowy, and cloudy) with the class.

Encourage the children to follow the words with their finger. Use the Highlighter tool
to help the children follow the words. Ask, “Which words start with /s/?” (sunny, snowy)
“Which word starts with /k/?” (cloudy)

Stage 4

Listen and The children will need their books for this exercise if they are available.
check. Show the children your pink, black, and blue crayons. Explain that they are going to listen
to the audio and use their colors to circle cloudy, windy, and snowy.

Play the audio. The children listen and circle cloudy with a pink crayon, windy with a black
crayon, and snowy with a blue crayon.

If the children do not have access to their books, you can display page 84 on the screen
and ask them to point at the correct word with the right color.

Use the Pen tool to check answers together.

Early Reading: Captions

Read the speech bubbles with the class. Encourage them to follow the words with their
finger. Use the Highlighter tool to help the children follow the words. Say, “Point to a word
that starts with /t/.” (today) “Point to a word that starts with /k/.” (cloudy)
Stage 5

Sing What’s the Play the audio. As the song is playing, do an action:
Weather Like What’s the weather like today? What’s the weather like today? (question gesture)
Today? and do
the actions. Look out the window. (point to window)

What do you see? (hand up, shading eyes)

(1) It’s cloudy today! (air-trace cloud shape)

(2) windy (wave arms around)

(3) sunny (wipe forehead as if hot)

(4) snowy (shiver and wrap arms around self)

(5) rainy (draw fingers down to indicate raindrops)

Play the audio again and repeat the actions. Encourage the children to join in

Extra Activity/ You can do the following activity as an extra in class or set it as homework.
Homework Display Lesson 1 from the Activity Book on the class screen. Have the children look out
the window and ask, “What’s the weather like today?” The children circle the appropriate
symbol. Encourage the children to share the answers.

Draw the children’s attention to activity 2. The children trace the rain symbols. The
children then complete the sentence below the picture (It’s raining.)