Capture Your ESL Student's Attention With This Simple Warm-Up

Updated: Jul 23, 2020

If you have struggled to think of fresh warm-up ideas for your young ESL learners, then you're not alone! We have all been there, and that's why I want to share a fun warm-up idea that will capture student's attention.

Although it may be tempting to find a fun musical version of the Incy Wincy Spider on YouTube and simply play the song with music, I highly recommend singing acapella. By singing acapella, you can change, adjust, and add things to the song to make it more fun. And the Incy Wincy Spider is a great example of this.

Although it may be tempting to find a fun musical version of the Incy Wincy Spider on YouTube and simply play the song with music, I highly recommend singing acapella. By singing acapella, you can change, adjust and add things to the song to make it more fun. And the Incy Wincy Spider is a great example of this.

There are five stages to this activity.

1. Introducing the key vocabulary, in this case, feelings

By now your students should be familiar with the vocabulary, you don't want to introduce new words during your warm-up. Introduce each flashcard one by one using chants and TPR as you do. Lay the flashcards on the floor in front of you as you introduce each one.

2. Introducing the spider… (not a real one)

The word spider might be new for some students, so using a flashcard might be helpful to give the students a reference to what song is about. Pretending that your hand is a spider and chanting "it's a spider, crawl, crawl" as you crawl your hand over your body often generates lots of laughter!

3. Singing the song with simple actions

Sing the Incy Wincy Spider song once through so that your students know the song. Don't worry if they aren't singing along with you yet, we are going to sing it several times!

4. Have students pick an emotion

There are several ways to do this. You can have one student come to the front and pick a card, or you can ask a student "how are you today? and see how they reply. I suggest having a student come to the front to pick a card, that way you can make sure that all the vocabulary is practiced.

5. Singing with emotion

This is the fun part! Whatever emotion the student picks, you then sing the Incy Wincy song again, this time with emotion!

First, have the class chant together "the spider is (angry)!" and then sing the Incy Wincy Spider song through in a very angry (but funny) way.

With my young learners, I would sing this song as my warm-up for at least two weeks, by which point students will have learned the words and actions and will be able to join in with you.

If having daily classes, I would sing this song with my very young learners for at least two weeks. By which point students will have learned the words and actions and will be able to join in with you. If your students are. slightly older you may need to switch things up earlier. Try to change the warm-up while it's still fun for your students.

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Flashcards:

Farm Animals Flashcards - https://bit.ly/2Z0Pmxn

Fruit Flashcards. - https://bit.ly/3fMgZBc

Vegetable Flashcards - https://bit.ly/3dwLyti

Weather Flashcards - https://bit.ly/2CAIwaF Feelings Flashcards - https://bit.ly/2V7tvn5

Number Flashcards - https://bit.ly/2No4Aaw

Phonics Materials:

100 CVC Blending Word Flashcards - https://bit.ly/3hOSRjc

PPT Presentations:

Farm Animal Presentation - https://bit.ly/37UMs1y

Weather PPT - https://bit.ly/3hRSaFR

TEACHER TEES BY MOONCAKE

https://bit.ly/38hUlfW

Capture Your ESL Student's Attention With This Simple Warm-Up

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