Message on a Lollypop!
This Young Learner activity is for kids who are just beginning to read and write in English. You can easily grade this activity to make it super easy or a bit more challenging. It is best suited with a maximum of 12 or so students.
In a nutshell, your students will be given a lollypop each with a small, secret message wrapped around the lolly stick. They need to unravel this, and then go to the board to work out what the message says from the key you have stuck to the white board. They then have to write down this message on a piece of paper to show you. When they have sussed it out, they can have their lolly.
Preparation
A few days before class, pop into a corner shop and buy one lollypop per student in your class. They are only 1RMB each, so no big sweat.
Choose a suitable word or small sentence for your class. If you have 5 year-olds, this might be 'dog', 'cat', cow', whatever.
For slightly older classes, it could be 'My name is', or 'I like .....'. I'll leave this to you.
First prepare your key for the whiteboard. In the teachers' office, jump onto Microsoft Word and type out on one page letters A-Z in Arial font and then type each letter A-Z again out using the WEBDINGS font (Webdings are little fun pictures instead of A, B, C, D, etc). You should be left with the whole alphabet and the corresponding symbols from Webdings. 26 letters, 26 matching symbols.
Print this page, go to the photocopier and print it out to A3. You now have a big, clear key to stick on the whiteboard for your students to follow.
Now for the messages. Jump back on the computer and type out short words or messages using the Webdings font on Microsoft Word. You can either choose them all the same, or have a couple of different messages. This is more fun for the kids in my view.
Print out the page of coded messages, cut them into individual strips (one strip per student) and wrap them around the lolly stick. Job done!
The whole thing should take no more than 10 minutes to prepare and your Young Learner students will lose their mind with this activity! They'll be writing and reading simple words with a bit of a twist, and a lolly after....what could be better?!
Have fun!
Stuart Allen
ESL in China!
