Exploding Ants and Increasing Verb Knowledge

For various reasons, I needed to gather some info together about some weird and wacky animals. Some examples, such as the Malaysian exploding ant, and the horned lizard, are mentioned on this website HERE.

As these animals are pretty fascinating for young learners (and middle-aged hags like myself), I reckon they would make a good entree into a language lesson.

One suggestion would be to compile some fact boxes, or make access to the website link, or just print off the website text as the fastest route. You basically tell your students to come up with three facts about a list of animals.

First however, introduce some verbs (don't overload them - 5-6 verbs will be enough as a starter) that the students might need to know. For example, in the case of the horned lizard, it squirts blood, so SQUIRT will be a handy verb to teach. Perhaps have various flashcards assembled, and draw a line between 'squirt' and those actions that you can associate it with - squirt ketchup, squirt cream, squirt water ...

You would ideally need to do a warmer intro sample on the board in front of the whole class to encourage your students to come up with the goods, so one such example that comes (completely!!) off the top of my head:

Name: Human being

Where does it live? It lives in apartment blocks, toy stores, and schools.

What does it like to eat? Ice cream, cola, and hamburgers.

What is unusual about this creature? Some human beings can touch their nose with their tongue.

And voila, you just repeat with a list of other creatures as found on the website link.

Students present their animal facts to the class.

Finally, don't forget to go back and review your verbs that you presented earlier. You can do this by quickfire quiz, circle the flashcards, match definitions, spelling game ... and so on ...