The Big Red Balloon Lesson Plan

 Before reading the story

1. Pre-teach/ revise some key vocabulary like lagoon, bee fly, toad, beaver, river, hill, square, road etc by  using flashcards or by asking students to play the memory game in the Games section. 

2. Play a guessing game so as to introduce / revise actions like hop, jump, swirl, swim etc

3. Show students the cover of the book and ask them:

 a) Do you like balloons? If yes what is you favourite balloon like? 
b) How many colours can you see?
c) What kind of a balloon is this?
d) Whose balloon could that be?
e) Where is this balloon going?
     

Read the story

1. Read the story once for students' pleasure and then discuss about their initial presictions

2. Read  the story a second time and ask students to note down who the balloon met while travelling.

After reading the story

It's Balloon Time!

1. Ask sudents to brainstorm in groups as many words as possible to describe a balloon (encourage            them to use adjectives related to colour, material, shape etc) and to make a word cloud either by              drawing it or by using a word cloud generator.

2. Groups swap their word clouds and try to put the words  in categories of colour, shape, material etc .

3. Ask students to notice title of the book so as to elicit the order of adjectives in senteces and ask              them to play the 'Make Sentences' game in the Games Section.

4. Play more games from the Games Section!

Your personal touch!

1. Use your imagination!

Ask students to draw  balloons using their imagination  and to write sentences about them using adjectives they have learnt from the previous activity.  They could also mention the places they would like to go with thir balloon and / or they could mention the magic powers their balloon has. For example, it can make people laugh, speak with animals.  Then they present them to class and they vote for the most original / imaginative one.

2. Poems... Poems...

Ask students to imagine that they can fly with their balloon! Where would they go?  Then encourage them to write a short poem using their five senses.  It could begin like that:

                                                I fly with my small bright pink balloon.

                                                I am high up in the sky over a hill

                                                I can see....

                                                I can smell...

                                                I can hear....

                                                I can feel...

  Poems can be accompanied by a picture and all of them can become part of a short poetry  anthology      published in your class blog page!                                              

3. Add your voice!

Ask students to choose a page from the story and create a dialogue between the balloon and the busy beaver, the daffodils or the persian cat.  What could they be talking about?

Encourage them to write the dialogue and act it out in front of the rest of the class.  Alternatvely, they could create comics using an online comic generator like Pixton.

Any more ideas? Please leave a comment if you have tried these activities!