Every child gets dressed for school each morning, which means the teaching material for this topic is already walking around your classroom. The day your school lets pupils come in their own clothes is pure gold. Clothes also lead straight into the is wearing pattern, one of the first pieces of grammar children get to use on something real and right in front of them.
The Core Word List
- The essentials: shirt, pants, skirt, dress, shorts
- Accessories: shoes, socks, hat, bag
- Add for Grade 3: jacket, uniform, and point out that pants, shorts, socks and shoes come in pairs, so they always end in s. It's a natural doorway into plurals.
The Game for This Topic: A Paper Fashion Show
Hand out a blank paper figure and let each child draw and colour an outfit on it. They then present their paper doll to the class using the pattern He is wearing a red shirt and blue pants. Everyone hears the same sentence frame dozens of times without getting bored, because no two outfits are alike. The variety does the work of holding their attention.
For a listening version, you describe an outfit and the children draw what they hear, then compare to see whose drawing matches the description best. One game, and it covers both speaking and listening.