Activities on the topic “Body parts”

What tasks do you use to practice new vocabulary with your students? Most often teachers use such activities as labeling the pictures, matching, bingo, boardgames, crosswords, etc. When students study the topic “Body parts” most activities look like this:

Here are some other ideas to practise this vocabulary.

Monster maker

Review body parts and numbers. Take two dice. One of them will be used to depict body parts and another one for the number of these parts. Write down the list of body parts your students have studied:

1. — head
2. — eye
3. — ear
4. — mouth
5. — arm
6. — leg

or prepare a dice with pictures, use toolsforeducators website.

Roll two dice and let your student draw. The aim of the activity is to draw a monster and then describe it: “This is my monster friend. His name is … He has got three heads, nine eyes, long purple hair, etc.”

Body jumble

Variant 1: Prepare a set of cards of the same size. Revise animals and body vocabulary, practice structures, for example, “The giraffe has got a long neck and four legs”. Ask students to make a booklet with several pages, each with different animals cut into three parts. Then ask students to fold along the lines and describe the animal.

Variant 2: Prepare a set of cards with body parts (that might look spooky, therefore, take a funny Halloween skeleton). Students should compete to complete the skeleton.

Simon Says…

Have the students stand in a circle. When you call out “Please touch your …” students should do it as quickly as possible and when you say just “Touch your …” without “please” they are not to do so. Any students that make a mistake sit down.

Twister

This classic game is a fun way to practice naming body parts and colors. Take a game “twister” and stick pictures or words of body parts on the circles. The teacher spins the spinner or draws the words from a hat, then calls out the body part and the color, for example, “Eyes, red”. Alternatively, arrange the colour flashcards on the floor. Call out “Left foot, red!” and so on. If they fall over, they’re out. The last student standing is declared the champion.

Name a part of the body and brainstorm what students can do with it, create a challenge and have a competition, e.g. “I can catch a ball with four fingers”. Another way is to say the action and ask students if they can do it. They then get five points if they can really do it or lose one point if they can’t.

Example of challenges:

• Touch your nose with your tongue.
• Stand on one leg for one minute.
• Bite an apple without hands.
• Raise one eyebrow.
• Lick your elbow.
• Wiggle your Ear.
• Touch your toes.

Body Parts and Clothes

Prepare two sets of cards, one with clothes and another with body parts. Students should match the clothing item with the corresponding body part.

Classroom Frankenstein

Make a jigsaw student by drawing around students on a sheet of paper big enough for the tallest child to lie down on. Ask one student to lie down on the paper and draw around the student’s head. Change the student and repeat for all the other major body parts. When Frankenstein is ready, try to remember whose arms/legs, etc. they are.

Have great lessons!