Teacher Guide
Animal Reporters: What Do You See?
Grades K-1 • Observational Speaking • 30 Minutes
Objective
Students will practice observational speaking skills and identify animal characteristics by reporting on what they see using a sentence frame.
Materials
- Slide Deck: "Reporter Slides" (includes video)
- Props: Stuffed animals or "Animal Picture Cards", Toy microphone or "Reporter Props" (paper mic)
- Printables: "Sentence Frame Anchor Chart"
Lesson Flow
1. Warm-up (5 min)
Show the elephant picture (Slide 2). Ask students to name its parts.
"Look closely at the elephant. What parts do you see? (Ears, trunk, tusks)"
2. Viewing (5 min)
Watch "Me at the zoo" (Slide 3). Before playing, ask students to watch for the trunk.
Discussion Questions:
- "What part of the elephant did the man think was cool?" (Trunk)
- "How many times did he say 'really'?" (Three times)
- "Why did he say it so many times?" (To show they were VERY long)
3. Activity: Be a Reporter (15 min)
Hand out badges and microphones. Show the sentence frame (Slide 6 or Anchor Chart).
Sentence Frame:
"The cool thing about this [animal] is..."
Have students take turns standing with an animal (stuffed or card) and "reporting" one feature they see.
4. Closure (5 min)
Review new words. Ask students to share one word they used today (e.g., trunk, cool, reporter).
Video Context: Me at the zoo
(Video Thumbnail Placeholder)
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw
Duration: 19 seconds
Filmed: San Diego Zoo, 2005
Significance: This was the first-ever video uploaded to YouTube.
Transcript
"All right, so here we are in front of the elephants. The cool thing about these guys is that is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks, and that's, that's cool. And that's pretty much all there is to say."
Teaching Moments
- Pause at 0:00: Ask about the setting. "Where is he? How do you know?"
- Pause at 0:05: Predict! "He says they have really long... what?"
- Pause at 0:19: Discuss the ending. "Does he say 'Goodbye'? No, just 'that's all'."
Vocabulary
- Trunk: The long nose of an elephant.
- Vlogging: Video blogging; talking to a camera.
- Observation: Looking closely at something.
