How to practise 'there is/are' with young learners: beautiful grammar 😍

I think you've all already noticed that I care a lot about what my educational materials look like

(a trait befitting any Montessori method fan, me thinks). When I make something it has to be pretty, or I'm not happy.

A couple of months ago I needed something to help my kids with "there is/are". I wanted something that had pictures for a sort of matching activity. So I went online to find the pictures. I was looking .... and looking ... and looking ... aaaand I went to sleep. There was nothing there that I liked! Nothing was pretty enough and even if I found a nice picture it would be just this one picture and I wanted a whole set!

People who have seen my attempts at drawing know that my talent is pretty much at the level of a 4-year-old drawing stick people ... and my sticks are crooked 😂

So I had an idea but no artwork. I wanted to create something but I had no skills. I had a plan .... and I had (still have 😅) a crazy talented best mate Barney Potts 😃 A couple of e-mails later Barney agreed to draw some pictures for me. I knew I would not be disappointed cause I'd seen what he can do!

A few weeks later Mr.Potts sent the pictures and I loved every single one of them! I still can't believe how beautiful they are! It was now on me to turn them into teaching aids. A week later I had a set that:

help practise "there is/are"

help differentiate between plurals and singulars

help drill the use of "a/an" before singular nouns

help practise prepositions of place

help practise "furniture" vocab

help practise "toys" vocab

And, as most of my materials, the cards do not require the teacher to work with the student. They all have answer cards for the students to check their own answers. Control of error, am I right? 😁

I'll let you be the judge of the final product 😉

It is a matching activity: the student need to create a sentence for each picture using the velcro cards. If they don't know the vocabulary I give them a dictionary or a picture dictionary and tell them to check it.

Seeing as those cards were the first teaching aid that was 100% my idea (not book inspired) they deserved a wooden box in which they proudly stand on the shelves of my old classroom. 4C will be getting their own set very soon 😊

Get your There is/are Cards set here!

There is/there are cards

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PS: if you like Barney's artwork he'd be happy to hear from you! Follow his on Instagram @barney_potts_art