teaching resources

Christmas Puzzles

12/09/2020 by admin

It’s the time of year to start planning for Christmas parties! Like Halloween parties, I’m tasked with organizing a series of activities that are easy to set up and repeat over multiple days for dozens of classes ranging in age from wee little ones through junior high students.

Many games I use in class are for introducing and reviewing vocabulary. Once a year I have a window of opportunity to introduce or repeat holiday vocabulary that I otherwise never get the chance to use during the rest of the school year. Over time, and with repetition, my students pick up Halloween words like mummy and jack-o-lantern and Christmas words like elf and wreath.

Many of the paper activities I use have been created over many years and recycled as my kids grow up and move on. I’ve also used these puzzles in my adult classes as a quick warm-up during the holiday season.

You can download a free collection of paper puzzles to play in your own classes. Merry Christmas! These activities are great for introducing holiday vocabulary before parties, as a cool-down activity during parties, or a last-chance review after the holidays. Hopefully, they will spark some ideas for creating your own puzzles! They include answer keys and word banks.

Kinney Brothers Publishing Christmas games

https://www.kinneybrothers.com/DOWNLOADS/CHRISTMAS_PUZZLES.pdf

If you’re looking for more Christmas cheer, check out these Bingo, Tic-Tac-Toe, and (free) Pairs activities from my online store! Whether you’re playing in class or online, these games are easy enough to play with your youngest students. Christmas I Have/Who Has is only available as a bonus in the Christmas Game Bundle!

Donald's English Classroom Christmas games

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2021!

Donald Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing

Blank Board Games

10/20/2020 by admin

Swimming with Sharks Kinney Brothers Publishing

Growing up in a family with six siblings, there was no end of board games to play. I remember playing Candy Land and learning colors. Checkers and chess taught me strategy. Monopoly presented a world of real estate, property taxes, and banking. The Game of Life taught me about life insurance and the cost of living. There was Scrabble, backgammon, and tons of card games. Negotiating the rules, playing fair, and of course, arguing, were all important elements of the learning process. There were also important life lessons in all these games: playing a game is an exercise in cooperation, taking risks can be thrilling and advantageous, and when supportive, competition can push you to be better.

Fast-forward twenty years, and I found myself making board games for my ESL classes. When I was building the textbook, Phonics & Spelling, Book 2, interactive games and puzzles were important and I included many, as well as a game on the back cover! On one page, I constructed a simple CVC game board that I decorated with shark clip art and titled Swimming with Sharks! Like every page in the book, I tested the game in class many times. Of all that I created, none of the board games excited my kids like the threat of being eaten by a shark.

Click on the image to see larger.

Phonics and Spelling Book 2 Kinney Brothers Publishing

Swimming with Sharks! is very simple. Players take turns rolling dice, moving their counters around the board, and saying the word they land on out loud. The goal is to be the first to reach the “Safe” ship. If they land on “net,” they can cross over to the next space. Landing on “red,” means returning to the previous “red,” or “Start.” If players land on the “shark’s nose” toward the end of the board, they have to go all the way back to “Start.”

So popular was this board game, my brother, Michael, urged me to create a blank board so that different vocabulary could be inserted in place of the CVC words.

Michael explained in his blog post how he used the blank version of the board for dialogue drills, such as What’s your name? How old are you? Where do you live? Do you like…? Do you have…? What’s this? and What’s that?

“To practice simple dialogues, I use a separate Swimming with Sharks! game board that has blank spaces instead of words. When students land on a blank space, they must ask another player a question. If the student cannot think of a question to ask, they must go back the same number rolled on the dice. Likewise, if the student who is asked cannot answer the question, they must move their counter back that many places on the board. The same rules apply for landing on “net,” the color “red,” and “shark’s nose” as the original game in Phonics & Spelling, Book 2.”

The blank version of Swimming with Sharks! can be used with any set of vocabulary, Q&A, or dialogues you want your students to practice. I always have several laminated boards in my desk ready at a moment’s notice. You can download the blank game board here. It’s on us! Enjoy!

Board games to get your kids talking!

Blank Game Boards Bundle Donald's English Classroom

If you like to play board games in class, take a look at this Blank Game Board Bundle from Donald’s English Classroom. These blank boards offer teachers the flexibility of creating their own games. For preschool through adult language learners, board games give students repetitive practice in a format that makes learning fun!

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing

Phonics & Spelling Series – Planning Ahead

02/06/2020 by admin

Phonics and Spelling Series Kinney Brothers Publishing

In the last post, I talked about Stories For Young Readers from Kinney Brothers Publishing and how to purchase the series for your classes. In this post, I’ll focus on our Phonics & Spelling series. I’ll provide links for purchasing and recommended support materials for each text to help you plan for new classes. Check out this post if you’re looking for supplementary resources for your classes.

For many teachers, a solid phonics program is the cornerstone of their pre-K thru elementary classes. Focused phonics lessons and phonemic awareness improve pronunciation, listening comprehension, and give students the confidence to read and understand English. The Kinney Brothers Publishing five-book Phonics &Spelling series is designed to teach kids the fundamental sounds and spelling of English in a multi-year, step-by-step ESL program.

The Phonics & Spelling series is also published by Independent Publishers International (I.P.I.) in Japan and available with a special discount for overseas customers through David Paul’s ETJ Book Service.

You’ll find an abundance of support materials for this series in our online store, Donald’s English Classroom. Visit for downloadable flashcards, charts, games, and activities.

A to Z is the first step to introducing very young ESL students to the ABCs and phonics. If your kids are just learning to hold a pencil, this is the perfect primer. Children love coloring the large images and build dexterity writing the upper and lower-case letters. Included are easy dot-to-dot coloring pages, mazes, and matching exercises. Check out the preview to learn more.

A to Z Kinney Brothers Publishng — Flash Card Set – ABC Flash Card Set – Phonics Bingo – ABC & Phonics I Have/Who Has – ABC Bingo Animals – Sea Fishing

ABC & Phonics, Book 1 lays the groundwork for phonetic based learning and focuses on writing and identifying upper and lower case ABCs. With basic writing, matching, and ordering exercises, teachers can readily assess student progress. The alphabet is broken down into four sections, a-f, g-l, m-r and s-z with a review for each section. Click here for support materials that include flashcards, charts, games, and activities that make learning the ABCs fun! You can download a preview for this textbook here.

ABC and Phonics Kinney Brothers Publishing — Flash Card Set – ABC Flash Card Set – ABC Bingo – ABC Fishing – Alphabet Charts – Exit Tickets

Phonics & Spelling, Book 2 begins with a review of the ABCs and sets students on their first exercises in sounding out, reading, and writing three-letter (CVC) words. Learned vocabulary is then set into easy sentences to teach students fundamental sentence constructs and meaning. Step by step, students also learn how to read and write a simple self-introduction. The exercises progress in an easy-to-teach, easy-to-comprehend approach adaptable to any program. Included are review pages, puzzles, games, and reading exercises that students find challenging and fun! Be sure to check out the preview here!

Phonics & Spelling, Book 3 takes students further in building English reading and writing skills. Book 3 begins with a review of CVC words and then takes students to the next challenge of reading, writing, and spelling silent ‘e’ (CVCe) words, words with ea-ee-ey spelling, as well as th, sh, and ch digraphs. Exercise pages also include practice with numbers, plurals, more extended reading practice, and basic question forms using do and can. Check out the preview here!

Phonics and Spelling, Book 3 Kinney Brothers Publishing — Flash Card Set – CVCe Word Charts – CVCe I Have/Who Has – Silent e Bingo – Phonics Activity Set – ESL Pronunciation Practice

Phonics & Spelling, Book 4 completes the phonics series with almost two hundred packed pages of phonics lessons, reading and writing practice, puzzles, spelling tests, and Q&A drills. Exercises include consonant blends, digraphs, diphthongs, and practice with silent k, g, and ion. The phonics lessons in this textbook create a solid foundation that supports students in their future English language learning. Download a preview here.

Phonics and Spelling Book 4 Kinney Brothers Publishing — Flash Card Set – Diphthong & Digraph Charts – Task Cards – 320 Word Flash Card Set – Clock Bingo – Community Places

If you’d like to learn more about all Kinney Brothers Publishing has to offer, please download our catalogues! Peruse the complete lineup of our Global Edition ESL Textbooks or check out our ESL Store right from your desktop! Sign up for our newsletter and download a free CVC I Have/Who Has Activity Set!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at info@kinneybrothers.com.

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing
kinneybrothers.com

Using Maps in Class

12/11/2019 by admin

When I began learning Japanese in the early 80s, it was imperative that I learn how to ask for directions from the get-go – especially in Tokyo. Not only did I have to deal with my lacking sense of direction, I was also functionally illiterate as I didn’t know any Japanese when I first arrived. A guide book and a paper train map were always in my bag. I also remember the huge city map on the kitchen wall in the foreigner’s house where I lived; an invaluable reference for fresh-off-the-boat travelers like me. To whatever train station I might be going, I regularly stopped at the local police box to ask directions – even if I already knew where I was going. Why? It was excellent language practice and I milked it.

Looking back, I was lucky. I was in the real world, immersed in a new language, and learning daily. Because we teach in a box, we have to find inventive ways to bring meaningful, real-world language into the classroom. Maps offer a visual opportunity for building language skills.

In my own book publications, I created maps and activities that are included in the Phonics & Spelling series, Q&A worksheets, and referenced for nearly every story in the Stories For Young Readers textbooks. I wanted my kids to know where they are in the world, learn about someplace new, and not be afraid to ask for directions or offer help to someone in need.

Stories For Young Readers Lesson Packs Kinney Brothers Publishing

Consider all the language used when dealing with maps:

geographical vocabulary – rivers, lakes, mountains
community places, cities, capitals, countries
prepositions of place – in, on, in front of, behind
directionals – north, south, right, left, forward, back, around
ordinal numbers
grammar tenses – past, present, and future
map vocabulary – legends, icons, scales

Donald's English Classroom Community Places

Starting early…

As my kids get older and catch on to the fact that I don’t really swim from the U.S. to Japan every day, we start learning community places, easy country names, and playing games with flags. Flags are already familiar to many sports-minded kids and there’s no reason to be ignorant about your favorite team’s home turf. In preparation for the Jidou Eiken tests, community place names and geographic vocabulary are a regular part of my flashcard activities. Keep in mind, these kinds of exercises can be just as informative and entertaining in your adult ESL classes!

When students begin moving about in their community and become aware that some people come from other places, like me, we start working with maps. Map activities pull together a variety of language skills — language you’ve probably been teaching your kids since they were little! It begins with prepositions of place and sight words like at, in, on, next to, and in front of. Interrogatives like where, what, and how come early on when asking the most rudimentary questions.

Once students develop informational reading skills, we look at town maps and tackle exercises in asking for and giving directions. We start with simple commands like Turn right! Turn left! and Go straight! Similar to community flashcard exercises in the past, students express where they are or want to go on the maps, e.g., I want to go to the station, or I’m at the library. Especially with large classes, big wall maps are essential for leading students through these types of activities.

Map making…

I went out in search of maps for my classroom many times and in many places around Tokyo. I could never find what I was looking for! Available maps were the wrong language, too expensive, too complicated, too big, too small, and so on. Yes, I’m picky, and I’m not going to have something in my classroom simply for decoration. What I wanted were easy-to-read and colorful wall maps appropriate for upper-elementary ESL kids in English. Simple to find, right? Nope.

So, I started creating my own. Because I don’t have a poster-size printer, I resized digital images and created wall maps out of regular sheets of paper. The students and I glued them together as a class activity, and viola! I have wall maps of each continent, a town map for practicing directions, and a U.S. map so I can talk about where I came from. Each map is dedicated to the class that helped put it together with a picture of the students and the date.

Doald's English Classroom Map Instructions

I also wanted the maps to be an interactive resource in my lesson plans. So, along with the wall maps, I created charts, worksheets, plus blank and numbered maps for classroom activities and handouts for students’ interactive notebooks. These are items not normally sold with maps you buy at a bookstore. Importantly, all the student materials are congruent with the wall maps and I’m not hobbling together different resources to create a series of lessons.

I’m pleased to say, these maps are now available in my online store. Click on the images to learn more. I hope you find these maps useful in your own classes.

Map Worksheets Kinney Brothers Publishing

Playing with maps…

Here are some map activities I’ve found particularly useful in class. If you have some activities you especially enjoy, help a teacher out and let us know in the comments below!

Create your own town! With a blank town map and a list of community places, allow students to create their own towns! Then have students ask and give directions based on their created maps. Let students visit each other’s town or vote on their favorite town!
Give students a numbered or blank map. Beginning with a labeled place, like a station, dictate directions and have students label the place of arrival on their own maps. This works well as an assessment of lessons taught.
Ask students to imagine a country they’d like to travel to for vacation. Create an outline of topics you would like them to research: weather, geography, food, history, etc. This is great grammar practice for future conditionals. With the online tools available for research, the possibilities are endless!

Historical maps Kinney Brothers Publishing

For practice with past tense, display a historical map next to a current map. This activity gets your students really scanning a map closely to discover the differences.
Teachers who teach from their home country are more likely to have students from a variety of places. A map can be a wonderful springboard for enjoyable and informative language practice. Pin the countries where students are from or have traveled to on a world map. Students love to talk about what they know best: their home country and all its unique cultural differences!

Finally, if you’re teaching about the United States and want your students to know their state names, capitals, and regions, check out my post on U.S.A. Maps and download a free map puzzle!

I hope this post encourages you to consider using maps more often in your ESL lessons. I’ll finish with a favorite quote:

I was completely drawn to other lands. I discovered with time that it’s a thirst for other people, for otherness, for something fascinating and mysterious. Robert Lepage

As always, best of luck in your classes!
Donald Kinney

Teaching Plurals

11/08/2019 by admin

In speaking exercises, I teach my ESL kids plurals early on, for the main reason that it can’t be avoided for very long when teaching even the simplest phrases, such as I like… or I have… Importantly, when I teach kids plural sounds, I’m also preparing them for future lessons using the same morphological rules governing third-person verbs and possessives. My goal is to start the exposure early, be intentional in its roll out, and use the vocabulary as much as possible in later lessons.

Looking at the rules above, it’s a LOT to take in. Even I can’t remember all the letter-to-sound associations! It’s like trying to remember the order of stacked adjectives! Ugh! It’s much easier to get students used to using the language rather than memorizing and then applying the rules.

The Roll Out

My youngest pre-school kids get their first exposure to plurals with picture books, songs, and chants that focus on counting. Then, when I begin formally teaching plurals, I remind them that they’ve already been using the language.

When teaching plurals to my kindergarten and early elementary school students, I don’t teach pronunciation as a set of rules, but instead, stress awareness of the sounds made when modifying nouns to make them plural; the three sounds being /s/, /z/, and /ɨz/. I break this down into a series of lessons that 1) introduce listening to the differences in singular and plural words grouped by final consonant sounds, 2) identifying the voiced and unvoiced sounds with simple interactive activities that include practice making the sounds, and 3) employing plurals in games and activities – all in that order.

I start with singular and plural flash card examples, saying each word and asking students if they can identify where the words are different and what that different sound is. Reading them again, I have students identify which word is being said, sometimes with eyes closed. Next we do the same activity using simple sentences students are already familiar with, e.g., I like cats or I have one cat. A simple Missing Word activity is perfect for getting students to use the words in the context of a game.

Plural Flash Cards Kinney Brothers Publishing

Soon after this, I introduce vocabulary with the -z sound and we compare the final sounds of the words from the previous lessons. How are they different? Can you make the two different sounds? Can you feel the difference in the voiced and unvoiced sounds when you touch your throat?

When the class is ready, I add –ez words. I ask students how the last sounds of cats, dogs, and foxes are different and we practice making the sounds. Once again, I get the kids using the vocabulary with simple flashcard activities such as a Circle Pass amongst students. Be sure to check out my 50+ Flash Card Activities if you’re looking for more game ideas.

Plural Flash Cards 2 Kinney Brothers Publishing

Importantly, leave the cards on a board or table accessible to students during the weeks you are teaching these lessons. This allows kids to experiment on their own without a teacher hovering over them.

Plural Vibes

The reason we use -s and -z sounds is a matter of language efficiency when speaking. You can teach kids to be aware of the vibration (voiced) or lack thereof (unvoiced) in the sound of the last consonant by having them touch their throats when saying the words. In words like cat, there is no vibration (unvoiced) in the last consonant, and the –s continues this non-vibrating sound into the plural. The final g in dog has a vibration (voiced) and, for efficiency in speaking, the –z sound of the plural continues this vibration as a plural. For native speakers, this is one of those “default” rules we employ without even realizing it, but will readily recognize if misspoken. For more on this, check out the video below from the Elemental English Youtube channel.

The effect of these lessons is to build a physical and aural language experience that students can draw from as in Jean Berko Gleason‘s Wug Test below. Keep in mind, this isn’t going to happen without extensive exposure and practice.

J.B. Gleason devised the Wug Test as part of her earliest research (1958), which used nonsense words to gauge children’s acquisition of morphological rules‍—‌for example, the “default” rule that most English plurals are formed by adding an /s/, /z/ or /ɨz/ sound depending on the final consonant, e.g., hat–hats, eye–eyes, witch–witches. A child is shown simple pictures of an imaginary creature or activity, with a nonsense name, and prompted to complete a statement about it: This is a WUG. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two________. The Wug Test also includes questions involving verb conjugations, possessives, and other common derivational morphemes.

Review, review review!

Once the lessons have been introduced, it’s time to find opportunities to use them! Review activities and additional vocabulary will keep the lessons fresh in students’ minds.

Monotonously flipping through flashcard decks isn’t the only way to review. Games are great for keeping your students’ skills up. As your kids get older, you can up-cycle the games you played when they were younger coupled with the new lessons. Vocabulary review activities like Bingo and I Have/Who Has are perfectly adaptable. Be sure to give students the opportunity to practice the language before playing the games.

Plural Games Kinney Brothers Publishing Donald's English Classroom

Charts are another capital way of keeping the vocabulary in front of your students. Include them in interactive notebooks or tack charts on a classroom board to provide students with references that can be used when speaking and writing.

Plural Charts Kinney Brothers Publishing Donald's English Classroom

Later on, my kids are reintroduced to plurals in their Phonics & Spelling books. Being already familiar with nouns as plurals, they’re prepared to create sentences with new vocabulary in context, like these are and those are.

Phonics Plural Lessons Kinney Brothers Publishing Donald's English Classroom

For older students and adults who already have vocabulary at their command, check out this plural set of readings and activities when reviewing or planning your next pronunciation boot camp lessons.

Pronunciation Bingo and I Have Who Has activity sets

Forward Teaching

Again, these early lessons are going to be helpful when you get ready to teach third-person verb conjugations and possessives, as the morphological rules that apply to the ending sounds of verbs are exactly the same as plurals. Remind your students of this simple pronunciation fact!

eat – eats
run – runs
dance – dances

it – its
her – hers
watch – watch’s

From their first exposure with counting books and plural pronunciation activities, your students’ lessons should build toward future fluency goals. Begin early and loop review activities into your lesson plans as students build their language skills. And don’t forget to have fun!

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing

U.S.A. Map Puzzles

01/16/2019 by admin

Donald's English Classroom Kinney Brothers Publishing Map Puzzles

These U.S. Map Puzzles on Powerpoint and Google Slides will help your kids learn the names, abbreviations, shapes, regions, and capitals of the United States. Whether you teach social studies, ESL, geography, or history, you’ll be sure to use these materials for years to come! Be sure to check out the free map puzzle at the end of this post!

Included in this download are 6 Powerpoint files and links to Google Slides files. Each slide deck includes 25 slides – 11 master map puzzles and 14 student map puzzles. Differentiated to reach a wide range of student abilities, you can use these maps in class for beginners just learning about the United States, to upper-grade students learning state capitals and U.S. history.

This file is also compatible to Regional Maps worksheets and is included in the Regional Maps Worksheets Bundle!

Check out a sampling of the 150 slides this resource has to offer! To get you started, download a full USA Map Puzzle on Powerpoint. It’s free!