Many thanks to macaroniross for the idea for this lesson! I really liked the idea, but thought it was a little too short and too easy, so I made my own with questions starting out easy and ramping up in difficulty. Enjoy!
Start off by reviewing how to count up to 20 in English and make sure students can at least kind of do it. Then move onto the quiz. There will be a character and some item that's associated with the character will drop from the ceiling into a question mark box. Students have to count the number of the item that's asked for (eg, Mario -> mushrooms, Minion -> banana, Yoshi -> eggs, etc).
Level 1 is fairly easy. Students shouldn't have much trouble counting this level, except the last question with Bowser, which is designed to trick them (the answer is zero because none of the fireballs stay in the box). Level 2 adds another item in addition to the one you're asking for, or asks for a specific color of something. Students should be able to do it, but you might get some wrong answers here and there. Level 3 (actually level 10) is really stupid hard. I can't even count the ones in this level, but it's really fun. It adds a second box, and wants students to count the number in each box separately. Lots of wrong answers for this section, but they really enjoy the challenge, and it gets them saying the numbers more!
After the falling objects quiz, I've included a short game to do in however much time you have left (likely in the realm of 12-15 minutes). It's called "Say 20," where the goal is to be the person to say 20. You play in a group, and each person can say one, two, or three numbers before going on to the next person. If they say 20, they win, and then start again. After a few minutes of playing simply like this, I add an additional rule, where if they say three numbers at once, it skips the next person's turn. Depending on how quickly the first part of the lesson goes, there might not be time to add any rules.
I've included a lesson plan written in English and Japanese, so your Japanese homeroom teachers can read it and know exactly what the plan is.
The font used in this is UDデジタル教科書. It should be on all of your school computers, but I don't have it on my personal computer at home. I prefer it because it has the handwritten lowercase "a" as well as other handwriting differences, but doesn't look like garbage like Comic Sans. If you don't have it, there might be some formatting discrepancies.
Credit to the respective copyright holders for use of the characters' pictures.
These are truly the best! Very very well done, and easy for everyone to understand! Thank you thank you thank you!!
Thank you for the kind words! I spent a lot of time this year upping the production value on all of my lessons, so I figured I might as well share. XD
Oh my god, this is REALLY good
LOVE this! My JHS special needs class got an absolute kick out of it. We did it with the English numbers written on the board to help them, but it was just challenging enough to keep them having fun. Props to you!!
Brilliant job! You clearly have a passion and ability to teach English in Japan. Thank you for sharing.
This is such a fun activity!!! Thank you so much for your hard work. I can't wait to try this with my classes!
My students seemed to enjoy this a lot! I had them use whiteboards to write their answers and practice saying them out loud so that it didn't become a shouting contest. Thanks for sharing!
This looks so fun! I am so excited to use these with my kids. Thank you for this wonderful activity.
Thank you for sharing, my students had a blast.
I love it; thank you for sharing.
This is awesome!!!
Thank you for this!! My students had so much fun, and 2/3 classes even counted out loud in English I was so happy TT oh and during level 10, we actually had the students pair up so they each could count one box instead of two, which they enjoyed!
my third graders loved this! thank you! Also, note for any Mac users, be sure to use PowerPoint and not Keynote because Keynote doesn't display the text the extact same (the highlights) and the objects moving is also different (slower and sometimes in the wrong place)