Clothes Lesson Plan

Notes:

This is an active lesson with a really fun dressing up game.
NOTE: You will need to prepare some old clothes to use in the lesson (see point 1 below).

Lesson Procedure:

Warm Up and Maintenance:

See our "Warm Up & Wrap Up" page.

New Learning and Practice:

1. Prepare as many old (adult-sized) clothes as possible
Before class you need to collect as many old (adult size) clothes as you can. Have at least the following: shirt, pants/trousers, socks, jacket, shoes, hat – however, other clothes will be useful as well, such as skirt, dress, coat, jeans, shorts, blouse, sweater, neck tie, t-shirt, vest. If you can’t get enough, ask parents to bring in some old clothes for the lesson. The clothes need to be adult size as the students are going to put them over their own clothes – having such big clothes actually makes the activity more fun!

2. Introduce the clothes vocab
No doubt the large pile of clothes in the classroom will have attracted a great amount of attention, so you'll have little difficulty in introducing the topic!

Settle the class down and get everyone to sit down. Ask for a volunteer and have him/her stand at the front of the class with you. Tell the class the volunteer is going to get dressed up – with as many different types of clothes as possible! Pull out the first clothing item (e.g. a t-shirt). Elicit / teach and chorus the word for the item. Then help your volunteer to put it on. Only put on each item of clothing when you are satisfied that everyone has chorused the word correctly. Then move onto the next clothing item. As you select each item think about the order – you’ll want your volunteer to be putting the jacket, shoes and hat on last. Keep adding clothes until your volunteer is really well dressed up.

3. Practice the clothing vocab with flashcards
Help the volunteer undress and then get everyone to look at the board. Make sure you have the same clothing flashcards as the old clothes you are using. Stick the first flashcard on the board and elicit the vocab and write the word clearly below it. Do the same for all of the other flashcards. Next tell everyone to close their eyes and remove one of the flashcards from the board. Now shout "Open your eyes" – everyone must shout out the missing flashcard. Play this until all the flashcards have been elicited.

4. Play "Team Racing"
Divide the class into 2 teams. Line up the 2 teams at one end of the classroom with the old clothes on the floor at the other end. You will shout out an instruction (e.g. "Put on some socks!") and one member from each team will race against the other to the pile of clothes, put on the clothing item and run back to their team. The person who gets back first wins a point for his/her team. At the end, the team with the most points is the winner.

5. Sing "Let's Get Dressed"
Prepare everyone for the song first. Make sure the following clothes are on the floor: shirt, pants/trousers, socks, jacket, shoes, hat. If you have enough for everyone to get dressed at the same time you can do the song with everyone participating with the actions. If not, have a few students do the song actions while everyone else sings along (the words are simple) – you can give everyone a go by playing the song a few times.

Sing "Let's Get Dressed" The song is also an active listening exercise. Students will have to listen for the clothing item and then put it on. Pile the clothes in a big heap and start the song. As the first clothing item is mentioned (shirt) the students have to scramble in the pile of clothes to find a shirt and put it on before the next item of clothing is mentioned. As the song is played the students put on all the clothes until they are fully dressed. Then finish the game by getting the students to race in taking off their adult-sized clothes – the first to remove them is the winner!

Lyrics for "Let's Get Dressed"

It’s time to go to school
Let’s get dressed!

Put on your shirt, put on your shirt,
Quick, get ready, put on your shirt.

Put on your *pants, put on your *pants,
Quick, get ready, put on your *pants.

Put on your socks, put on your socks,
Quick, get ready, put on your socks.

Put on your jacket, put on your jacket
Quick, get ready, put on your jacket.

Put on your shoes, put on your shoes,
Quick, get ready, put on your shoes.

Put on your hat, put on your hat,
Quick, get ready, put on your hat.

It’s time to go to school,
It’s time to go to school,
Quick, get ready, let’s get dressed!

(* In the British English version of the song the word “pants” is replaced with “trousers”).

(download MP3 here)

Gestures for "Let's Get Dressed"

During the song your students will play a wonderful dressing up game – a lot of fun! Before class you need to collect as many old (adult size) clothes as you can for the following vocab: shirt, pants/trousers, socks, jacket, shoes, hat. If you can’t get enough, ask parents to bring in some old clothes for the lesson. The clothes need to be adult size as the students are going to put them over their own clothes – having such big clothes actually makes the activity more fun!

Depending on how many clothes you can find, you can either have everyone dress up at the same time or you can have a few students come up to the front of the class to do the activity.

Pile the clothes in a big heap and start the song. As the first clothing item is mentioned (shirt) the students have to scramble in the pile of clothes to find a shirt and put it on before the next item of clothing is mentioned. As the song is played the students put on all the clothes until they are fully dressed. Then finish the game by getting the students to race in taking off their adult-sized clothes – the first to remove them all is the winner!

We also have a video that you can stream in class to sing along with (Internet connection required):

6. Read classroom reader "Let's Get Dressed"
Before class, download and print off the reader "Let's Get Dressed". As you go through each page, point to the pictures, elicit each key word, and have your students try to guess which item of clothing the character will put on next, for example:

Teacher: What's this? (pointing at hat)
Students: It's a hat!
Teacher: And what's this? (pointing at shoes)
Students: Shoes!
etc.
Teacher: Ok, so what do you think Ken will put on first?
Students: His socks?
Teacher: Well, let's see. (Turns page) ... Oh look, it's his shirt!
etc.

Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. eliciting colors) and getting them to point to their clothes as well.

After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and read through the story one more time (without stopping for questions, etc.) as students mark on their sheets the order that Ken puts his clothes on. Then go through the answers as a class.

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Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader (Internet connection required):

7. Do cut and paste craft sheets
We have two different cut and paste craft sheets for clothes: "Dress Up Craft" (for lower levels) and "Clothes Craft" (for higher levels). For younger students, cut out the clothes before class so they only need to color and glue the clothes onto the bodies. You can do this craft as an active listening exercise but giving instructions on which clothes to cut out and what colors they should be:

E.g. "First cut out the socks, color them blue and glue them on the boy"

So that everyone has to listen and cut out/color the correct items.

8. Create a "Clothes Catalogue Scene"
For this you will need to bring in some old catalogues or magazines. Put the class into small groups and give each group a catalogue, a large piece of construction paper/card, scissors, glue and some felt tip pens. Tell the class that they have 10 minutes to create a scene with lots of people: the students will have to cut out clothes from the catalogue and draw to create the picture. It will help if you have already created your own scene so students can see what they have to do.

As everyone is creating their scenes, walk around the classroom asking lots of questions related to the vocab (What is he wearing?, etc.) and helping with any new vocab.

Finally, have each group present the scene using the structure "He / She is wearing" (e.g. "She is wearing a blue hat"). You can put all the scenes on the classroom walls as decoration and to review in future lessons.

Wrap Up:

1. Assign Homework: "Colorful Clothes" or "Jungle Clothes" worksheets (depending on the level of your students).
2. Wrap up the lesson with some ideas from our "Warm Up & Wrap Up" page.