Hi, friends! 2

Lesson 2: Summary of Goals

4 class hours are recommended for Hi, friends! 2 Lesson 2 by MEXT - here's the official MEXT lesson plans pdf download.

Vocabulary includes the names of the months, ordinal numbers (a.k.a. dates). Some country names are included and some family relation words also find their way into a listening activity.

This lesson's grammar is "When is you birthday" with content based around family birthdays and holiday/ cultural day dates.

Lesson 2 Class 1

Goals

• Introduce/learn month names.
• Review national holidays and culture days.
• Learn/review some country names.
• Learn about cultural celebrations from different countries.

Activities

For practicing the months:

• Let's Chant (Hi, friends 2 Lesson 2, page 8)
• Birthday groups
  Students make month or season groups by birthday month

For reviewing national holidays:

• Let's Play 1 (Hi, friends! 2 Lesson 2, page 6)
• Talk through the holidays (the students can teach you - ask them and the teacher questions!)

For learning country names and international cultural celebrations:

• Go back to Hi, friends! 1 Lesson 1 (Let's Listen 2)
  Look at the world map and remember the country names and the international greetings.
• Let's Listen 1 (Hi, friends! 2 Lesson 2, page 7)
  Look at each flag and remember the country name. Listen and connect the cultural event to a month.

Hi, friends! Plus

Writing is now a part of the Hi, friends! curriculum with some supplements such as this official MEXT worksheet download (which includes worksheet 1, 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3).

Those four pages should also be done in 5th grade when studying Hi, friends! 1.

Lesson 2 Class 2

Goals

• Review months names
• Learn days of the month (1st, 2nd, etc)
• Get comfortable saying our own birthdays

Activities

For review month names

• Birthday groups
• Cartoon birthdays
  Introduce some cartoon/anime characters and students guess the character's birthday.

To learn the days of the month

• Count class birthdays
  As you count through the days of the month, students who have a birthday on that day should raise their hand. Happy birthday! Also: Circle all dates that have a birthday for a later activity when students say their birthday.
• Days of the month bingo - free bingo sheet download
  Rather than normal number bingo, use dates. Students should repeat each time.
• Number fingers (as a comprehension check)
  Say the date and show the numbers with your fingers. Students repeat and gesture too. Level up: you say without gesture and student repeat with gesture to show comprehension. You can also do this as a peer to peer check.

To say our own birthdays

• Let's Listen 2 (Hi, friends! 2 Lesson 2, page 8)
  (Introduce family vocab first!) As a step up to saying names, first get used to listening. To make it easy, go through the birthdays before listening.
• Birthday groups
  If you haven't already done this today, students can make groups using "My birthday is May 3rd."
• Birthday memory challenge
  If you circled all dates earlier, now you can point to a date and ask whose birthday the class thinks it is. Groups should discuss and answers should be given by the group. (The home room teacher will have to explain that if it's your birthday, please be quiet.) Once a group chooses a suspect, that student stands up and says their birthday. If incorrect, another group can try.

Lesson 2 Class 3

Goals

• Review some stuff from Hi, friends! 2 Lesson 1
• Review months and days of the month
• Ask and answer about birthday (and other) dates

Activities

For reviewing Lesson 1

• Please see Hi, friends! 2 Lesson 1

To practice dates

• Birthday groups
  This time students can say their full birthday, even the whole phrase "My birthday is June 2nd." that they learned in the previous class.
  To make it slightly new, change the grouping from single months or seasons to paired months (ie. Jan-Feb, Mar-April, etc).

To practice asking and answering "When is your birthday?"

• Stereo game
  The class asks three students standing at the front "When is your birthday?" The three answer in unison "My birthday is brahbrah brah brah." The class then has to guess who said what. Best to set the birthdays first. Tip: use the birthdays from Let's Listen 2, page 8.

Lesson 2 Class 4

Goals

• Review all Lesson 2 content
• Grammar based project or challenge

Activities

Review Activities

• Let's Chant (Hi, friends 2 Lesson 2, page 8)
• Birthday groups
• Count class birthdays
  As you count through the days of the month, students who have a birthday on that day should raise their hand. Happy birthday!
  
• Days of the month bingo - free bingo sheet download
  Rather than normal number bingo, use dates (ordinals). Students should repeat each time.
• Number fingers (as a comprehension check)
  Say the date and show the numbers with your fingers. Students repeat and gesture too. Level up: you say without gesture and student repeat with gesture to show comprehension. You can also do this as a peer to peer check.

1 Hour Project

In place of a normal class, this one hour project lets students get creative artistically in a way that lets them remember English class later on (and hopefully be inspired, with the teachers encouragement, to use English at that time too).

Hi Friends 2 Lesson 2 Project - Birthday Cards

When the subject matter for Lesson 2 is dates and birthdays, it seems a natural progression to make birthday cards.

You will need to prepare enough blank birthday cards - folded card. Give them out and students write their birthday on the front. The format is up to you:

• 1月2日
• 1/2
• 1st Feb
• February 1st

If you include English, students can copy from flashcards or textbooks.

Once the cards have birthdays on them, collect them and hand them out to a different students. Students now decorate the cards. You may wish to write some English phrases on the blackboard for students to copy for extra decoration - ie. Happy Birthday, etc. Once students are finished, they walk around and ask others "When is your birthday?" When they find the birthday match, they give the card and say "Happy birthday!"

Tip: If students write their birthday date inside the card, it helps stop students just looking at the card and moving on without speaking any English.

Alternative Project - A Calendar of Birthdays

Provide the students with paper, color and a few English phrases they can copy onto the calendar they make - perhaps with different groups being responsible for different months and every student's birthday being listed on the calendar. Students could wander between groups and tell each other when their birthday is and ensure their birthday is listed.

The calendar would be displayed in the class.