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If you are an English teacher looking for literature based materials, we can help you with texts, activties and listening materials

Next update June 2008

BritLit
Using literature in the ELT classroom

Old MacDonald had a farm

The kit includes ideas to engage the children in the tale in addition to a host of activities to exploit the story and to extend the topic of farms and farm animals. Old MacDonald may be one of the most famous fictitious farmers, if not the most famous farmer, in the world. His fantastic farm has been celebrated in a variety of formats over the years, as a chant, as a song and as a book. The characters may change from one version to another, with a sheep here and a pig there, here a horse, there a dog, everywhere an Old Mac, but whatever creatures live on the farm, they're always very noisy!

You can also find computer based interactive materials for students on British Council's LearnEnglish Kids website.

Downloads - The downloads are divided into three sections

  • Activities - is a collection of materials related to the story
  • Flashcards - is to help you build up vocabulary and support understanding
  • Additional activities - is a collection of materials related to the theme of farms and anima

Activities - is a collection of materials related to the story

  • Colour Old MacDonald's animals - Teacher's notes
  • Colour Old MacDonald's animals - A4 size animals
  • Label Old MacDonald - Label Old MacDonald
  • Look and spell the animal words - Unscramble the letters to spell the names
  • Old MacDonald animal noises - Match the speech bubbles to the animals
  • Old MacDonald riddles - Read sentences and guess the animals
  • Old MacDonald card games - Play Pelmanism, Snap and Animal noises
  • Old MacDonald vocabulary checklist - Read and repeat key words
  • Order Old MacDonald animals - Listen to the story and put the animals in order
  • Read and colour Old MacDonald - Read and colour according to description
  • Spot the differences pairwork - Identify the differences
  • Spot the difference sentence completion - Consolidates the speaking practice
  • What is it? - Look at the pictures and guess the animals

Flashcards - is to help you build up vocabulary and support understanding

  • Farm and tractor - Large A4 visuals to present farm & tractor
  • Farm animals - Dogs, sheep, cows, pigs, horse, horse & cat, donkey etc.
  • Old MacDonald - Large A4 visual to present character
  • Old MacDonald had a farm - Old MacDonald, farm, dogs, sheep, ducks etc.
  • Mini flashcards with pictures and words - Smaller visuals of all vocabulary items above to cut out and stick onto card
  • Old MacDonald had a farm (with words) - Visuals and words

Additional activities

  • Farm animal board game
  • Farm animal crossword A
  • Farm animal crossword B
  • Farm animal facts
  • Farm animal noises
  • Farm animal wordsearch A
  • Farm animal wordsearch B
  • How many are there 1
  • How many are there 2
  • Label the farm
  • Label parts of the animals
  • Look and read
  • Match the animals and the numbers
  • Old MacDonald had a house
  • Old MacDonald had a zoo
  • Picture dictionary
  • What the animals do on the farm
  • Whose legs are they?

'You can download these files from the Old MacDonald had a farm page on teaching English'

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