Rods in Stages

Rods are great for all ages and stages of learning. You just need to think about how to make the lessons accessible to your learners. Here are some possibilities:

Stage 1:

Students learn about Mr. Orange. They watch his story. The teacher stops the story before he tells his secret. From then on, when students write, they use an orange block around the verb. The teacher uses references to Mr. Orange during reading and writing lessons. The students get an idea of what a verb is by thinking and talking about all the things Mr. Orange can do.

Stage 2:

At some point (could be days, weeks, months later) the students are ready for more. They watch the second part of the story. They learn about Mr. Orange's snake. They begin thinking about subject-verb agreement (although not using those terms). They check sentences during reading and writing time to see if Mr. Orange needs his snake. They do exercises and activities where they play with adding or not adding a snake to their orange rod when making sentences.

Practice:

Practice activities to help students understand the purpose of Mr. Orange and his snake are available. The notebook file is preferable because it is interactive, but if you don't have an interactive whiteboard, you can use the pdf file. Both files are attached at the bottom of this page.

Stage 3:

From here, the student can move on to the other forms of simple present (negative--with the DOg story--and interrogative) and work more on when and why to use the simple present following some of the lessons on the simple present page. When this is all comfortable, the student should be ready for the Present Continuous Tense.

Mr. Orange and DOg

Stage 4:

Introduce Ingrid and Beatrice. Watch the animated story of Mr. Orange meeting these new friends. Spend time getting the students used to Beatrice's secret names. Play games like this one to practice:

Level 1: Is, Am, Are

You can also make pronoun cubes (each side of the cube has a subject pronoun on it--I, You, He, She, We, They). Play catch with a large cube or roll a small one. Students tell what BE's secret name is that corresponds to that pronoun.

Begin to do the activities and worksheets given on the Present Continuous page of this site. Add expansion activities where necessary. Keep reminding them of the story. If they leave off the BE in the verb, ask: I see the Mommy. Where is the baby? If they leave off the ING: Say: Oh, no! The baby is alone without her Mommy. The students will know just how to fix the problem in their sentences. Keep using the colors and putting them around their verbs in the sentences they right and read.