What kind of dinosaur are you? Are you a carnivore or a herbivore? What do you like to eat? This is a Dinosaur Food EFL ESL lesson plan for primary aged children from about 7 to 11 years old. It will last about one hour although you could add more activities to make it last longer. In this lesson we’ll learn about what the kids in your class like and don’t like to eat using lots of fun songs and games. We’ll also talk about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores and what dinosaurs like to eat. During the class, we’ll invent a restaurant for dinosaurs and create a menu for it. If you enjoy this lesson plan, it’s the first in a short series of dinosaur lessons.
For this Dinosaur Food EFL ESL lesson plan, you will need:
- Paper and coloring markers
- Tables and chairs to make a classroom restaurant
- Plastic food or food flashcards – something like this would be perfect
Songs and videos:
- Do you like Broccoli Ice Cream? by Super Simple Songs
- Carnivore Herbivore Omnivore Song by Mr. R.’s Songs for Teaching
Introduction: What do you like to eat?
Begin the class with your normal Hello routine or use one of my ideas for starting a lesson. Then get out your plastic food or flashcards and start looking at them together. Ask your class if they like different foods and get them to reply, “yes, I do” or “no, I don’t”. Give out the food to the kids and put them in pairs so that they can ask each other the question. Change partners a few times so that they can talk about different foods. Get back together as a group and go around the class asking the children what they like to eat. Then ask one of the children to tell you what one of his or her classmates likes to eat. For example, “What does Sophie like to eat?”. “She likes pizza and she doesn’t like spinach.”
Let’s sing a song
It’s time for some singing. Sing the Do you like Broccoli Ice cream? song together. Don’t forget to do lots of actions. Then, with the class, try and make up some crazy food combinations of your own and adapt the song to them. You could have fish milkshake or strawberry pizza. Let your imagination go wild! If you want to use a different Food song, you can find lots here.
Carnivore, Herbivore or Omnivore?
Here come the dinosaurs! Either draw on the board or use flashcards of three dinosaurs: one carnivore, one herbivore and one omnivore. I use a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a Diplodocus and a Triceratops. It doesn’t really matter which dinosaurs you use, it’s really to give the kids an idea. When you’ve drawn them or stuck the flashcards on the board, ask the kids what each one likes to eat. T-Rex likes to eat meat, Diplodocus likes to eat plants and Triceratops eats both meat and plants. As they answer, draw pictures of the different food next to each dinosaur. Then explain that T-Rex is a carnivore, Diplodocus is a herbivore and triceratops is an omnivore.
Play a Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore game
Put the three different dinosaurs in different parts of the classroom. Then while singing the refrain of the Carnivore, Herbivore, Omnivore song, march around the classroom together. When you stop singing, call out “carnivore”, “herbivore” or “omnivore” and get the kids to run to the correct dinosaur. When they get there, ask one of them to make a sentence, “T-Rex is a carnivore, he likes meat” and so on.
Let’s make a menu for a Dinosaur Restaurant
Give out paper and markers and put the kids into small groups or pairs. Explain that they are going to create a menu for a restaurant for dinosaurs. Tell them to remember that they could have dinosaur customers who are carnivores, herbivores or omnivores and that there should be something for everyone on the menu. They can use their imagination and think of lots of crazy food combinations that dinosaurs might like. Give them some examples. In my class, we had dinosaur egg fried rice and swamp leaf soup. They also need to think of a name for their restaurant. Give them 5 or 10 minutes to do this and use this time to put out tables and chairs to turn your classroom into a restaurant.
Dinosaur Restaurant role-play
When the time is up, choose one of the groups and tell them that they will be welcoming customers to their restaurant. The other kids can be the dinosaur customers so can sit down at the tables. The group who are the restaurant need to welcome their customers, “Welcome to the Carnivore Café”, explain what is on the menu and take the orders. Let some of the customers ask questions. “I’m a herbivore, what would you recommend?” or “I’m a carnivore, I like meat, what can I eat?”. Once all the questions have been answered and the orders for food taken, if you still have time, you can swap the groups around so that another group is the restaurant and the rest the customers.
Conclusion
If you have any time left, ask the kids to write and illustrate their restaurant menus to take home. Then sing the song again using some of their invented food from their restaurants, tidy up the classroom and do your normal goodbye routine. If you need a song to say goodbye, these are my favorites.
I hope you enjoy teaching this Dinosaur Food EFL ESL Lesson plan. The kids in my class loved doing the restaurant role-play and got really into it. It’s a great way of getting them to learn and speak English that will be practical and useful for them in everyday life. If you’ve enjoyed this lesson plan, you can find other lesson plans for kids here. You can also sign up for email updates at the bottom of this post or follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page to stay up to date with new ideas and activities from GoogooEnglish.