Draw Your Weekend

Setup

Each student will need a piece of recycled A4 paper and a pen/pencil. If you only have one student, take one yourself and do the activity with them.

With kids, you could model the activity by first drawing the activities you have done recently on the board (if possible before the class). Make your sketches very rough to encourage those who aren’t very artistic! Elicit sentences about those activities using the target language.

Activity

1. The students draw what they did during the weekend (or recent holidays) on their piece of paper. They should draw many separate activities, but only as rough sketches. They must not show their work to any other students yet.
2. When they have finished, the students fold their papers up and put them in the box/hat/bag. Mix the papers.
3. The students each take a new paper from the box/hat/bag, and unfold it. They then write down (on the paper or in a notebook) what they think each activity was, using the target language.
4. The students take turns sharing the paper and their sentences with the class. Ask the class who they think the artist was before their identity is revealed.

Target Language

The Draw Your Weekend ESL activity is the perfect warmer for a Monday or after the holidays. It’s great for reviewing the past simple too, as the sentences about the activity should be in this tense. If your class has been learning the present perfect simple you can also use it to practise that – just make sure you set the context as ‘What have you done recently/over the holidays?’ if so. As such it is suitable for high beginner or low intermediate students.