Activity 4.8: Getting ideas from TESSA

The TESSA activities are not lesson plans, nor are they grade specific. Follow these steps to help you find what you need:

• make a list of the topics you will be teaching next week from the Zambian Revised School Curriculum.
• use the TESSA Curriculum Guide, to find a TESSA module which is likely to have some ideas relevant to that topic.
• read the module
• use the ideas to plan an activity in your classroom that will meet the learning outcomes for your learners. You might be able to use the activity as it is described, or you might have to adapt it. Use the examples below to help you understand how to do this.

Example 4.3: Science

Science Module 2, Section 3 (Looking at liquids) describes a brainstorming activity to elicit prior knowledge about water and where drinking water comes from.

A Grade 5 teacher could adapt the activity by changing the topic of the brainstorm to water borne diseases in order to find out what learners already know about them. 

A Grade 3 teacher could adapt the activity by changing the topic of the brainstorm to the three states of matter and build up a picture of a range of different substances that learners are familiar with, before classifying them and discussing their properties.

Example 4.4: Numeracy

Numeracy Module 1, Section 1 (Learning through games) has a bingo game, to help children recognise numbers 1-50.

A Grade 1 or Grade 2 teacher could adapt the activity to include numbers 1-100

Example 4.5: Literacy

Literacy Module 1 Reading and writing for a range of purposes has many ideas that can be adapted for different grades. For example, Section 2 has a case study and activity on reading aloud.

For a Grade 1 or 2 teacher, this would provide ideas for you to make reading aloud more interactive and more engaging.

A Grade 6  or 7 teacher, might encourage learners  to read aloud to each other, or work with a lower grade teacher and encourage older learners to read to younger ones.

There are also ideas about how to encourage learners to write stories themselves, which could be easily adapted for different levels.

Example 4.6: Social studies or Arts

Social Studies and the Arts Module 1, Section 4 (Investigating the changing environment) describes how the teacher asks her class to investigate the plants in their local environment and takes them on a field trip.

A Grade 6 teacher, could adapt this activity; instead of organising a field trip they could ask their class to critically review their local environment as they walk to and from school. They could gather the information together and discuss the role of different community groups in making improvements.

A literacy teacher would be interested in this work as learners could be asked to write a newspaper article, reporting on their local environment, or some campaign literature, highlighting the importance of disposing of rubbish properly.