These is a series of simple drills to help kids become familiar with the months and dates for lessons related to using the phrase, "When is your birthday?" I used this mainly for special needs classes.
Learning the Months
Activity #1 Clapping Game
Since Japanese students learn the months of the year as 1月, 2月, 3月, after introducing the birth months in English, you can try and do this drill to help them remember and say the months in English.
- The teacher will clap a number of times corresponding to the number of month to be identified (e.g. 4月- April = 4 claps)
- Students will listen, silently count the number of claps and say which month is it in English.
- Variations on this drill can be:
- Teacher calls a volunteer student to stand in front and do the clapping
- Do the drill in pairs
Activity #2 足すJanken
- Students will janken but instead of rock-paper-scissors, each student will show a number using their fingers from 1-6 (of course, 6 requires all five fingers from one hand and probably the pointing finger from the other hand)
- Then, students will have to say the sum as the corresponding month in English. For example, 6+3= 9: September!
- The first one to say the correct month gets a point.
Learning the Dates
Activity #1 7 Up!
After introducing the ordinal numbers for the dates, your class can play this modified 7 Up! game to help them practice saying the dates in English.
This 7 Up! game is based from the chest-tapping version of the game, where all players form a circle. The gae starts with someone saying "One!" while patting their chest. They can tap using their left or right hand, but who says "Two!" next depends on the direction of the hand that the first player used. When it's time to say "Seven", the player has to tap their forehead (using left or right hand). Players can also switch the direction by using a different hand to tap.
Instead of counting with cardinal numbers, students have to count using ordinals up to 31st, and when it's time to say "seventh", "seventeenth" and "twenty-seventh", they have to tap their forehead with the back of their palm (or do the dab!).