Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, K-3

In the BrainPOP ELL movie, Take Up a Hobby (L2U1L1), Ben tells Moby about his hobby collecting postcards. In this lesson plan, which is adaptable for grades K-8, students will collaborate in activities, projects, and presentations using and illustrating phrasal and prepositional verbs.

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

Students will:

  1. Match responses to prompts, using appropriate phrasal verbs.
  2. Research and illustrate all possible phrasal verb examples for a single base verb.
  3. Identify and cite examples of phrasal verbs in songs.

Materials:

Vocabulary:

look, look up, look after, look for, take, take up, take after

Preparation:

For Activity #2, What Do You Do?, construct a 5-column chart and example cards with the suggested phrases below. Make enough copies of the chart and cut up the example cards into individual sets for each pair of students. If students are working in small groups, prepare the table on a large piece of chart paper for each group, or use an interactive white board for the whole class. Headings for the 5-column chart or table: I look for / I look after / I look up / I take up / I take after. Example Cards: a new word / the new puppy / some information / the baby / answers in a book / a new hobby / my keys / collecting old pictures / a good birthday gift / a new language / a lost dog / my Uncle Joe / my little cousin / my grandfather / my mother

Lesson Procedure:

  1. Look it Up! Use the Astronomy Book and Globe Picture as a prompt for students to practice using phrasal verbs and vocabulary from the lesson. For example: We look at the globe to learn about countries. We look up facts about astronomy in a book or on the computer. Encourage additional examples, such as: Astronomers look through a telescope to see the planets.
  2. What Do You Do? Prepare the activity according to the suggestions in the Preparation section. In pairs or small groups, students take turns placing the cards on the chart, using each expression in a sentence. Students can also think of their own examples and write them on blank cards.
  3. Phrasal Verb Project. As a project, have students choose one of the following verbs that form the base of many phrasal verbs. Some common verbs include: come, go, get, put, take, look, run, turn. Students must find all the different prepositions that go with the verb they chose. They must cite examples, and explain or illustrate them in a project or presentation, such as a poster of a web organizer that illustrates the examples, or a game, booklet, slideshow, skit, etc.
  4. Phrasal Verbs in Songs. There are many songs with phrasal verbs that provide practice with prepositions. For example, Another Day In Paradise, by Phil Collins: call out, walk on, look back, be moved on, fit in. Hotel California, by The Eagles: call up, check out, light up, live up, rise up, wake up. You can prepare a Cloze activity with songs. Copy the lyrics and leave blanks for all the prepositions that go with the phrasal and prepositional verbs.

RELATED MOVIES

BrainPOP ELL
Old Dog, New Tricks (L2U1L5)