It’s nearly lunchtime and I’m getting hungry! We’ve made pizza and fruit salad before but it’s time for something different. How do you make a sandwich? Let’s make a sandwich together in class and learn all about what ingredients we need and what we need to do. This is a fun step by step Make a Sandwich EFL ESL lesson plan for children. It is suitable for preschool children but you could easily adapt it though to use it with primary/elementary aged kids too. It will last about 1 hour and at the end, you’ll have a tasty snack to eat together. If you don’t want to use real food, you can also do this lesson plan using plastic or cardboard ingredients. So let’s get chopping, it’s time to make a sandwich.
For this Make a Sandwich EFL ESL Lesson plan, you will need:
- Sandwich ingredients – you choose or let the kids choose but anything that can go in a sandwich plus two slices of bread for each child. CHECK FOR ALLERGIES WITH PARENTS
- Knives, chopping boards, plates or paper bags to take food home
- Toothpicks and paper to make labels
- If you don’t want to use real food, you can use plastic or card sandwich ingredients. Make your own or use something like this
Songs and Videos:
- Are You Hungry? by Super Simple Songs
- Let’s Make a Sandwich song by Maple Leaf Learning
Introduction: Are you hungry?
Begin the lesson with your normal Hello routine or use one of my favorite ways to start a lesson. When you’ve asked the children how they are today, say to them “I’m hungry!” and rub your tummy. Now go around asking them “Are you hungry?”. Once you’ve asked everyone, sing the Are You Hungry Song. At the end of the song, add a verse where you say “a sandwich, yum yum yum etc.” Draw a picture on the board or show a picture of a sandwich as you sing it.
What ingredients do we need to make a sandwich?
Using a mystery bag or box, introduce the various objects and ingredients you will need to prepare your sandwich. Drill the vocabulary and ask the children questions as you talk about it. Do you like cheese? Do you like tomatoes? What is the knife used for? Then in pairs, get them to ask each other the same type of questions.
Sing a sandwich song
Learn and sing the Let’s make a sandwich song together showing the ingredients or relevant flashcards/pretend food while you sing it and doing lots of sandwich making actions: cut the. Then go around the class asking the kids what they want in their sandwich. Let them choose their ingredients by saying I want …. and get them to ask each other too. Get everything ready to make your sandwiches.
Let’s make sandwiches together
Lay out your equipment and ingredients going over the vocabulary again as you do this. Give the kids the ingredients they chose. If you don’t have enough knives and chopping boards, put the children in pairs or small groups and let them take turns. Be careful with knives! Don’t use really sharp ones or do the cutting for the kids yourself. One action at a time, go through the process to make the sandwich. The actions could be something like this:
- Take two slices of bread or a sliced baguette
- Cut the tomato and the cheese
- Butter the bread
- Put the ingredients, one at a time, on the bottom slice
- Close the sandwich with the top slice
Making sandwiches without real food
If you have decided to make cardboard or plastic food sandwiches, proceed exactly as above but just use your cardboard fillings. You can still practice all the actions and choose the ingredients so it’s almost as good as doing the real thing.
Label your sandwiches
When you’ve made your sandwiches and put them on plates, the kids can make a label for their sandwich using a small piece of paper and a toothpick to stick it into the bread. On the label, they can write their name and the sandwich fillings they have used. If you prefer, they can draw small pictures of the ingredients. Then you can look at each others sandwiches and discuss them. E.g. What does Julia have in her sandwich?
Eat at school or take away?
If you want to eat your sandwiches together, you can have a class picnic. Put a rug on the floor and sit in a circle and try the sandwiches you made. Do they like it? Is it good? Sing the sandwich song together. If you prefer the kids to take them home, you can pack them up in paper bags labelled with their names. If you’re using cardboard sandwiches, you can do this too.
Write or draw your sandwich recipe
If you’ve still got some time left, ask the class to draw a picture of the ingredients they used and the different steps of sandwich making. If you’ve been doing or plan to do other recipes in class, you could use these drawings to make a small recipe book for the kids to take home at the end of the year. Then end your lesson with your usual routine or use one of my favorite Goodbye songs.
I hope you enjoyed this Make a sandwich EFL ESL Lesson plan. I really love making food in my classes as it’s such a great way to get the kids really involved and learning practical, useful English vocabulary. If you’ve enjoyed this lesson plan and want to see some more, you can find all my lesson plans for kids of all ages here. To keep up to date with new posts and teaching ideas, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page or sign up below for email updates.
