Procedure
- Draw the two axes of a graph on the board with seven spaces along the bottom and three along the vertical side with three circles.
- Ask students what they think the spaces are for and elicit the days of the week for the horizontal axis (with today being the final one and working backwards for a week) and put three faces in the circles, the top one very happy, the middle one looking unimpressed and the bottom one looking sad.
- Tell students this is a Happy Graph and then plot your own moods on the graph for the last week. Connect them up and then tell students about your week and let them ask you some questions. For example, 'Why were you really happy last Sunday?' 'Because I went out with some friends for lunch and we had a really good time.'
- Then students do the same and ask each other questions in pairs about their weeks.
(Thanks to Paul Braddock from the British Council Young Learner Centre in Barcelona for sharing this activity in a recent workshop.)
First published 2008
Language Level