Parachutes are a ton of fun in any ESL lesson. They can be amazing tools for teaching a variety of topics like shapes, colours and verbs. Best of all: kids absolutely love the Parachute.

There are a lot of ways to use a parachute in your ESL classroom. My favourite way is to use the parachute as a transition activity that takes your students from one activity to another and ends with them sitting in a circle on the ground.

The only materials required are a Play Parachute (available on our shop from $25) and the song Make A Circle.

You can find Make A Circle on YouTube, Amazon, in I-Tunes or by purchasing Super Simple Songs vol 1 directly from Super Simple Learning website. Super Simple Songs vol 1 is easily the album I’ve used the most in my EFL Classes.

How to:

While still in the bag, ask your class what colour the bag is.

Slowly take the parachute out of it’s bag, one corner at a time and while asking what colour each section is.

While you're still holding the parachute have your students make a line and ask for a ring by identifying the colour e.g. “Yellow please”

Reply using “Here you are”.

Don’t give your students the parachutes handles unless thy say “Thank you” in response.

Take your students through the song without music so that they learn the verbs in the song. There is a great video of a teacher doing a similar action without a parachute located just below these instructions. These serves two purposes.

1) pre-teaches the language

2) extends the length of the activity.

Once your ESL class is primed and ready to go: start the music.

The last line of the song is “now sit down.”

This means if done properly, your students will be sitting in a perfect circle on the floor.

Clean up.

Go around the circle collecting each handle while prompting the students to say “here you are”.

You should reply, “Thank you”.

Once the students are in a circle on the floor, you have a great opportunity to use vocabulary cards, read a book or do any number of alternative ESL activities.