Vocabulary

Objective & content

Sixteen open questions about time: this A1 quiz asks What's today's date?, What month came before this one? and How many days are there in a week?. Pupils read the instruction, "Answer the questions. Use a calendar", and write short answers. The first ten answers change with the day the sheet is done; the last six have fixed answers (12 months, 7 days, 365 days, 52 weeks), which the key page gives.

Pedagogical guide

The quiz pulls together the language of dates: ordinals, months, days of the week and the past, present and future forms (was, will be, came). Because ten answers depend on the day, no pupil can copy a fixed key, and the real calendar becomes the source of information. Use it after months and days have been taught, as a revision check rather than a test. The key page notes that answers 1 to 10 must be checked against the class calendar.

Suggested procedure

1. (5 min) Put a calendar on the board or the wall. Ask three warm-up questions aloud: today's date, tomorrow's date, this month.
2. (15 min) Pupils answer all sixteen questions individually, using the calendar for the first ten.
3. (5 min) Check the first ten against the class calendar, then the last six with the key page.
4. (5 min) In pairs, pupils ask each other two new calendar questions of their own.

Adaptations

[S] Let pupils start with questions 11 to 16, which have fixed answers and need no calendar, then go back to the first ten.

[A] Pupils write three more calendar questions about next month, using will, and swap them with a partner.

Materials & prerequisites

One printed sheet per pupil, a pencil, the answer-key page and one calendar per pair (or one for the whole class).