Unit5 The power of plants - Starting out教学设计2026-2027学年外研版七年级英语上册

5.1 The power of plants - Starting out

【Teaching Objectives (aligned with core competencies)】

1. Language competence: Students can name plant parts and basic plant words (seed, root, stem, leaf, sunlight, water, oxygen), ask and answer "What facts about plants do you know?" and "What can plants do for us?", and begin to use the simple future tense to say what plants will do.

2. Cultural awareness: Students feel the amazing power of plants in daily life and understand that plants are our shared natural treasure that everyone should protect and value.

3. Thinking quality: Students predict and reason from pictures, connect plants to human uses (food, wood, medicine, art), and compare what different pictures show.

4. Learning capacity: Students learn to use pictures to activate prior knowledge, work in groups to share facts, and build confidence through easy sentence frames.

【Key and Difficult Points】

Key Points:

① Master the topic words about plants and use "What facts about plants do you know? Do you think plants are amazing?" to start a topic talk.

② Talk about what plants can do for us with the patterns "Plants give us..." and "We get... from plants".

③ Use simple future forms "will" and "be going to" to say what more plants will bring.

Difficult Points:

① Organising ideas about plants into food, wood, medicine and culture without mixing them up.

② Giving a clear reason after "Because I think plants are amazing because...".

③ Talking freely about plants without depending too much on the Chinese translation.

Trial Lecture Verbatim Script：

Welcome Remarks

Good morning, class! Look at the big screen, everyone. Wow, what a lovely green picture! Can you see the little baby plant pushing through the dark soil? It is so small and weak-looking, but look how hard it is trying to reach the sunlight! That picture is the cover of our brand-new unit, "The power of plants". Today we are going to start our journey into the amazing world of plants. We will talk about what plants do for us, how amazing they are, and what we are going to create at the end of this unit. Are you ready? Superb energy! Let us wake up our brains and our English together. Here we go!

Ⅰ. Lead-in

First, let us play a quick guessing game to warm up. I will give you three clues, and you shout out the answer as loud as you can. Ready? Clue number one: it is usually green. Clue number two: it needs sunlight and water to live. Clue number three: it gives us oxygen so we can breathe. What is it? Yes, all together, tell me!

Students: "It is a plant!"

Teacher: "Excellent! You are so clever and so fast today. It is a plant! Give yourselves a little clap! Now, look at the cover picture again. It shows a tiny seed sprouting in the earth. I have a question for you: what facts about plants do you already

know? Take five seconds to think. Yes, the girl in the front row, please, I know your hand is up!"

Students: "Plants need water and sunlight to grow, just like the baby plant in the picture."

Teacher: "What a great fact! You even connected it to the picture. Plants need water and sunlight. Thank you, sit down please. Who can share a different fact? Yes, you, the boy with the blue cap, please!"

Students: "Plants give us fruit and vegetables to eat, like apples and tomatoes."

Teacher: "Wonderful! That is such an important fact. Plants give us food. And apples come from trees, right? So trees are plants too. Give that student a big hand, everyone! You see, we already know so much about plants without even trying."

Students: "We also get flowers from plants! My mum loves roses."

Teacher: "Oh, what a lovely idea! Flowers make our homes beautiful. You are full of surprises today. Keep those ideas in your head, we will use them later."

Ⅱ. Exploring the pictures

Now let us look at four small pictures on the screen. Picture a shows a young lady at a market, picking fresh red tomatoes and green vegetables. Picture b shows a worker putting up wooden boards to build a house. Picture c shows two people in white coats doing a beautiful Chinese ink painting. Picture d shows a girl sitting in a field, drawing the tall plants with her pencil. Let us talk about them one by one.

My first question: what is the person doing in picture a? Yes, please!

Students: "She is choosing fresh vegetables at the market, just like a little shopper."

Teacher: "Perfect! She is picking vegetables. And where do those vegetables come from? Yes, they grow in the fields, they come from plants! Now picture b, what is the worker building with, and where does that material come from?"

Students: "He is building a house with wood. The wood comes from trees."

Teacher: "Exactly right! Wood comes from trees, and trees are plants. Great thinking, everyone! Picture c, the two artists are making a painting. What is special about it? Yes, the picture on the painting shows bamboo and leaves — plants again! Now here is the big question for all four pictures: what can plants do for us? Turn to your partner and talk for one minute. You can use these frames: Plants give us... We get... from plants. Go!"

(The teacher walks around the classroom and listens to two pairs with a smile.)

Teacher: "Time is up, eyes on me! Let me hear your ideas. Pair One, please stand and tell us."

Students: "Plants give us food like vegetables and fruit. We get wood and paper from trees. We also get beautiful flowers."

Teacher: "Bravo! Three wonderful ideas in one turn. Food, wood, paper and flowers. You really understand the power of plants. I love that you used We get... from plants so naturally. Sit down, great work! Pair Two, do you have anything different to add?"

Students: "We can get medicine from plants too, and we can paint pictures about them."

Teacher: "That is amazing! Medicine and art. You two have such rich ideas. Plants feed us, house us, heal us and even inspire our art. What a treasure plants are!"

Ⅲ. Group discussion