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Unit 2: Amazing animals

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Cloze procedure exercise

In the following paragraph, Herman C. Bosman describes a visit to the Johannesburg Zoo.

In groups, discuss the most suitable words to fill in the blank spaces. Write them down and

compare them with those of the other groups.

Feeding time at the zoo

Everyone says that feeding time is the most exciting time of the day at the zoo, so last week

some friends and I decided to visit the Johannesburg Zoo to see for ourselves. We arrived

at 10 a.m. to make sure of finding the best place to watch the main event of the day.

Some time later, one of our party who was _1_ as a lookout man, pointed. We _2_ in the

direction he was indicating and saw a man _3_ down the yellow grass with a sickle. We

had seen our _4_ zookeeper. I opened my dairy and, having consulted _5_ watch, made the

following entry after the printed words, “Monday, 19th:”

At 10.48 a.m. _6_ we spotted our first zookeeper.

What we saw taking place before our _7_ in the next few minutes can only be described

as gruesome. For the keepers, whose numbers had now _8_ to over half-a-dozen, lay down

in a _9_ on a wide stretch of grass and produced lunch-tins and brown paper parcels. From

_10_ they took out a variety of prepared foodstuffs which they _11_ greedily and with great

enjoyment.

It was feeding time at the zoo all right, and we _12_ a number of photographs to prove

that we had seen it.

from A Cask of Jerepigo by Herman C. Bosman

first

gazed

eyes

my

these

group

acting

ate

increased

cutting

took

precisely

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Dictation

The lizard

The lizard is a timid thing

That cannot dance or fly or sing;

He hunts for bugs beneath the floor

And longs to be a dinosaur.

(John Gardner)

I’ve got a dog

I’ve got a dog as thin as a rail,

He’s got fleas all over his tail;

Every time his tail goes flop,

the fleas at the bottom all hop to the top.

(Anonymous)

Homophones

Words that sound the same but have different spelling and meanings

bear A bear is a dangerous animal.

bare Don’t walk here with bare feet, there might be scorpions.

heard Have you heard the latest news?

herd We saw a herd of buffaloes near the camp.

you I know you like animals.

ewe The ewe is a female sheep.

hole The mole lives deep down in its hole.

whole The monkey stole the whole packet of sweets.

pray We pray to God.

prey The cat caught a mouse as its prey.

Spelling

creatures elephant

animals chameleon

extinction orang-outang

temperature giraffe

survival gorilla

environment kangaroo

protection leopard

endangered tortoise

different chimpanzee

wildlife cheetah

Spelling

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Proverbs and idioms

When the cat’s away the mice will play. People do as they please when the person in

charge is out of the way.

The early bird catches the worm. If you want the best, then you must get there

first.

Don’t count your chickens before they

are hatched.

Don’t plan too far ahead; things might not go

your way.

Birds of a feather flock together. People who like the same things will seek

each other’s company.

Care killed the cat. Too much worry can kill a person.

Out of the horse’s mouth. From a person who knows what is true.

Hold your horses. Wait a moment.

Let the cat out of the bag. To reveal a secret.

The lion’s share. The biggest part.

Donkey’s years. A very long time.

Curiosity killed the cat. Getting into trouble for prying into other

people’s affairs

Expressions

As brave as a lion As strong as an ox

As quiet as a mouse As slow as a tortoise / snail

As faithful as a dog As big as an elephant

As wise as an owl As stubborn as a mule

As sleek as an otter / eel As playful as a kitten

As gentle as a lamb As ugly as a toad / sin

As talkative as a parrot As sly as a fox

As dirty as a pig As busy as a bee

As blind as a bat As fierce as a tiger

As swift as a hare As agile as a monkey

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Reading development

Reading and understanding: Class reading

Work with a friend. The ten creatures in the pictures below belong to five different families

of animals. Two belong to each family. Put the creatures in the pairs that you think belong

together in the same family. Do you know the names of the families?

Then follow the passage below as your educator reads it and find out if you were right.

butterfly

crocodile

ostrich

snake

scorpion

rabbit

grasshopper

hen

elephant

spider

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Animal families

The animal world is divided into many different

families. For example, ostriches and hens both

belong to the bird family; elephants and rabbits

belong to the mammal family; crocodiles and

snakes are reptiles; spiders and scorpions are

arachnids; and grasshoppers and butterflies are

both insects.

We can classify each type of animal according to

its family or relatives. For example, this is how we

classify a tiger: a tiger belongs to the family of big

cats, which is part of the larger family of cats. Cats

belong to the family of carnivores (meat eaters), which all belong to the family mammals.

There are different words for these families: Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.

Lions and cheetahs belong to the same class, order, family and genus as tigers, but they are

a different species:

Class: Mammals Mammals

Order: Carnivores Carnivores

Family: Cats Cats

Genus: Big cats Big cats

Species: Lion Cheetah

All creatures that belong to the class of mammals are warm-blooded, which means that their

blood stays the same temperature. (Cold-blooded creatures, such as reptiles, have blood that

warms or cools down to become the same as the temperature of their environment.) Most

mammals have fur on their bodies, and most give birth to live young. All mammals suckle

their young with their own milk.

Within the class of mammals, there are a number of orders, e.g. carnivores, herbivores

(plant-eaters), omnivores (which eat both meat and plants), insectivores (insect-eaters) and

frugivores (fruit-eaters).

Scientists believe that between 500 and 1 000 species of plants

and animals are becoming extinct each year. This means that

they are dying out, and will never live on this planet again.

The animal that is making these species extinct is a mammal:

humans. When humans cut down forests so that they can grow

crops and build houses, the forest life dies. When humans put

poison on the land and in the seas, life dies. And when humans

kill animals to make coats from their fur, those animal species

may never be seen on earth again.

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Answer these questions

1. Name two reptiles.

2. Name two arachnids.

3. Name two insects.

4. To which order does the tiger belong?

5. To which class does the tiger belong?

6. How are lion and cheetahs the same?

7. How are lions and cheetahs different?

8. Name two cold-blooded creatures.

9. What do we call animals that eat fruit?

10. What do we call animals that eat plants?

11. Name two things that all mammals have in common.

12. Name two things that most mammals have in common.

13. Imagine that you are the last gorilla left on earth. There used to be two of you, but this

morning you watched as some humans killed your mate. Write and then read a page

from your diary.

Group reading

Take turns in your group to read paragraphs from this story. Then close your books and ask

questions about the story to see if you can remember the details of the story.

Individual reading

Animal Rescue

It was a beautiful, warm evening and Katy and her friends were enjoying a party on the

beach. It was Katy’s thirteenth birthday. There were a few older boys who were drinking

wine. Katy hated this. She had seen what alcohol could do to people.

As the evening turned into night, one of the boys had an idea. “Let’s go out on the sea!”

he said. “We can take my father’s fishing boat. He won’t mind.”

“Don’t be crazy,” said Katy. “Anything could happen!”

But Katy’s friends thought it was a cool idea to go out on a boat. If she didn’t go with

them, she’d be left alone on the beach. And it was her birthday. She didn’t want to be alone

on her birthday.

So the party moved along the beach to the harbour, with the teenagers singing their favourite

songs as they went. They climbed aboard Philip’s father’s boat and headed out to sea. There

was no moon to light the water and everything was very dark. The children danced and sang

and shouted.

No one knows how it happened, or why, but two of the boys began to fight. It must have

been their fighting that knocked Katy overboard, but they didn’t notice that she was missing

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until they got back to the jetty.

Katy sank down, down into the cold, dark water. She called for help, but no one on the noisy

boat heard. She was not a very good swimmer. She knew that she was going to drown.

Then a smooth shape brushed past her in the water, and she felt another shape underneath

her, carrying her up and up. When she reached the surface of the water, she gasped for breath,

expecting to sink down again. But something was keeping her up. She looked around in the

darkness and saw that it was a shoal of dolphins that was helping her. She held on to one of

them and it swam with her towards a buoy.

Katy held on to the buoy until the rescue boat came. The dolphins waited with her until

they saw the lights of the boat and they knew that she was safe. Then they disappeared into

the night.

When Katy told her story to the Sea Rescue people, she expected them to laugh. But it was

a story they had heard before. Dolphins have rescued drowning people all over the world.

We don’t know why dolphins help humans like this, but when Katy finishes school, she’s

going to become a zoologist, and she is going to find out!

Rate your reading

Yourself Friend Educator

Fluency 6

Clarity 4

Tempo 3

Tone of voice 3

Phrasing 2

Punctuation 2

Total 20