Ramp Up your English

RUE Episode 42: Farm Animals 3

Learning Farm Animal Names is our focus on RUE Episode 42 Farm Animals Part 3.  We feature a video clip about farm animals and share strategies for remembering those animal names. This episode also includes some idioms and common sayings. English has some fun animal sayings involving farm animals, and we get to learn some of those in this episode. We also go to basic geometric shapes to help us describe farm animals.  We’re setting up the foundation for reporting on wild animals, which will follow in future episodes.

Watching Episode 42

You can watch the entire Episode 42 of Ramping Up your English as seen on TV by clicking on the link below.

View Episode 42

View by segment

You can also view this episode in segments of about 10 minutes each.  Segment One can be seen by clicking here.

Watch Segment 2

View Segment 3

Videos Used in This Episode

We used some video clips to help support today’s lessons.  We first showed Farm Animals, part 2. Click here to watch that video clip. View the same video on archive.org with no ads. Click here to watch or download the video.

Language Objectives

Identify common farm animals from pictures in English. Identify basic geometric shapes from pictures in English. Describe common farm animals using basic geometric shapes that resemble animal body parts.

Academic Content Objectives

Math: Identify basic geometric shapes. Animals Science: Identify common farm animals.  List main body parts of common farm animals.  Describe common farm animals by approximating to geometric figure that most resembles the animal’s body or body parts.

Animal Idioms and Names

In Segment 2, we learned some special names for animals as well as some saying that are idiomatic – not literal. Here are some examples:

Some people are called sheepish for not being assertive.
Someone forced into a behavior or situation they don’t want are said to be cowed.
Be careful about the first expression. It’s best to use the second one. No bull!
Lacking courage to confront aggression is called being chicken.
A very attentive mother is called a mother hen. She takes others under her wing.
Those who are too self-centered are called piggish. Greedy people hog up resources.
A judas goat leads followers to their doom.
Once you get organized, you can brag that you have your ducks in a row.

Description Using Geometric Shapes

Basic geometric shapes can help in describing the physical characteristics of animals.  Here are some common basic geometric shapes:

Four sides and four right angles… Must be a rectangle.
A three-dimensional form of a rectangle is called a rectangular prism.
Three sides and three angles adding up to 180 degrees…Yep, that’s a triangle.
A rectangle with Four equal sides and four 90 degree corners is called a square.
A three-dimensional form of a square is called a cube.
A sphere is a three-dimensional form of a circle.
A circle squished down forms an oval
President Obama in the Oval Office of the White House
A egg is a three-dimensional figure, basically an oval.
A Cylinder looks like this. It can also be described a barrel shaped.

Geometric Shapes in Animals

Triangular head and ears. Round eyes (circular).
The hen has an oval-shaped body. The beaks (bills) are rounded at the end.
Oval-shaped ears, triangular head
Somewhat oval body with a triangular-shaped beak.
Oval-shaped ears. The belly on the standing cow is half an oval.
Ears are very elongated ovals and definitely floppy.
Nose is a circle. The body is cylinder-shaped or barrel-shaped.

Next Episode

We’ll have our last visit to the farm in our next episode.

Go to the Episode 43 page.