Term 3, Week 7
31 Aug – 6 Sep 2026
This week’s topic
Pets: Personal and Social Well-being together with Beginning Knowledge, Creative Arts and Physical Education, as set out in the ATP
Your Week Ahead
This week your Grade 1s get to talk about something close to their hearts: pets. Almost every learner has a story about an animal at home, or a cousin’s dog, or a fish that didn’t make it past the first month. That personal connection makes Pets one of the easier topics to get learners talking, and talking is exactly what Personal and Social Well-being needs at this stage.
In the CAPS Foundation Phase Life Skills programme, topics like this one pull together several strands at once. You are not just teaching “pets” in isolation. Beginning Knowledge comes in when learners start thinking about what different animals need to survive. Creative Arts gives them a chance to represent what they know through drawing, singing or movement. Physical Education rounds it off with games that get bodies moving, often by copying how animals walk, jump or crawl. Teaching these together, rather than as separate lessons, is how the ATP intends this topic to work.
Coming into this week, learners should already be comfortable talking about themselves, their families and their homes, since that groundwork was laid earlier in the Personal and Social Well-being strand. Some classes may also be using this week to catch up on unfinished Term 2 or early Term 3 content, which is fine. The ATP allows for that flexibility in the early weeks of a topic cycle, so don’t feel you have to rush if your class needs another day on something from before.
This Week’s Lesson Plan
Day 1: Start with a class discussion on what a pet is and which pets learners have or know about. Use this to build vocabulary and give every learner a turn to share, even briefly.
Day 2: Move into Beginning Knowledge by looking at what pets need to stay healthy and happy, things like food, water, shelter and exercise. Compare the needs of two different pets, such as a dog and a fish.
Day 3: Focus on responsibility and safety. Talk through how to care for a pet properly and how to behave safely around animals, including ones you don’t know.
Day 4: Bring in Creative Arts. Learners draw or paint their own pet, or an animal they’d like to have, and talk about their picture with a partner or the class.
Day 5: Close the week with Physical Education. Play movement games where learners imitate pet animals (hopping like a rabbit, crawling like a cat, waddling like a duck), then do a short recap of the week’s key ideas.
Download Your Lesson Plan
Download the full 5-day lesson plan as a Word document. Includes detailed activities, differentiation notes, and assessment guidance.