Letting the cat (and friends!) out of the bag

I raided the toy box at home and filled a bag with various model animals, ranging from model farm animals to Playmobil dinosaurs.  Each student chose an animal from the bag, lucky dip style.  They then had to look up the word for their animal in the dictionary.  We then did a quiz, quiz, trade activity where the students asked each other “Do you have a pet?” and had to answer “Yes, I have a dinosaur” or whatever animal they were holding.  They then swapped animals.  They then did creative written work about their “pet”: its name, age, characteristics etc.  This reinforced the correct use of it for masculine/feminine/neuter nouns.