Is it meatless Monday?

While on a regular basis we see advertised that we should try to lower the amount of meat we are eating by having “meatless Mondays” I like to encourage instead “French Fridays” for the classroom! 

 

How does this work?  Doing a reward system works really well at all grade levels.  And the reward doesn’t need to be something huge either; usually just a change in routine which feels like a reward in itself and an easier way to get through that Friday class!

 

So. The goal for French Fridays is exactly what it sounds like.  For all French classes that you have on Friday everyone is required to speak only French during that class.  Perhaps you already require that in your classrooms but for more beginner classes it is an added incentive to language learning. Often, however, students really need to ask questions about a “grammar concept”, for example, in English in order to fully understand how the grammar point works so while your goal is to have everyone only speak French all the time, this doesn’t always occur. 

 

For French Fridays, divide your class up into 2 teams. The left-hand side of the class and the right-hand side of the class is easiest. If you don’t use a seating plan create one for only Fridays. Choose a student to tally the French responses on each side of the class for that day. They can use the chalkboard/whiteboard or a piece of paper but using the board creates added incentive and interest.  For 3 classes of the month the tallies are recorded and then on the 4th Friday, it is reward day! Have a couple of things put aside for rewards for this day. 

 

Here are some examples:  

 

      French movie day – It is good to have a couple put aside and have the winning team choose which movie the week prior to movie day so that you can set it all up ahead of time and NOT as they walk into your class.  I have even provided popcorn now and again. Clean up RULES must be set in advance!

 

      French game day – This does not need to be teacher directed necessarily although if LOTO is chosen you might want to be the caller. French game day could be ‘BOARD GAME DAY’ where you set up a board game at a number of work stations around the room and the students choose one to play. 4-5 players per game is really the ideal number you would want to have at a board. If you don’t have enough board games to keep your game at 4-5 players though, have your students play in pairs as partners! 

 

      French “catch up” day – Not all students are always on top of their homework in French or the activities that are coming due shortly.   They have added responsibilities at home, have part-time jobs, etc.  During one of these days, introduce a project that the students who are on track can start to work on. The winning team from the previous week gets to choose which project will be done, so it’s good to have a couple available for them to choose from AS A GROUP. It’s not necessary to have 2 projects going at the same time.

 

      French project day – As mentioned in the above suggestion, the winning team would choose the next French project to do. Introduce it on the Friday and allow your students to give it a start. It’s something interesting and not necessarily teacher directed which gives your students more freedom to work on their own and do as much as they like AND WHAT part of the project they would like to do during that Friday class. 

 

Always have your rewards French-related with your curriculum. Board games are curriculum oriented in that they tie into Speaking & reading comprehension, movies are listening comprehension and catch up days are more general. Projects are sentence structures development and culture based. And as a side note: Have a fun vocabulary worksheet ready to go for movies that end before the end of the class. There’s nothing worse I think than a class on a Friday that unravels for 15 minutes! 

 

Here are a few resources that can help with some of the suggestions above. I hope you will do French Fridays and have fun with it! It’s great for promoting more French speaking AND helps with classroom management too!

 

    CLICK HERE for BOARD GAME

 

 

    CLICK HERE for Carnaval de Quebec BOARD GAME

 

 

    CLICK HERE for COUNTRY PROJECTS

 

 

    CLICK HERE for FUN Word Scrambles

 

 

CLICK HERE FOR A FREE RESOURCE!  

Have a great day! 

 

Lorraine

 

 

 

 

It's Fathers Day!

Hi everyone! I just want to wish everyone who is a father or a father figure to someone a "Happy Fathers Day"!  I think dads often are not appreciated as much as they should be and so I want to give the all important shout out to all those dads out there who are doing their very best every day to set good role model examples for their youngsters - and I don't mean only youngsters that are kids.

 

So, Happy Fathers Day to all of you!  Have a great weekend!

 

Lorraine

Do you have a summer project?

Do you choose a “project” or “mini project” to do over the summer to help you prepare for the following school year? I have always found this to be most beneficial because once school starts up there are so many things to do that some of the culture and engaging activities I really want to do just don’t get done because there isn’t enough time to prepare them! Marking gets in the way, and so does the weekly lesson planning and those are only a couple of the challenges. 

 

So this week in my blog I want to share with you some of those types of projects that can be done at a leisurely pace while kicking back and enjoying your time off! You will then reap the benefits of having them ready whenever you choose to put them into action during the school year.

 

These will save you hours of researching, planning and prepping and will be an excellent addition to your lessons.

 

This first one is great for a variety of grade levels! It’s a seasonal product during the winter and highlights the Carnaval de Québec in February. This hands on matching game is perfect for end of the day activities, as a springboard activity to begin your Carnaval unit or to use as a celebratory game when the students have explored Carnaval during your winter carnival unit! Save yourself hours of looking for photos and making French game cards with vocabulary appropriate to the pictures with this resource at my TPT store! 

 

 CLICK HERE ----   Carnaval de Québec matching game 

Other matching games that follow the above format can be found here:

 CLICK HERE ----   Paris matching game

 CLICK HERE ----  Weather matching game

 CLICK HERE ----  School Objects matching game

 

The next mini project is ideal for building community in your classroom at the beginning of the school year or semester!  There are 75 oral task cards to use and you can divide them up into “themes” if you wish in order to use them over several classes or in different grade levels.  They could also be used in small group situations if you feel that having your full class move around the room at the same time is not something that you feel comfortable with.  With the extra time of the summer, you will have time to divide the cards up efficiently and choose which ones to use first! My students have always enjoyed these cards!

 

 CLICK HERE --- French Oral task cards

The last one I’d like to share with you is a French inventors’ project!  This is a great way to introduce famous people to your students from a variety of countries.  It is also a great way for your students to either work as individuals or in pairs – again to build community. With a presentation at the end you will get an opportunity to do some impromptu formative evaluation of your students to better gauge what lessons and work needs to be done in your lessons by seeing their ability levels while doing this project. Whether you want to specify grammatical structures to be used in the project is definitely up to you.

 

  CLICK HERE ----  French inventors project

 

I hope you will find one of these projects can fit into your summer schedule.

 

Have a great day! Bonne journée !

 

Lorraine

 

                  Here's a freebie for you!