Just around the corner!

Yes, Christmas!  Can you believe it?  I can hardly believe that Christmas shopping and festivities are already being planned and are soon to be in full swing! 

Here are a couple of Linky Parties relating to Christmas products that you can use in your classroom over the next month.

Check them out!  All different grade levels are included here!

Christmas freebies linky party

Holiday Creations Linky Party

Lorraine

Frankenstein! - A wonderful find!

I decided to share a product that I found last year around Halloween that I found to be amazing and something that can be used at any time of the year!  It's a "Frankstein template" that allows you to personalize your own game within the classroom to suit your own subject area needs.  Whether you are teaching French, Spanish or even Social Studies or Science this template can work for you.  I love using this as a review.  There are 4 categories that you can use and within those categories are "surprise" questions.  I use this as an activity for small groups and the students answer the multiple choice questions in their groups.  This is loved by all grade levels!  Try it out in your class. 

A huge thanks to Arik Durfee for sharing this product with us!  Check it out!  It's a keeper for sure!

                                          Frankensteins-Monster-Customizable-PowerPoint

Enjoy!  Lorraine

le Petit Nicolas

Oh my gosh!  I have just watched my French class laugh for a solid hour!  We watched the DVD le Petit Nicolas today.  (It will take 2 classes to watch the full story) The French is fast but is quite clear. An upper level grade would know what is going on, immersion students for sure, and lower high school students with a little help from the subtitles.  This light-hearted comedic film tells of the little boy Nicolas and the struggles and adventures he and his friends have.  There is a wide variety of personalities portrayed amongst the boys in the class.  I would definitely recommend this. Great for comprehension and discussion of French culture as well as stereotypes. 

                                                  

Also, I want to let you know that there is another Linky Party sponsored by "Promoting Success" regarding Thanksgiving classroom products.  I know that the Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone but Thanksgiving in the US is right around the corner.

Here is the link for you!          Promoting success - Thanksgiving products

Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone!

There's a Thanksgiving "Linky Party" happening with products for the classroom.  Come and check it out.  There is an awesome variety of products and activities for your students.

Thanksgiving Resources and Activities

Found another one!

Thanksgiving Resource Round Up

November has arrived!

October seemed to have flown by with my schedule being very busy.  I thought I would share with you a few of its highlights!

1. Provincial Professional Development day!
Mine turned out to be a couple of days as I attended the CCSDL conference.  This stands for the "Canadian Coalition for Self-directed Learning".  My school belongs to this coalition and this year we hosted the annual conference in Vancouver, BC.  We lucked out with some good weather (no rain!) and a couple of evenings of clear skies which made for fun evenings with colleagues and conference delegates.  The conference was open to anyone who teaches in a CCSDL school and is also open to those who are interested in what we do in our schools as our teaching model is far from "traditional".  Our school (Thomas Haney Secondary) opened in 1992 and is in a building that was specifically built for teaching and learning in the 21st Century.  With much unrest in BC during the preparations for our conference we were very excited that it was pulled together and definitely ran smoothly.  After a day of "visitors" to our school during a day in session, the conference moved downtown to the Pan Pacific Hotel and conference centre in Vancouver.  We had a beautiful view of the harbour and got to meet people from all over Canada and some additional visitors from Vermont this year.  This is a picture of the Pan Pacific where the conference took place.  Since I have been teaching at THSS since its opening I always enjoy being able to meet with others who are stepping outside of the box and trying new teaching methods.

2. Halloween!
The staff and students get really excited about Halloween at our school and our student council puts on activities during the lunch hour for the entire week.  Along with this our languages department hosted a multi-cultural seminar.  This seminar began with a video of "Voici L'Halloween" from YouTube (great version in French) and it was followed by a celebration of "Day of the Dead".  We combined a celebration to include students studying both French and/or Spanish.  Here is the activity our students did while in the seminar.  Great decorations around our classes and hallways. :)

3. Le festival de fromage!
We are studying "la Suisse" in French class for our unit and wanted to bring a bit of Switzerland into the classroom.  So, we had a cheese festival.  The students signed up for a type of cheese or baguettes and I brought in the Swiss chocolate.  What a feast!  Each student had an oral activity to do which included describing and comparing the different types of cheese.  Goat cheese is particularly popular (along with Swiss cheese) for those students who are lactose intolerant!  Everyone can enjoy!

Check out my Swiss products at my store and then finish with the cheese festival.  :)

Happy Teaching!  Lorraine

la momie - the mummy!

Yes! It's definitely a mummy but not "maman".  I would love to take credit for this piece of work but alas I can only take credit for the "eyes".  :)  My colleague (and friend) both came into work the other morning and started talking about Pinterest and the cool things that we had seen that would be great to decorate our classroom door.  We share a class for our morning TA (which is morning homeroom) and thought it would be nice to do something different as a "greeting" to our class.  So we pulled up some ideas that we had seen and both talked about the mummy!!  My very crafty friend pulled together all of the supplies and started putting it together one lunch hour.  I worked on the eyes.  It is fun and very suited for our next "spooky" celebration.  Check it out!

You might like some of these! 

 Halloween Fun! - Click to go to my TpT store for Halloween products.

***To my followers at my TpT store:  There will soon be a FREEBIE coming your way!  ***

Liebster Award!

Thank you to Suzy of "Student Savvy" for this nomination! I heard about the Liebster Award only two or three days before she nominated me!  I too did some research to find out a bit about it. 

I discovered that it refers to Bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers but have great content and potential.  It is a wonderful opportunity for new bloggers to connect and to see what other bloggers have to share in the blogging community! I wish to nominate the bloggers below for the Liebster Award! I hope they will also follow my blog. :) As I didn't know how to calculate "followers" I used Bloglovin' to help me out. 

Questions to me from "Student Savvy": 

1. Why and how long ago did you start blogging? I first started blogging late in 2012 because I liked the blogs that I had seen on TpT and thought it was something that I might like to do. What better way to share my joys in the classroom than with other teachers? (I didn't know much about social networking and so it was basically a blog for me to read.)  

2. What one word sums up the heart of your blog and why? "Reflection" I believe as I usually write about something that I have been pondering about.

3. Is there something you learned late in your blog journey you wished you knew before? I am still learning!  Technology is not necessarily easy for me and so when I  redesign my blog to make it more eye appealing I try new "tech" techniques which I must admit don't always work.  (ie. Grab a button - No idea how to make this work! ) 

4. What is your favorite past time other than blogging? I like to research places that I plan on travelling to. What are the best sites to see? Best modes of transportation, great food to eat, art to see, etc.

5. How many hours per week do you dedicate to your blog?  At first I tried to blog every day but this turned out to be impossible for me while teaching also. So, this year my goal is to blog once a week on something that I have pondered about or about something that transpired in my class during that week. 

6. What category of blog posts do you enjoy the most?  "Education" for sure, but I love blogs on travel as I plan my next adventure!

7. Where does your blog inspiration come from?  From my students and from looking at what other educators have shared with each other.  What an amazing wealth of knowledge out there!!

8. Which post that you've written are you most proud of? There are 2 posts that I like the best I think.  One is the post where one of my students used "pictures" on a small sheet of paper to help him with his French presentation.  They were not allowed to have a script and so the pictures were ideas for him yet also prompted him to use the French language.  My second one I would say is the most recent one about "Le Petit Prince".  This novel just touched my heart to the core and I wanted to share this with others.

9.  Is there any post you have been planning to do, but have postponing it for a while now?  This one, makes me a bit nervous.  I'm afraid I am going to find it difficult to choose 11 blogs.  There are so many out there.

10.What is your favorite aspect of blogging?  It will be a kind of personal-professional journal for me to look back on.  I am not one to write in a book at home but with so many things happening during a teaching year it is good to have a reminder of some of the great days with the students!

11.Which recipe, project, or idea on my blog would you be most likely to try yourself? Well Suzy, I am looking forward to exploring the blogs of the other blogs you nominated! And again, a huge thanks! I will be back to see what you have blogged about! :) 

 My nominations for the Liebster Award are:

1. Cori from  Easy Lit Units & More

2. Katherine D. from The Lesson Chef

3. Tammy from Teaching FSL

4. Mynda from B is for Bilingual

5. Liz from Liz's Lessons

6. Frau Leonard from The German Sektor

7. La-Nette from La-Nette Mark's Classroom

8. Amy from Active Readers and Writers

9. Michelle from Mrs. Brosseau's Binder

10. Sherri from Literary Sherri

11. Danielle from Study All Knight

To those who have been nominated, here are the "official" rules for accepting:
1. In your post, link back to the blogger who nominated you as a thank you and "shout out."
2. Answer the 11 questions given to you (the ones I answered above).
3. Nominate 11 blogs of your choice that each have fewer than 200 followers. Provide them with 11 questions to answer or have them answer the questions above.
4. Let your nominees know that they've been nominated and provide them with a link to your post so that they can accept.
5. Send your nominator a link to your post so that s/he can learn more about you as well! (You can just put your post link in the comments below!)

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

You may have been introduced to Le Petit Prince via your Saturday morning cartoons, the Knowledge Network, library video/DVD rentals or perhaps you were fortunate enough to have had a parent or grandparent read you chapters of this short but amazing novel when you were growing up. In whatever way you discovered Le Petit Prince, it is almost certain that the adventures of le Petit Prince not only opened your imagination but it is sure to have warmed your heart.  I didn't experience any of the above while growing up.  But before you think - oh poor her - you must know that I had a wonderful childhood; it was just a "reading" that did show up at my house.  It wasn't until years later while training to become an FSL teacher that I was truly introduced to this story.  Simplistic in its presentation and of course "childlike" in nature - which if you have read Le Petit Prince you will know is essential for the true appreciation of the story - it presents the essentials to humankind.

If you do not already do so, I highly recommend you take some time in your teaching year to offer a chapter or two (if not the whole novel) to your students.  It is so rich in "teachings" and "discussions" that it will be worth your while!  Although I do not teach the entire story I sat and read it cover to cover one afternoon while waiting for a friend at the hospital.  - short and sweet - full of wonder!

Here is the URL of a mini-portion of the musical I use from YouTube.  Another gem.  :)

Le Petit Prince - musical - part 1 of 13

A thank you - Thanksgiving Sale!

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that as a "thank you" and to show my appreciation for all of the good things that life has brought me that I will be having a sale at my TpT store. - "mrslryan".  More than 140 products will have a discount of 10% off the regular price on October 12 and 13! 

Drop by and have a look!  There might be something you are interested in! 

Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians on this holiday weekend! Safe travels!  :)  Lorraine

Building community

If you are like many educators you have a class with more than one "class" in it.  You understand, the split class. :) This is common in an elementary school but is also becoming more common at the secondary level. As teachers, we do as much as possible to provide our students the opportunity to excel in our subject areas at whatever level they are at. I have two split classes at the secondary level this year. - one with (FSL) French 8 and former immersion students in it and another one with former immersion students (2 different levels) and FSL students (a triple split class!). Careful planning and organization are essential when teaching classes like this but so is building community within the classroom!  When you have two different courses being offered in the same hour and in the same class you have to take advantage of every opportunity of bringing the entire group together to participate in similar activities whenever possible. One activity that I use to help bring the class together as one is the market place activity.  This is the perfect way to start the language class as it focuses the students on speaking in the foreign language while allowing them to stretch their legs before settling in to the class lesson.  I try to make the market place activities short with only 5 questions . This allows students enough time to practice the questions or concepts that they have recently learned and encourages success for all students.  The former immersion students are happy to be able to help out with pronunciation and the FSL students get an opportunity to hear another speaker besides myself speak in French. I always make a stipulation that students must talk to students from other tables.  Although we have two different courses being taught, they will always consider themselves as "one class" as long as the community is formed. 

Here are two market place products that I use to help reinforce concepts and build community in my class.
 Continuons à parler français

 Parlons français

Happy Teaching! and to all my fellow Canadians - Happy Thanksgiving!  Lorraine