Bonne année!

Hope you are all enjoying your holidays. 

Reminder that the first class back is Monday 12 January as SA still on holiday on 5th!

Lundi 8 décembre

Fun with bûches de Noël (mini rolls and writing icing!)

Today's links

Nativity figures to move about on whiteboard maybe for belle histoire song

Quia Scavenger Hunt on Christmas in France

My files in my teaching files Modules>Christmas folder for the banner, vocab, creche to colour in and words of belle histoire , no PC friendly versions - pdf or doc

Other French Christmas links 

Je vous souhaite Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année

Flashcard presentation

We used Christmas vocab as an example of presenting new vocab and the stages and varied ways of doing this.
We also looked at quizbusters game which you can create in teachers-direct.co.uk

We looked also at quia.com to which you can subscribe but also where you can find some nice ready made activities
and the Christmas vocab one

We listened to some carols on csdraveurs advent calendar
notably Petit Papa Noël no 12

Noël va arriver!

We did the register and some revision of family

We heard a Christmas song from Henri Dès entitled Belle Histoire about the Christmas story. Each "pupil" was allocated a key word and had to leap to their feet when it came up accompanied by suitable acting eg the stable, the star. The ox and the ass got plenty of exercise due to the repetition!

There was a colouring and labelling crib scene la crèche
Then we played the Christmas present game which involves making little card presents and giving the presents bran tub style.
Here is the dialogue between pupils A the giver and B the receiver

Pupil A: J’ai un cadeau pour B.
Viens ici, B

Pupil A : Tiens voilà! (here you are) Joyeux Noël!

B : Merci. Je peux l’ouvrir?
A :Oui, bien sûr.
Classe : Qu’est-ce que c’est? Fais voir (let's see)

B : Oh c’est un(e) …
Quelle surprise!
Ce que je voulais! (just what I wanted)
Merci
Joyeux Noël

We finished with a look at a whiteboard activity with containers for vowel sounds!
Next week more Christmas.
There is a Noel voc sheet in My teaching files, for advance prep. Link in side bar. Password valley

More on family

BBC Talk French video

Freres et soeurs

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: brothers sisters)

La famille(updated)

We did a lot of family vocabulary today. Flashcards of the Simpsons were useful. We worked in groups of 4 with each person being either Homer, Marge, Bart or Lisa. They had to introduce other members of their family. eg Je suis Marge et voici mon mari Homer. Questions could be asked by rest of class eg Marge, tu as combien d'enfants? or pointing to other person Qui est-ce? (Who is it?)

We sang a traditional song j'aime papa.  We found the music in the itunes store. You get a 30 second preview for free. As it is a short song it was long enough to hear it all. You need to have itunes on your computer. Free download for pc users. Comes with macs anyway

We looked at some websites. There is a nice family tree activity for whiteboard here. My Simpsons activities on quia here. 

Made up 2 more quia exercises on the Simpsons:  pop up and matching names to description 

We finished with a preview of Christmas vocab here  Click on  "list of terms" to see the vocab list before you start.

La date

We finally got access to the French room B102 where I can (usually) work the technology and have all my stuff.
We did the days, date, months and birthdays. We spent a long time on the whiteboard using the edpax French software on months. We liked using it but would have liked feedback on correct answers. Maybe in version 2?

For pronunciation of dates we liked the calendar on hello-world You have to watch the pronunciation of the numbers when followed by a consonant or vowel. Click on dates to hear them pronounced.

We talked about saints days, fêtes and some other important times of the French year.

We sang a birthday song to the tune of Old Macdonald
Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire? o é o é o 2x
(then go round the class, 4 at a time, they say their birthdays, fast!) le vingt septembre, le premier mai, le dix-sept juin, le cinq juillet
Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire? o é o é o

and start again till everyone has sung their birthday!

other activities - putting the days and months cards into the right order mettez les mois dans le bon ordre!. Ask class c'est bon? is it right
elimination game class all stand levez-vous asseyez- vous si votre anniversaire est en mars
until there is un gagnant /une gagnante a winner
match nul is a draw

Next week we will do family. Bring some photos of your family if you can.
We'll play happy families too.

Listening homework for week beg 10 Nov

Following on the theme of alphabet and spelling have a look at this short clip from the BBC's Ma France series.

It starts with alphabet the spelling and we meet a French- Scottish  family and see them playing some games.

Aujourd'hui

Today we did the alphabet and looked at some Youtube help

first Veronique  then a rather mad US explanation  that kids would like!

For other alphabet sites I like click here

We revised numbers and looked for help with big numbers at ultralingua.net a dictionary site

Key in the figures of a big number eg a date 1789 and see it in words! Brill! Also played with number fans.

We played the fortune teller game. You can download the files for this from My Teaching Files. Password is valley. Click on Modules> Fortune Teller files. There is the original appleworks file which you can modify of you have Appleworks and a pdf file exactly the same but unmodifiable.

Typing Accents

LTScotland has downloadable word files explaining how to do accents

We also looked at Typeit for pasting into documents.

I have changed the setting on the blog so that I get an email when you post a comment so I won't miss any!  Also you don't have to register to post a comment.

So keep them coming!

Meet some young French people

Ayrshire Modern Languages Association (AMLA) is hosting a social evening for Ayrshire's foreign language assistants, French, German, Spanish, Chinese. All interested teachers are invited along.
It will take place in Greenwood Academy Irvine on Tuesday 2 December at 7pm. Refreshments will be served.
If you would like to attend please email David Alexander.
alexanderdj@tiscali.co.uk
I'll be there!

Bienvenue

Soyez la bienvenue à la classe de français!

Je m'appelle Kay McMeekin et je serai votre prof!

Week 1 learning outcomes
to be able to say and write some greetings and personal language
to learn some techniques of practising/applying language in the classroom
to start to learn some rules of pronunciation
to know where to find help online