Halloween Activities!

Will you be doing some Halloween activities with you students this week?  I know we will be because my students seem to just love Halloween.  Me, personally, I could take it or leave it.  We always spend some time around Halloween learning C'est l'halloween by Matt Maxwell.  

This song has so many great childhood memories for me.  Every year we would sing this song in class near Halloween. I have continued the tradition with my students and every year they are thrilled to hear it again and partake in a sing-a-long with me.  After we've sang the song at the beginning of class, we start on a few Halloween activities I have created for them.  This year we'll be focusing on les virelangues d'Halloween.  Over the last few weeks our Virelangue de la semaine has been Halloween themed.  This week students will write their own tongue twister and post them around our classroom.  Students will then vote to select certain ones for a Halloween award.  Categories are:  most creative, scariest, most difficult and silliest.  If we have time students will illustrate their tongue twisters and we'll create a classroom ebook from them.  My hope is to have students record themselves saying their tongue twister and embedded the audio into our ebook using iBooks on my MacBook.   

What kind of Halloween activities will you be doing this week?  I'd love to hear what you are all up to.  

I'm having a Halloween sale at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  15% off everything until October 31st!  

Oral Journalling using the iPads

Well over the last week, thanks to the suggestion of a colleague, I downloaded an App called Disp Recorder onto my classroom set of iPads.  This particular App allows you to do a screen-capturing on your iPad.  The FSL teacher in my says:  "This is perfect for oral journaling!"  and jumps around all giddy.   

When my students arrive in class they now do one of two things: oral journaling or journal writing.  They find out which we're doing my logging into the e-learning portal for our classroom.  When we're doing oral journaling students find an image available for download in the News Feed for our class.  Pictures range from cartoons to classroom snapshots that I've taken.  Such as this Simon's Cat image.   

From there students are asked to either describe everything they see or to create a story based on what they see.  When they complete their oral journaling they upload them to our course where I can then access and listen to their journaling.  Students are LOVING it and so am I.  This App is really giving me the ability to demonstrate to parents their child's oral language skills.  My beginner students are describing in words or sentences what they see, my more advanced students are telling great stories about the images.  I also like that I am able to hear where my students are getting stuck and offer them up either new vocabulary or strategies depending on the situation.    

Have you come across any great Apps for second language classrooms lately? I'd love to hear from you! 

What have we been up to?

Last year, I fell into a trap where I stopped posting when things got crazy at school and in life.  This year I am truly working towards consistency with my blogging as it truly helps me grow as an educator.    I will do better, I promise!

So what have we been up to for the last 3 weeks at school?  LOTS of cool stuff!

In primary we have been doing lots of signing lately.  I have a group of little sweeties that just love to sing.  I have been making great use of Sylvia Duckworth's YouTube channel with these guys.  They can all count to twenty thanks to this video I scooped up from the channel.  My 1/2s squeal with delight when I play this song and dance along with the worms.  Most of them know all their days of the week because of this song, which I use before we do our calendar each day. I like this song because it is slow enough that they are getting the pronunciation correct!  And just for fun, we've been learning L'Abre est dans ses feuilles, which is a favourite from my childhood.  So much fun is happening in my class this year.

I think my biggest challenge for me with primary FSL was that there are no strict guidelines as to what has to be taught to them. (i.e. there is no curriculum in Ontario)  The focus in my board is on oral for these students but it took me a long time to let go of now having assessment pieces in my hands and letting go of much of the 'paper' work.  This is where technology has saved me!  Although I don't have iPads when I am teaching the primary students, I do have my personal computer and my iPhone which I have been using to take clips of the students interacting and filing them the same way I would with 'paper' assignments.  It's been life saving for me and honestly the students love to see and/or hear themselves doing many of the activities!  The best part is I don't feel the pressure to try and remember everything I am hearing them do.  I can always fall back on the recordings for more accurate assessment after class.

In my junior/intermediate classes we are adapting to using iPads in FSL. We have installed the French keyboard and have started doing some great writing on our iPads.  I've spent much of the first month teaching procedures/rules for iPad usages and reviewing materials from last year.  This is the first time I have taught Core French for two consecutive years in one school.  I am pleasantly surprised at what they remember and how easy it is to trigger their memory when they don't.  This month we will start our guided reading and get things moving along at a much faster pace.  I am so excited to see how these iPads affect their learning of a second language.  


What have you been up to in your classroom over the last few weeks?

Week 2 with iPads

I knew having 1:1 tech would change to way I teach; I just couldn't believe how much until I saw it with my own eyes using it in my classroom.  This week I saw students that refused to speak French last year, take the leap and respond to me en français without any prompting.  It all started with a little bit of time 'playing' on the Living Language App that I have on our class set of iPads.  

You see, this week as review I had my grade 5-8 students get on the iPads and complete the 1st lesson in the Essential French category.  In this levels students review very basic greetings by reviewing flashcards that include audio, popping bubbles, slaying dragons and completing word searches.  

Turns out a lightbulb went off for some of them, where previously they had struggled.  I am not sure if it was the 'play' portion or the kinaesthetic aspect of matching up words or just their high interest in the iPads but what I do know is I have some students who did not speak in my class last year saying:  "Bonjour Madame. Comment ça va?" or confidently responding "Je suis ici!" during attendance without prompting!  I am thrilled and cannot wait to see what other things we will accomplish through the iPads.  

For now, in my Core French classes, we are moving into preparing our audio recordings that will be turned into QR codes, which will be put on these posters that I showed you last week! (You still following?)  I finally decided how to do it.  We're going to use an App called ScreenChomp.  Students will take a photo of their poster, load it into Screen Chomp and record their 'presentations' over it.  They can then easily use the URL provided by ScreenChomp to make a QR code!  

What I am struggling with is if this should just be a normal presentation or if the students should pretend they are interacting with the person listening to it (like a one sided conversation).  Any thoughts?   

I'd love to hear from you!  Have a great 3rd week! 

First Week of School!

Let me start by saying I LOVE MY JOB!!!  I cannot believe the number of times I have caught myself thinking that this week.   I have met all my classes and we have started some pretty fun projects together en français!  My primary students can dress Mr. la grenouille and are starting to be able to tell me what he's wearing with only gesture prompts.  Imagine the cutest group of 5/6 year olds all saying: "Mr. la grenouille porte un chapeau."  Melts my heart I tell you!  They've also learned Je m'appelle _________ and J'ai ____ ans.  Here is a little worksheet I did with my grade 2/3's, so this is review for them, my 1/2s just started some of this sheet today.  

They loved making these and I plan on recording oral presentation of the info to them by adding QR codes to them for our open house.  The kids are so excited to record their 'presentations'.  Never have I had so many kids willing and wanting to give a presentation.   

Next up my junior/intermediate art project which was inspired by a pin on Pinterest.  Students have been having a blast drawing and starting to colour their drawings!  I am again adding QR codes to these posters, students will be introducing themselves and some of their favourite things.  Students in the junior and intermediate grades will have access to iPads in my classroom which we will start to use next week.  They are struggling with the en français rule but I am sure it will improve, they are forgetting and talking in English but I am persisting (one day at a time on this) and addressing them only in French.  The only exception was the day on rules surrounding iPads, I have to be 100% certain that each student knows the school's policies on iPad use.  Here are some great examples of where my students are at right now.  

This student's work challenged me to not correct his art because it wasn't the way I wanted it.  I am really striving to encourage artistic freedom in many of my projects this year and give control to my students in this department.

This young man proclaims to 'suck at art' (I disagree!) and was shocked when I 'let' him give his character dark eyes.

This piece is really coming together!  I can't wait to see the final product! 

I hope you've enjoyed the peak into my first week at school!  What have you been up to in your room?  

p.s. I'm having a sale at my TeachersPayTeachers store!