Physical POP UP Poems
Many thanks to
for sourcing this poem “le jour de la rentrée “
on
We love the use of the sounds to replace key present tense first person singular verbs and add a performance dynamic to the poem !
and myself have broken the poem down into a simpler French version for our young language learners to develop into a series of performance language activities which links well with either of our UKS2
learning focuses : school routine or daily routine.
Here’s our shortened version made into two verses:
D’abord je me
hop hop
du bon pied .
Puis je
gloup gloup
mon petit déjeuner.
A l’école je ne
oin oin
meme pas,
Mais je
bonjour bonjour
tout le monde
Je
lalalala
des chansons en faisant la ronde,
Mais je
chuTTtt
aussi pour la maitresse.
Tout à coup la cloche
dring dring
l’école est terminée.
Je retrouve ma maman et je lui
blablablabla
de ma journée!
Should you want this poem in Spanish then thanks to Ana Garcia we have tried to put this into Spanish at the bottom of this page
What’s the text about?
To work with this text we feel that the children need to first of all to explore the two verses of our poem by :
1.Reading the text with the teacher
2.Identifying key words they recognise – a simple highlighting activity
3.Sharing this knowledge with the class
4.Collecting the known language on a class record sheet.
5.Piecing together as language detectives what the text is about
Explore the Sound Text !
Now the class can check their conclusions by using the sounds in the text and the actions modelled by the teacher, to explore the meaning of each sentence.They will do this by just speaking and acting out the key sounds from each sentence .
Can the class read the text below and explore /understand from this what the missing verbs in the text could be?
Can the children read the sound text below as a class and through teacher voice emphasis , can the children draw conclusions about the missing verbs?
Hop hop
(jump twice)
Gloup gloup
(hold pretend bowl to mouth and slurp)
Oin oin
(pull a face as if crying)
Bonjour bonjour
.(wave twice)
Lalalala
(make a gesture as if singing )
ChuTTtt
(finger to lips)
Dring dring
( move hand as if ringing big heavy hand bell twice)
Bla bla bla bla
(open and shut hand as if it’s a mouth -chattering)
Give the children the missing verbs as cards. Can the children link any of the verbs to the sound text above? Which verbs are left? Can the children help you to place these verbs next to key sounds and perhaps use the action s to help them do this? Are there any verbs left that the children need to look up in a bi-lingual dictionary? You will to help them by providing them with the infinitive of the verbs. .
lève
prends
pleurs
dis
chante
me tais
sonne
raconte
Games with sounds and verbs
Play recall games with the sounds and the verbs ….
As a class the teacher should :
Call a sound and the children must do the action
Do an action and the children must say the sound
Call a sound and the children must say the verb that matches the sound
(You could also play the recall games in pairs or as small groups )
Create Physical POP UPS of the poem
We will be using the poem we abbreviated for this. Divide your class into groups of four children Give each group one of the 8 sentences from the two verses of the poem. Each of the four children has a role to play in saying part of the full sentence from the poem and making the POP UP sentence of the poem
Each group has two core sentence cards – the start of the sentence and the end of the sentence . Two children hold up the core cards – one holds up the start of the sentence and another child holds up the end of the sentence.
In between the other two children are responsible for the sound and the verb pop ups . One should say the sound and do the action and the other child should say the missing verb and carry the action on.
Here’s a diagram to explain what I mean :
“D’abord je me
(
sounds/ action
)
(
missing verb/
action
) du bon pied “
Now the class can put together its pop up version of the whole poem .Each group saying and performing their sentence in turn .
At this point you could film the class using props and performing their POP UP poem with sound effects as a “ video of le jour de la rentrée”
Let’s take the performance further …….“Sound” “Vision” and “Target Language” performance
You may want to stop here or you may want to try out this series of drama and performance linked activities to create a “Sound” “Vision” and “Target Language” performance .
Divide the class into 8 groups .
Ask them to perform their POP UP sentences from the previous activities
Now ask them to explore the rhythm , beat and cadence of their sentences as part of the whole poem.
To do this they need to identify the rhythm of their sentence – clapping out the syllables and the beat
Can they replace the clapping with their key sound from the sentence e.g.
D’abord je me hop hop du bon pied
could become …..
“Ho-hop hop hop hop hop hop ho op”
To this they need to add a clapping /clicking / tapping or stamping rhythm that matches
This forms the basis of their backing track for their sentence. Now two children are responsible for the backing track and the sound and clapping / tapping / clicking or stamping of the rhythm)
Now the group needs to add the spoken sentence on top of this rhythm .The other two children are responsible for the performance of the spoken sentence with actions and fitting it to the rhythm of the backing track they have created.
Can they perform this for the class?
Put the whole poem back together and perform this as a class performance – with backing track rhythms and spoken French sentences with actions.
What a performance!
The Spanish version of the abbreviated poem
La vuelta al cole
Primero me quick quick con el pie derecho
Después ñam ñam desayuno
En el colegio no muaa muaa
Pero hola hola a todo el mundo
Yo lalalala las canciones
Pero ssh ssh para escuchar a la profesora
De pronto ring ring el colegio ha terminado
Encuentro a mi mama mua mua
Y le bla bla bla bla de mi dia
