Noun Nets and German

The challenge of nouns and definite/ indefinite articles in German and cases with young learners can seem like a huge challenge but I think we need to break this down and look for small steps of progression over four years.
The beauty of German is that there are very clear rules as qe use nouns in the nominative, accustaive, dative and genitive cases
I think that over four years we can help the children in primary German rto have "basic understanding of nouns"
What I am describing below will take the four stages ( four years of primary language learning to develop.

• Let's go catching nouns , like you would catch butterflies.Preciuous , to be looked after carefully and to be  examined and observed!
• Let's make it exciting - I mean how exciting is it that there are three types of nouns in German masculine , feminine and neuter.Let's make it an exciting exploration!!
• Let's make sure from the beginning that the young learners do not asscoaite thes three terms with sexual gender but see the titles "masculine","feminine" and "neuter"  as tags or labels.The blog post here on tags and labels for nouns may help you too .Nouns, definite articles,indefinite articles and colour card tricks
• Let's keep on talking about nouns, revisiting and reviewing nouns with our young learners too- across content and contexts and year groups and stages of learning.
• Let's put our nouns and finding about nouns as we explore the four cases - Nominative,Accusative,Dative and Genitive in to noun nets and let's reviit and explore them throughout the year and then across the year groups as we find out more! 

Noun Nets One!
In our first noun  net with stage one / beginner German learners Let's just collect singular nouns  and let's collect tags or labels.
Let's put the nouns we are learning (e.g. animal nouns) in to one large net as written word cards with the definitie article
Let's take the nouns out of the net one by one and examine the nouns carefully.Can we spot the different definite articles? 

Why not use my idea of the magnifying glass for this? 
The mysterious World of grammar and the maginfying glass

Let's add a new category and add plural nouns and the definitie article "die"
Let's explore plural endings and how we can spot the difference between for example "die Schlange" and "die Schlangen" 
Let's catch and sort our feminine nouns in two different nets! 

Noun Nets Two!
Let's sort our nouns! 
Can we categorise the nouns and place them in three nets - "der/ die and das" nets.
Let's be honest with the choldren and explain that the nouns have speical titles "masculine,feminine and neuter" 
Let's right from the start explain that the masculine does notr mean male etc
We can continue over four years to gently remind our learners so they have lots of chances to understand the "basic grammar facts "



Let's sort nouns using the game in this blog post I Spy Nouns- we can revist this activity many time too! 

Noun Nets Three!
With stage two , moving on learners on Year 4...
Let's look at nouns after the verb "haben".
Let's be positive and let' use "ich habe...."
Can we spot the difference in the spelling of the definite article 
Can we  create four new nets and place these below the first four nets that we already use. 
Where are we going to put the nouns now?
Ich habe den Hund
Ich habe die Schlange
Ich habe das Kaninchen
Ich habe die Katzen


Let's apply the rule we have made as a class and see if it works with a question..."Hast du....?"
(Maybe at this point you want to talk with the children about the "object" of the sentence... answering the question "What item are we talking about?" )
Remember it will be important to keep on talking about nouns, revisiting and reviewing nouns with our young learners too- across content and contexts and year groups and stages of learning.

Let's apply this rule to indefinite singular article nouns too now ......
Bring out I Spy Nouns again- a familiar activity but a new challenge to ask and answer questions with the verb "haben" and to use indefinite articles with the nouns....before sorting in to "noun nets"!

Noun Nets Four!
With stage three, moving on learners  at the start of Year 5 ....
Let's introduce some important prepositions and the effect that these prepositions have upon the definite and indefinote articles....
Break this down - don't bombard them- start with an accusative preposition "für"and investigate and apply the rules the children already used in"noun nets 3 
Now make it exciting....spot the changes and track the family of the nouns definite article- introduce a dative preposition "mit".
Can the children create the next layer of noun nets - "dem / der/ dem/ den!".

Take time over the year to explore some more useful prepositions and their relationships with definite artciles - zu / von / nach .Try to keep these  explorations to prepositions that don't change from Accustaive to Dative.
do talk with the children about these fascinating words "Nominative" "Accusative" "Dative " use them just like with UKS2 you might use the term"Algebra" or "Fraction"
Give your learners the chance over a period of time to just see these words as labels and signposts and useful as list headings for prepositions.....

You may like to use the Spin the Wheel Game to practise use of Nominative,Accusative and Dative Definite Articles.

Noun Nets Five! 
With stage three or four , moving on learners  at the end of Year 5, moving in to Year 5 ....
Let's explore the Genitive case ....
Let's once again use all our apporaches from Noun Nets 1,2,3,4 and let's make it an exciting discovery .
Ask the children if they can define for you what power the definite article in the Genitive has .... Can they suggest a sense of belonging or ownership? Lead them to see this relationship 
And guess what set up your Noun Nets again!

Abracadabra Adjectives and Magic Tricks!

Here is one post unashamedly for my colleagues who teach German.
Grammar in German can be such fun! You just have to think of ways around the adjectives and the cases.
Let's make magic with adjectives!
We have a lovely short sketch that we use with Year 6 in our JLN SOW for German about a magician and his hat and all thew wonderful things he pulls out of his hat ....but not the rabbit he is looking for!
The activity below will help you to reinforce adjectival endings used with singualr indefinite nominative nouns or with indefinite accusative nouns, create a performance and hopefully have some fun!
There are probably 3 - 4 lessons of activities here.
You may also like to practise the verbs "haben" and "sein" prior to these activities.The following blog post have activities


Cinderella,carnival masks and the verb "to be "

The verb "to have" and a wizard's potion

Magician's steps:
You will need 

• a magician's hat or bag
• 6 animal cards - each animal all white balnk pictures ( a dog,a fish, a cat , a snake, a rabbit and a guinea pig)
• 6  more of the same animal cards - but each of the animals must now be a different colour -(e.g a red dog , a green cat , a purple guinea pig)  

Step One 
Practise the magic word- all magicians need a magic word "Abracdabra!

Step Two
Introduce the animal cards for your magic trick (two masculine , two feminine and two neuter nouns.)
Pop them in your magician's hat and ask the children to say the nouns as they disapper in to the hat.

Step Three- the magic word!
Create a speed chant - saying "Abracadabra and the noun for the animals in your magic hat/bag as they appear - using the singular indefinite nominative case e.g. ein Fisch, eine Katze , ein Kaninchen etc.
Say the magic phrase and nouns with "gusto"!  

Step Four- the magic signal trick!
Now add a magic signal to identify masculine nouns maybe a twirl of the hand , for feminine nouns maybe a swipe of the forehead, for neuter nouns a click of the fingers.Ask the children without your help to say the animal nouns with their magic symbols as you pop them back in the hat/bag!
Invite volunteers to come out and be magician's apprentices - can they say the magic word and then pull an animal out of the hat/bag.Can they say the correct singular indefinite nominative article and the animal noun plus also make the correct magic sign? 
There should be a round of applause from the audience (the other children ) after each magic trick

Step Five - Magik Menu and adding a touch of white!
Pop your white animal cards on the flip chart.
At the top of the flipchart write the title "Magik Menu"
Write next to each animal the sungular nominative indefinite article plus the coluor white with correct adjectival agreement and the animal noun.
Ask the children to see if they can see a magic pattern?
Try your magic pattern with three new animal words ( one masculine, one feminine and one neuter)
Does the pattern still work?

Step Six- Magik Menu and adding a touch of colour
Remove the white cards and the key phrases you have written
Add the coloured card animal pictures
Can the children on whiteboards and working in pairs, write the Magik Menu list that they think is now required?
e.g ein roter Hund, eine schwarze Schlange , ein graues Kaninchen) 
See if as a class the apprentice magicians can complete the flipchart "Magik Menu"


Step Seven
The class is almost ready to try out a colour changing magic trick!
First they need to watch, listen and observe an expert magician - you! 
You need a magician's bag or hat with the six colured animal cards already concealed in the hat.We are goig to use the verb "haben" so that we can now share with the children the change in adjecrival ending when the noun has a singular indefinite article in the accusative (..... einen Hund/ eine Katze/ ein Meerschweinchen) 

You must use the following phrases to make the magic work
Show the white animal card to the audience 

Say : 

 Hier ist ein weisser Hund

Pop the card in the magician's bag or hat

Ask the class to help you say the magic word!

Abracadabra!

Pull out the coloured version of the animal and say 

Ich habe einen roten Hund 

• Ask the children to talk with each other about the words they have heard and the changes they may also have heard.Take feedback .
• Try the activity again with a second masculine noun
• Ask the children to see if what they think they notiiced happens again?
• On whiteboards start a Magik Menu with the phrase "ich habe..." and the animals , colours and the changes to the article and the clour they hear.
• Check and take feedback
• Ask the children ro try out the magic trick with the third masculine animal noun you have used in step five. 

Repeat the activities above with feminine nouns and then with neuter nouns!

With the class make some simple rules about the use of adjectives with nouns using the verbal phrase "hier ist ..." and simple rules about the use of adjectives using the verb "haben"  

Make sure that these are visible in the classroom for the next step.....

Step Eight - our magician's show!

Can the children working in differentiated abiloty groups of four create their own colur changing magic show but this time with fruits or vegetables and colours?

They must make the props.

Use the phrases in Step Seven and write their own scripts and then perform their "abracadbra adjective magic tricks" for the class!

Celebrating a royal baby with simple fun language learning activities

With the birth of a new royal baby to happen and all the press hype around this in the near future, I decided that it would be something that our children particularly KS1 and Y3 or Y4 would be interested in.

I have popped a couple of ideas down here on ways you might like to celebrate the birth of the baby! (I have focused on a song, a card and a baby layette - so we have listening and joining in, simple copy writing and some DT and writing simple full sentences to describe clothes for a baby).


Celebrating the addition to a family with a silly French song about the family!

Prince George is about to be the big brother.
Here is a song about a "little"  brother and his dummy.
Family nouns are also introduced into the song (maman,papa, cousin,cousine) so you could create a simple family tree too and don't forget to  add the grandma and grandad and perhaps aunts and uncles too!
Could be a great song to practise in class and then sing to the school in a class assembly and guess what ...act it out!

Fais dodo Colas mon petit frere

Click on the link above and find the lyrics .

Designing a French layette

Just a bit of fun but what should the clothes for a royal baby look like?
Can the children anticipate the hobbies and interests of the future royal baby and add these to the designs of their clothes?
Will the baby be a footballer, a dancer, a musician etc?
Why not ask the class to design some clothes for the new royal baby .We use the word "layette" too here in England. 
If the children are moving on in their language learning ,can they write simple full sentences about the items they design- noun, verb and adjective?

A card for the baby in French,German and Spanish

And don't forget to write a card to celebrate the birth of the bay.

I love these cards below as I think the balloons are fabulous plus the language is so simple that we can use this in KS1 and Year 3 to make a fabulous display celebrating the birth! 

What about a German lullaby 

Practise , sing and perform!



Clothes for the baby in German

Create a German layette for the baby too just like the French idea above!

A lullaby in Spanish

A Spanish layette

...and for Spanish clothes for your baby layette - 
Take a look at this part of el corte ingles website

ropas del bebe

Beginning with languages blog 5

Across our network we work with schools who are all at different stages of setting up and delivering primary language learning and each year we welcome new schools who want to set off on their own individual school's language learning journey.

This year these specific 

"Beginning with languages "

 blogs will try to offer "bite size chunks" of indirect help and support to schools, who are doing exactly that .... just setting off and implementing  a language learning curriculum 

.

Take a look back at"beginning with languages" blogs 

one

,

two

 ,

three

 and 

four

 .

Your checklists so far have been:

Sept - Oct ,(first half term) Checklist

• It's all about establishing a whole school support system for all your staff
• It's about small steps and simple language learning
• It's about children and staff beginning to enjoy language learning

Mid October (end of the first half term), an additional new checklist bullet point!

• So how are you all getting on? How do you know that primary languages are being implemented in all the classes and are the teachers and children having fun in their learning? 

November (moving in to the second half term of language learning),we added a couple of new challenges to your checklist!

• How successfully have you been able to build in "revisiting" opportunities to build the children and staff's confidence with the language you introduced last half term? 
• Are you introducing,revisiting and re-using familiar games with familiar and unfamiliar language for example (e.g Bingo or Splat or maybe a game of Quiz Quiz Swap?)
• Have you encouraged all staff to practise key language using sound files and songs?
• Can all staff and children practise and learn a Christmas song or carol in the target language? (In beginning with languages blog three you can find links to You ~tube clips of a Christmas song lin French, Spanish and German

December-January (moving forward) your checklist was to: 

• Did all your staff  try out a simple listening and speaking Christmas activity based on a Christmas  song?
• Have staff considered and been able to identify the links between activities we may use in KS1 when encouraging children to read and KS2 beginners language learning (sound-spelling links and activities)?
• Are KS2 staff building opportunities  in to activities in the New Year  to help learners to  "broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words ...."- Are staff in KS2  exploring nouns with their KS2 foreign language learners? 

And now we are in February ......

• Reflection time for yourself as coordinator .Half way through the academic year reflection time for yourself as coordinator is needed: By now the school should be delivering some sequences of lessons and supporting each other to do so .This blog report Getting learning right  (from the start) may help you as the subject coordinator to consider and identify next steps in building a language learning environment that is supportive across the whole of KS2

• Ask your teachers to think of ways they can develop lessons that encourage children to explore simple "role play " in their lessons.This blog post may help you to forward plan Exploring role play  and see how we move from "asking and answering questions" to "engaging in conversations" and how this development takes time. These role play ideas will support staff to find simple ways to plan for role play activities with their classes:

Paper puppets with a purpose - asking and answering simple questions

Changing faces and Pop Art - UKS2 creative approach to basic personal information questions and answers

Totem Pole prompt sticks to help children stage their conversation building

3D Art and practising personal information spoken sentences

Who lives here? Pictures as prompts to create simple imaginative dialogues language

• Continue to plan foreign language learning as an integral part of the school calendar.Coming up this month and at the start of March are Carnival and World Book day

• Plan for a whole school celebration on World Book Day of simple language the children have learnt( greetings , personal information questions and answers, colours, learning a song in a foreign language, listening and responding ) and add a touch of writing and recording this simple language by making mini books. In this blog post there are ideas based around "Elmer the Elephant ", one of the selected books for World Book Day in 2015.Elmer explorers -listening ,speaking and writing

• Encourage staff to celebrate the culture of the target language country.Carnival is one of the best ways to engage the whole school and to introduce some language and culture in KS1 too.Look at these simple ways that you can link foreign language learning to other areas of the curriculum and continue to explore the Learning Objectives in the DfE KS2 PoS during carnival celebrations

Carnival:

Exploring the music of Saint Saens and the carnival of animals

Here is the opportunity to teach a sequence of lessons based on the

nouns

for animals and link language learning to Art/DT/Music/ICT and Drama

Stretchy sound and letter balloons

Here is an opportunity to continue to explore

sound- spelling links

and create your own strechy colourful carnival balloons too

Read carefully and understand words,phrases and simple sentences based on fancy dress

Here is an opportunity to begin to introduce the skill of reading and explore the DfE KS2 POS objective of "reading carefully and understanding words".If you are attending our local network meetings then you can access all the resources you need to deliver this activity in French and Spanish here 

Training Resources

Beginning with languages blog 3

Across our network we work with schools who are all at different stages of setting up and delivering primary language learning and each year we welcome new schools who want to set off on their own individual school's language learning journey.

This year these specific 

"Beginning with languages "

 blogs will try to offer "bite size chunks" of indirect help and support to schools, who are doing exactly that .... just setting off and implementing  a language learning curriculum 

.

In September this year I wrote : 

beginning with languages blog 1

 and in October 

beginning with languages blog 2

Your checklists so far have been:

Sept - Oct (first half term) Checklist

• It's all about establishing a whole school support system for all your staff
• It's about small steps and simple language learning
• It's about children and staff beginning to enjoy language learning

Mid October an additional new checklist bullet point!

• So how are you all getting on? How do you know that primary languages are being implemented in all the classes and are the teachers and children having fun in their learning? 

And now your new checklist bullet points for November are.........

• How can you build in "revisiting" opportunities to build the children and staff's confidence with the language you introduced last half term - probably greetings, numbers 0-11, simple questions and answers about names and feelings and perhaps some colours will be in this list from last half term? What about a game like Bingo or Splat or maybe a game of Quiz Quiz Swap (Quiz Quiz Trade) around the classroom where children ask questions and swap cards with someone else as they move around the room and greet/ ask names and feelings and say farewells.Or why not try out a simple colours and firework song and activity like this one Colours and rockets particularly with the younger learners in KS1 and Y3/4

• This half term you can focus on celebrations too .There is Saint Nicolas Day at the start of December on the 6th December (here is some wikipedia information ) and then there is Christmas of course!Why not select a simple Christmas song now and start to practise in your classes ready for a whole school target language performance in the school Christmas assembly?

Continuing to make progress and to upskill staff and children in the target language

• Make sure that teachers and children continue to make progress.
• Introduce a new focus for example n the month of November practise and develop their language learning skills.Take a look at months and days and practise with the children ways to remember the new words, looking for cognates and semi- cognates (words that look similar)
• Possible songs to support you are below :

French month

s

: 

les mois de l'annee

Spanish months

:       

los meses del ano

German months

:       

Monate

• Begin to look for ways to link language learning to another area of the curriculum to embed language learning as an integral part of learning for instance why not try out a "physical bar chart" based on months and birthdays. Take a look here Physical primary target languages maths

Looking for a Christmas song for all the school?

Here are three target language examples with sound files and words on the screen to support all staff to familiar tunes and which are international Christmas songs/carols 

Here is Jingle Bells in French:

and in spanish

or what about Stille Nacht (Silent Night) in German

Heute bin ich ......

Well the German book fest continues.We have the good fortune within our network to have two or three schools that deliver German as their primary foreign languages. so often we can neglect this and concentrate on French and Spanish. Over the last couple of days I have been able to browse German bookshops here in Germany and I have come up with some real finds!

Around about this time in the term with our  in Year 5,we begin to develop the children's ability to say more about how they are feeling and to extend their ability to say why they feel happy sad etc.





Here is a book that probably all primary (not just language) teachers - no matter what language would love to explore.It really engages the imagination and has the most wonderful chalk drawings.

It's called "Heute bin ich ..." by Mies van Hout

and it explores our feelings and links these feelings to drawings of lots of exotic fish.

Take a look here!

 You really need to buy the book and have the book as a turn the page adventure to appreciate how creative you can be with this text and its  visual element .

So how would I like our schools that teach German to use this book to enhance the SOW that they follow and to allow the children to be creative with the language and the pictures?

Remember the ideas below explore how we can link language learning to Art and physical performance but we also need to create opportunities for the children to use the new more exciting adjectives in extended sentences and responses too

• Each fish is a different shape, colour and has a different expression. Explore the adjectives physically or as shapes and colours on individual whiteboards - as a listening,identifying the key adjectives and responding with a facial expression or a quick drawing
• Create calligrams as fish shapes of the adjectives ,that the children feel portray the emotion.
• Create a class fish-tank display of the adjectives based on chalk drawing and German writing
• Change the animal and the adjectives and create your own  chalk picture display of the new words in the style of the new animal(s).

  .

Gute Nacht Gorilla! A brilliant KS2 Year 6 taster story to explore

Well I am in Germany and having a great time looking around for the books we need to support our local schools where they teach German in KS2.

Firstly I wanted a really simple book that has a sophisticated punchline for taster German learners in UKS2 that @JoBeeG73 can use when she goes out from her secondary school to her local primary cluster and Year 6.See her blog for as she shares her German taster sessions over the course of the academic year.

This morning I found it and I love it! (It does exist in English but in German there is so much to unpack and allow young language learners to explore when they have been learning a different foreign language at primary school throughout KS2)
It's called "Gute Nacht Gorilla! "by Peggy Rathmann

Such a simple story but with Year 6 beginners,who have acquired language skills in a different foreign language in KS2 you can continue their skills development and :

• practise simple spoken language :greetings and farewells,
• transfer the skill and look for cognates/semi cognates in a new foreign language: in the jungle animal names between English and German
• transfer the skill and practise key sounds in German for example (Nacht /Löwe/Hyäne etcetra)
• transfer the skill and practise using a German- English bi-lingual dictionary and change the animals and practise the pronunciation
• continue to be grammar explorers and look at the use of capital letters at the start of all nouns
• allow the children to share and create with you simple recall games,based on games they have enjoyed in their previous target language learning in KS2
• practise pronunciation,intonation and memory skills and create your own memorable and humorous spoken performances of the simple story (perhaps to share with a younger year group)  
• create a written record as a cartoon strip and allow independence so that the children can add their own animals or change the greetings or the visual  punchline
• take a cultural tour of zoos in Germany and compare the animals with those we see in zoos here in England 

And so it's over to you now Jo! I loo forward to reading your blog reports!

Abstract art and beginners target language learning.

Sometimes the simplest things inspire! Take  a look at this simple but wonderful book that I have just bought  myself ! I love "Art" and particularly abstract art. 

Simple ideas that many of us already consider and ways that many of us already plan for and use to generate additional language learning.These ideas work just as well where the class teacher delivers the language learning or where the class teacher engages with the languages teacher, be it a visiting teacher or a PPA swap.In these instances there is definitely the scope to add five and ten minute "class teacher ownership " learning opportunities.Why not go cross curricular?

So how do the book at the top of this blog and the article about time allocation link together? Well this book is just one example of how we can create effective cross curricular links with language learning ,.... (and possibly use authentic target language literature as well)

Take a look inside! Go to Amazon.co.uk here

30 cercles

 and get a taste for this very simple book which could be used in target language learning for five minute additional activities to 

• practise numbers, (Maths)

• colours, size, (Maths)

• commands like "find","touch","draw" (classroom communication skills)

• explore famous Art and artists. (Art)

For example why not google the paintings mentioned here

Vassily Kandinsky cercles concentriques 1913 (concentric circles)

Kasimir Malevitch cercle noir vers 1923 (black circles)

I am certain that primary minds are now buzzing... why not create your own abstract art books with colours or squares or lines?????

Mondrian comes to mine and Kandinsky once again....

Nouns, definite and indefinite articles and colour card magic tricks

This last week @EWoodruffe and I have been busy training groups of staff at individual school CPD sessions. We worked in one school where the children in Year 4 to Year 6 are moving on in their language learning and the staff were keen to find ways to support their growing inquisitiveness about the grammar of the French language.

As part of the CPD we looked at nouns and how to practise knowledge ,recognition and application of definite and indefinite articles. Here are the games, step by step. You will be able to revisit these games over and over again as the children learn more language and hopefully this will increase the children’s growing confidence in how to use articles before nouns.

All you need  for the games in French are six coloured paper squares to represent le ,la ,un,une, les and des. (If you apply these games to other languages then you will need n amount of different coloured cards to represent the amount of definite and indefinite articles you are practising in that specific target language)

You can reduce the number of coloured cards and still play the games if you r focus is just on definitie and indefinite singular articles or definite and indefinite plural articles.

Each child will need their own sets of these coloured squares too.  

We are making the assumption here that the children already know a series of nouns within a context such as animals. The children also already are aware that in French there are two singular definite articles and a plural definite article and they have had exposure to the indefinite articles too . You can play the games below and go through the steps just to practise definite articles in the singular and plural or to practise the change between definite and indefinite singular articles . It's a mix and match opportunity to practise a grammatical structure :the use of definite articles "the " and indefinite articles "a/some " with nouns in the target language.

Step One

Discuss clearly with the class the noun magic trick the class have become aware of- whether this is different words for" THE"/ how to change "THE to A" in the target language or plural words for "THE and SOME" we have become aware of ….

Reveal an empty table on the flip chart.This table below has four rows and three columns…. because we are looking at the big picture and assuming that the children are ready to practise changing between singular and plural definite and indefinite articles .But why are there four rows?

Well all will be revealed!

First we ask the class to go on a noun class hunt .In this instance we are looking for animal nouns and for three specific animal picture cards concealed on the room . You can  pretend to be explorers with language hunting binoculars and look carefully around the classroom for cards that have been concealed e.g.

“Cherchez le serpent/la souris/les poissons” 

Place the animal pictures in the second row of the table and then remove and replace the cards when you have collected them all with the correct definite article when the class are confident to tell the teacher  the noun  with the correct definite article.

Remember we were playing these games as part of staff CPD and the great thing is to have Emilie our native speaker teacher supporting too. The teachers  loved hearing how Emilie is teaching her own little boy to speak French and always says the noun with the definite article in French when they meet new nouns together.This came about from a question by a teacher about “Well how do children in France learn if it’s le or la?” Thanks Emilie – it’s great to have native  hands on knowledge like that! We thought you may also like to know this and share with your children too.

So in the second row write the definite articles in French after removing the pictures of nouns (le serpent/la souris/les poissons)

le	la	les

In the fourth row place the indefinite articles after  discussing  how you are now looking  “a snake/a mouse/some horses”.

Go on your animal hunt   using our imaginary binoculars…talk about how this time  you aren't  specifically looking for a specific snake etc. 

As we  are no longer looking for a very speicifc snake etc one of the teachers on CPD suggested that we should therefore have more than one picture card of “le serpent” etc so that children could make a random choice not an exact definite choice. Good idea!

Once again place your pictures on the chart,but this time in the third row. 

Remove the pictures and replace the pictures with the correct written indefinite articles 

le	la	les
un	une	des

So why have we got additional rows?

Well now we need to add our magic trick colour coded guide! Take a look!

le	la	les
un	une	des

The colour blocks represent the article below them, green is le , blue is la etc …..

Step Two

Practice your magic trick by checking that if “the teacher” holds up a coloured piece of card the children can respond  by calling out the correct definite or indefinite article

Step Three

Look at a list of known nouns (e.g here our focus has been animals in French) with definite articles, written as a list for the children. 

Call a colour  and the children have to select a noun that they can use to say the correct definite/indefinite article with that noun

e.g. If “blue “ is called in the target language , then the response from children must be a feminine noun ( noun preceded by “la”) but if brown is called in the target language then the children’s response must be a noun in the  plural with the indefinite plural article “ a plural noun of the animal preceded by “des”

Step Four 

Make this a pair game 

Call a colour pair game. Simply ask the children to practise as a game "step three" but this time in pairs.

Step Five  

Show a colour, say a colour and can a child give you a full sentence with a correct article and noun?

Step Six  

Make this a pair or group game 

Simply play step five as a pair or group game .

Step Seven

Ask the children to order their coloured paper squares in any order they wish and to challenge a partner to say animals with the correct definite/ indefinite article in the order that has been arranged with the coloured squares for them by their partner.

Step Eight

Ask the children to play last article standing.

They just select a coloured square and stand up holding the square clearly in front of them. The teacher selects one of his/her coloured cards from a bag and says a noun which has a corresponding definite or indefinite article before it .

If the children are holding the coloured square that corresponds to the definite /indefinite article that the teacher has used,they must sit down. Who will be the last children standing?

Step Nine

Play the game above as a table game.

Make this a pair or group game 

Teachers at the CPD session felt that over time they could confidently grow n their own competent use of definite and indefinite articles by playing and practising the games and steps with their classes- not necessarily all the steps at one time or all the definite and indefinite articles singular and plural at one time.

We felt that over and over again we can come back to these simple games and play some or all of them to reinforce children and teacher knowledge of definite and indefinite articles with nouns. 

Hope you find these steps and simple games useful too!

Bi-lingual dictionary wizards- a simple guide

The bi-lingual dictionary:an important key to the target language door!

Help your children to become "bilingual dictionary wizards!

I think it's a really great way to introduce grammar if you liken basic grammar and the tools to support non-native speakers to access target language as "keys to the door" or "magic tricks"

Here's the first really important "key to the door":the bi-lingual dictionary.

Children love bilingual dictionaries as they see them as special and treasure troves of words .

All we need to do is teach them the magic tricks of how to access and use then and then they can become a really                                             useful learning tool in the language classroom.

Magic tricks to know about and try out!

Stage by stage take your class through how to use a bilingual dictionary.The stages here are explained in  black and then the magic tricks are written in red.

Children love exploring bilingual dictionaries and once they see them as important learning tools then they will have the freedom to find the nouns etc they want to say and use rather than use the language you provide them with.

Do the magic tricks work when your children try to prove the stage descriptions?

You are going to need a class set of bilingual dictionaries- preferably one between two to make your "magic tricks" work best! 

• Stage One

English words are in alphabetical order in the second half of a bi-lingual dictionary.Ask the children to turn to the middle of the book and see where the English words start. Can they tell you the first English word they can find . What letter does it start with? How can they prove it's the start of a list of English words in alphabetical order?

• Stage Two

Target language words are at the front of the bi-lingual dictionary appear in the alphabetical order of the target language.Ask the children to turn to the front of the book and see where the target language word list starts. Can they tell you the first target language word they can find in this list. What letter does it start with? How can they prove it's the start of a list of target language words in alphabetical order?

• Stage Three 

If you look up an English word in the bilingual dictionary,the target language word is written next to it.Can they check this for you with some common words you may have already practised in the target language (e.g nouns for animals - cat,dog, horse etc)?

• Stage Four

If you want to check that the nouns you have found in the target language is correct , then you need to "cross reference" it by looking for the word in the front of the dictionary. Remind the children that these words are in target language alphabetical order- so it may be cat in English but it's gato in Spanish.Can they prove that this is the case, looking up nouns in the English first target language second section and then cross referencing them in the front of the book in the target language- English section and finding the target language word first?

• Stage Five 

Next to the noun on the right hand side it will indicate whether the word is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition . In easy learning and child friendly dictionaries it may well say the actual word “noun” etc on the right hand side. In most bi-lingual dictionaries in brackets on the right hand side there will be an abbreviation which tells you that the word you looked up is a noun etc (e.g a noun is indicated by a "n" in brackets) .Can the children check that this works every time. Select some nouns they already know, write them up on the flip chart and ask them to find them in the target language first- English second section of the dictionary and see if they can see the word "noun" or in brackets an "n" after the noun?

• Stage Six

Take the children on a similar learning journey to find familiar adjectives and verbs See how they can access them from English or access them from the target language section or cross reference the words they find and also find proof that they are verbs and adjectives.

• Stage Seven

Bilingual dictionaries help us to know more about the words. We want the children to feel confident that they can look up a noun and know whether it's "le chat" or "la souris" in French etc. How do you know whether a noun is in French le or la and in Spanish el or la or in German der,die or das? In easy learning dictionaries the nouns are often written with the correct word for "the" preceding the noun. However there is a simple magic trick! If the dictionary has in brackets after the word an (n..) it's also going to have the letter "m" or "f" in French and Spanish and "m","f" or n" in German.The lettesr represent - masculine,feminine and neuter ....these are not sexual genders, see them as tags /codes that tell the person using the noun if it's masculine we say "le" , if it's feminine we say "la " in French. In Spanish masculine is "el" and feminine is "la" and in German masculine is "der", feminine is "die" and neuter is "das". Can the children find nouns in the dictionary for you and if the word for the is already written next to it can they tell you wherther it's masculine , feminine etc and if the noun has a the abbreviation  for example (nm) or (nf) after it , can the children tell you the noun with the correct le/la ( French) or el/la (Spanish)etc.

How to create bilingual dictionary wizards of your children!

• Play games with the stages described above.
• Make sure the games are age and stage of learning the language appropriate
• Take time out to access bilingual dictionaries and prove and then revisit and prove again the rules . 
• Create team challenges 
• Encourage children to explore new nouns and use them in the spoken and written work and not just to rely on the list of animals/ clothes etc you have given them.

This is one of the key ways to help the children to see the importance of the bilingual dictionary as a language learning tool.

Primary Teachers and Bilingual Dictionaries at the ready!

This is a second way to help the children to see the importance of the bilingual dictionary as a language learning tool

I would suggest that in your classroom you should have a class bilingual dictionary for everyone's reference including your own.

As primary teachers remember that you are the facilitators and you are helping the children to try out the magic tricks for themselves. 

You can cross reference words too to make sure that the word you find in Spanish/ French etc really does have the meaning you want to convey and that there isn’t another word that would be better.

When a child asks for a word you don't know or aren't sure about let them see you access a bilingual dictionary to find it out and ask the class to remind you of the rules you have practised. 

Summer celebration messages based upon Bloemenwinkel tradition

Thanks to Carmel @OHaganCarmel !Carmel shared with us this blog post called Traveling with Kids Belgian seaside and a very special Belgian seaside tradition for children.If you have been following some of my recent blog posts you will see that I have been focusing on the beach and the seaside.It's a big part of our Summer SOW. The blog posts so far have been about:

• French poem writing at the seaside,
• creating a sandcastle building rhyme,
• designing fantastical sandcastles,
• seashell sounds and sand treasure hunts
• Pirates ahoy!,
• French,fishy and fun game,songs and rhymes

The tradition I love from the article about Belgian seaside is "Bloemenwinkel "

You can read about the tradition in the article linked to the picture to above  in the blog article I referred to at the top of this blog.I love the fact that children pay for the flowers with shells and also that these are made from tissue paper or crepe paper and are sold on the beach to the children who visit.
I think we can  make a wonderful final lesson for Year 3 and Year 4 just before Summer with this idea. 

We will firstly go shell counting.
Simply using shell shaped card templates with numbers on the reverse side and in lots of different colours we will hunt numbers.
Use eight different card colours and divide the cards into groups of eight (eight different colours and random ordered numbers written on the reverse side)

We need as many shell cards and numbers as there are children in the class and we need to use eight different colours of card each time.
We will play the game in groups of eight cards at a time in a random order or selection.
Can the children guess the shell number and if they can they win the shell and if they can't the shell is put back on the board.The children need to say the colour of the shell that they want the teacher to turn over  and guess the number.

 Bloemenwinkel 
Explain the Belgian seaside tradition to the children and share the pictures from the blog article with the children 
Locate the seaside resorts on the Belgian coast.Did the children realise that there was so much seaside in Belgium?Do they know where Belgium is and what languages are spoken there?
Can the children now help you to create your own Bloemenwinkel (flower corner shop)?

Creating the Bloemen

My "bloemen" will be like fortune cookies.There will be one each for every child with a celebration written message chosen and written by another classmate on the flower head,which is  made of a rolled coloured paper strip.

Each child needs a strip of coloured paper and a straw and some selotape.
Each child selects a strip of coloured card that is wide enough to write on and long enough to roll ,so it will fit on one end of a straw- just like miniature versions of the flowers you can see in the picture.
Provide the children with a range of phrases they can select from to write on their strips of coloured card in the target language.
For example:

Have a great holiday !

See you in September

Enjoy the school holidays

Have a good rest!

Enjoy playing in the park!

Enjoy playing with your friends!

Look forward to seeing you at school in September 

It's the school holidays ! Hurrah!

Summer is here!

No school in August 

Make sure your class can understand the phrases.You could practise them as "celebration sayings" with cheers and happy voices - celebrating the fact it's nearly the holidays 

Here are some Bloemenwinkel made by my colleague Joanne Hornby with her Year 4 class.They went outside and put them in a flower bed and drew lots to pick a flower from the bloemenwinkel.Joanne says that the children loved the whole activity and the fact they had something to take home at the end of the year 

Here are the phrases in French:

Passez de bonnes vacances !

Au mois de septembre!

Profitez bien des grandes vacances!

Reposez vous bien!

Amusez vous bien au parc!

Amusez vous bien avec vos amis!

J'ai hâte d'être en septembre!

C'est les grandes vacances! Youpi!

L'été est là !

Pas d'école au mois d'août!

And in German

Schöne Ferien!

 Bis September                      

Genießt die Sommerferien

Erholt euch gut!

Viel Spaß auf dem Spielplatz!

 Viel Spaß mit eueren Freunden!

Ich freue mich schon, wenn ich euch im September wieder sehe.

Es sind Sommerferien! Hurra!

Der Sommer ist da!

Keine Schule im August

And in Spanish

Que tengáis unas buenas vacaciones

Nos vemos en septiembre

disfruta de las vacaciones

que descanséis

disfruta jugando en el parque

disfruta jugando con tus amigos

nos vemos en el colegio en septiembre

son las vacaciones

 hurra el verano ya llegó

no hay colegio en agosto

Ask the children to select two messages and to write them on one side of the coloured paper strip.They need to write it clearly and carefully in the target language so another child can read the message clearly.

• Now they need to roll the coloured card strips and attach one end to one end of  straw.
• Collect in the flowers and attach one of the shell cards with the number showing to the base of each flower.
• Now hand round a bag which has numbered shell cards inside .
• Each child takes a shell and must say the number and then find the flower with that numbered shell card attached to it .This is his/her flower and s/he can unravel the coloured paper strip and see what his/her celebration saying written message is. 

Sentence and Calligram Suitcases for the Summer holidays

Take a look at this wonderful Summertime calligram based on a sun hat!It's from the wonderful  site www.ac.-nancy-metz.fr. This activity works in any language - you just need to create your own calligram example of the sun hat in the other languages before starting the activities .

We are getting very Summery in our schools at the moment and are beginning to look for calm and sunshine filled activities to take us through to the end of the year.This calligram has made me think of how we can fill our sentence suitcases ready for the Summer holidays

In Year 5 we pack our beach bags for the beach project so the children know words in target languages for sunglasses,flip flops,sun hats,swimming costumes, sun cream, beach ball. We have also practised earlier in the year clothes items  so again we can recall items of clothing for a sunny Summer holiday .

I have added a grammar focus too but if your children are not yet competent with grammar identification of nouns, adjectives and verbs , you could limit the grammar colour coding or omit this altogether. A lot of our Year 5 children can do this or can identify some nouns,adjectives and verbs though.

Step One 

Let's make our holiday list of suitcase nouns. What do we need to pack?

Step Two 

Let's add an adjective to describe each item 

Step Three

Let's take a closer look at the calligram above and colour it in! How?

Each colour should represent a different component of the hat:

• Red for the indefinite article
• Green for any adjectives
• Blue for the nouns
• Yellow for the verbs

Step Four

Let's zoom in on the reason for packing the item by looking for this information written in the example sun hat calligram.

"pour nous cacher du soleil! 

Let's create reasons for the items we are packing.Why are we packing......? (The first two items below follow a similar pattern and use the same phrase as the sun hat - so that's easy,Can the children help you to identify a pattern and create the reasons why we are taking our flip flops , beach ball and swimming costume? :

• sunglasses
• sun cream
• flip flops
• beach ball
• swimming costume

You could reduce the challenge here and et the children match items with reasons,which have been written already on cards (or even add a symbol too to help with comprehension of the reason)

Step Five

Now all we need to do is pack those sentence/calligram suitcases.

• Create card folder suitcases with the children or create a large display suitcase for all the written work the children produce.
• Ask the children to write clear sentences  about each of the items above or to select two or three of the items they really want to take with them.
• Now ask them to colour code their sentences too and add summer time colour to their suitcase sentence packing.
• Can they now create their own calligrams of the items following the example of the hat above... and don't forget the summertime colour too!

They can now pack their own calligram suitcases! Maybe they can add an item of their own (e.g a book, a CD, a camera ....)