Skittles and speaking activities

I have been busy tweeting with Joe Dale and Erzsi Culshaw this evening as Erzsi has been exploring the use of the Green Screen in her primary language learning classroom.Thanks to the tweets I remembered a photo I took last month - a fantastic backdrop  to engage the learners with culture, participation and performance and this can be with or without a Green Screen!

Last month I was in Basque Spain and was struck by the murals on the walls in some of the villages,depicting the life of the community.

I loved this mural of the villagers watching a game of skittles... and knew that I could create some performance activities based around the mural back here in England!

• You could import the picture above into your Green Screen APP and use it as a back drop
• You could post it as an enlarged picture on  your IWB and again have a back drop
• You could give each table a copy of the photo as a resource to stimulate language activities - brainstorming and adding speech bubbles to different characters.
• You could ask the class to recreate the scene outside in the playground and play the game and use the target language too!

What language and how can we use the language?

1. Find and use infinitives of the verbs involved in throwing the ball to the skittles.Put these in the order they are required to actually throw the ball toward the skittles - as commands ( e.g pick up the ball hold the ball,move the arm backwards, throw the ball, hit the skittles!) 
2. Create a slow motion performance of the throwing action , saying the verbs as commands in time with the slow motion action.
3. Film children and add the recordings of the commands
4. Explore the phrases for audience participation- (e.g. Well done! Go on! Throw! Hit the skittle! Fantastic! Great shot! Missed! Bad luck!Try again!)
5. Take still photos of the children,miming the phrase as a physical action.Import the photos on Chatterpix or Yakit for Kids and add voice overs. 
6. Using the large picture as a back drop , create the event you can see in the picture and using my 3D Art ideas bring the picture to life and experience the target language,culture and atmosphere of the game!

World Cup Warm Ups

World Cup Warm Ups

To get the children up, moving and participating!

The 3 World Cup power point stories in French, Spanish and German can be accessed here.

The World Cup Warm up lesson or lessons are easy to deliver and link language learning with physical activity and even measuring pulse rates.There is even the opportunity to create a musical performance of the World Cup Warm Up song.

• Revisit numbers
• Practise simple commands 
• Play simon says with the commands 

• Share the ppt story with the class .
• Give out the picture with out the captions
• Can the class match the written caption to the correct picture 
• Can the class perform the warm up .Check your pulse rates before and after the activity! 
• Set up challenges where one group challenges another table to do an activity ten times

• Now the children are ready in groups of four or six to create their own world cup warm ups- reordering the activities and changing the amount of times each activity should be done .
• They could record themselves performing the routines and train a second group to carry out their routine.

• Create a World Cup Warm Up class song to familiar sporting themes tune such as Match of the Day as your PE warm up for the Summer last half term using this language!

World Cup Lessons Ready to go !

We are getting ready for the World Cup in the Network Celebrate the diversity of languages Link language learning to sport and performance Take a journey to meet children around the World Find out more about target language countries, emblems and the footballers!

As part of our  support work in  the network we will be offering teachers the opportunity to celebrate the World Cup . Resources and ideas are located here World Cup in French , Spanish and German . Most of the lesson plans and our own JLN resources and ideas can be adapted to other languages too!

We have sourced online resources that can help you to create a bespoke sequence of lessons and have added links to World Cup resources such as 

on Lightbulb resources World Cup , where you will find lots of downloadable activities and resources that could enhance the lesson focuses below. 

How are we could we put these ideas and resources together in to a sequence of lessons with language learning at the hear of them?

Well as they say in football term "' 'ere we go, 'ere we go' ere we go!".....

Catch a greeting Let's start by catching a greeting  Take a look at the lesson plan here

Create a football chant of our own Take a look at the lesson plan It's called A football chant of our own

Let's meet children from around the footballing world Let's create target language conversations and get to know them Take a look at the lesson plan It's called Meeting children from the target language countries

Hold a flag bearers parade Based on a primary languages and drama lesson Take a look at the lesson plan It's called Countries and flags of the World Meet the footballers! Find out about the teams on the Fifa website Listen to and find out about the languages they speak Create the personalities and characteristics of the footballers Take look at the lesson Who is the person inside the player? Participate in the world Cup Warm Ups! Take a look at our simple World Cup Warm Up Lessons and PPTs  Create routines with numbers and actions Create a class warm up song for the Summer term PE lessons

Put your PE lessons into French, Spanish and German! Warm ups, pass and shoot, dribbling, invasion sports activities ! Here are the World Cup Football Games  Just find the correct file- French, German or Spanish

Hold a "Football Finale" or a World Cup performance Why not teach the children ...... A Spanish Dragon Football poem The Rock the Capitals  South American Countries  Rap A Tunisian rhyme and song in French or Spanish J'ai laissé mon ballon  Mi pelota    And now you have your sequence of World Cup lessons in the net!