cross-curricular

Conjugating a verb : A Verb Artist Talk Walk

So we are now moving on with quite a few of our young learners in UKS2, particularly in Year 6.It's Summer term when we get back and it's time to explore verbs in more detail and consolidate the knowledge we have been gathering and see how the big picture fits together- conjugation of a verb! The DFE POS for KS2 asks us to work with our young learners on the "conjugation of high frequency verbs".

It is in my opinion really important that we strengthen children's own perception of "moving on" and "getting better" at language learning and that we help them develop positive self efficacy that will carry them on in to KS3 language learning . Below hopefully is an opportunity to support our children to do this.

My intention in the activities below is to  revisit pockets of prior learning, to unpack processes with the children and  to get them (not me!) practise the whole present tense conjugation of some high frequency verbs. It is in my opinion important that we make sure that UKS2 children can access identify and use infinitives in a target language,can create the stem of the verb and then are able to add appropriate  present tense verb endings which match if required (depending on target language) the correct personal pronoun.
When you think about this ,it is a process that has to be identified,explored,unpacked, practised and children have to be allowed to then manipulate and produce their own (not always accurate of course) versions.The production needs to be memorable and valuable and part of a creative whole activity.

I love using Art to bring language learning to life.If you have read my previous blog posts on 3D Art and a Renoir picture, you will know that we can use a painting to good effect to explore grammar and link this to purposeful creative communication and performance:


I have been looking around for a painting linked to lifestyle,history and culture  to do this and have decided to use this painting by Georges Seurat - "la grande jatte".It will work so well.....


It's all about a Sunday afternoon stroll,a walk in the park and an observation of leisure activities.Take a look at the picture! What can you see?

Remember the ultimate aim of the activity is to ascertain that the children are secure in:
  1. Finding/recalling and identifying infinitives of high frequency verbs  
  2. Can change an infinitive in to a stem to which can be added appropriate verb endings which match with an appropriate personal pronoun.(I wrote a blog post on personal pronouns and a photo shoot drama activity that may be useful as a pre-cursor to this sequence of activities Getting used to personal pronouns
  3. Can create and recall the whole paradigm (pattern) of a present tense high frequency verb .What do I class as high frequency verbs? Well the suggested list of high frequency verbs proposed by the Assessment for MFL in Primary Schools  from the government's Expert Subject Advisory Group suggests these verbs amongst others "drink,look,like,play.watch,carry,make" .They fit very well in to the activities below.  
Here are the activity steps
1. Picture Exploratory Walk
2. Talk Walk
3.Verb Artist Talk Walks 
4.Verb artist sketches 
5. Live park talk walk

  1. Go on a "picture exploratory walk".Share with the children the Georges Seurat picture.Walk  with the lady and gentleman on the far right of the picture. Look around with the eyes of these two characters, what can they see? Ask the class to call out actions that they can see in English .Walk with the children from far right to far left of the picture and talk about the picture.
  2. Write these actions as they are spoken  on the white board in English (e.g swimming,watching,talking).
  3. Can the children help you to change the actions you have written in to infinitives ?Discuss with the children how we form infinitives in English.Use two of the actions you have written up on the flip chart as examples- so if you have written "swimming" ask the children to explain how we would need to change this to an infinitive by removing the ending and putting" to" at the front so it reads "to swim".Can they help you with one other action on your chart? I think that this is an important discussion process in English to go through before we assume that all children understand what an infinitive is and how to identify one in their own first spoken language.
  4. Give out bi-lingual dictionaries and ask the children in pairs to write on strips of white card.On these strips of card they are going to write down target language infinitives of the actions.Firstly ask them to select one of the actions you have listed on the white board but has not been changed to an infinitive in English.So if you have written walk or walking  ....can the children think of the infinitive in English( to walk) and then can they locate the target language  infinitive of the verb and write it down.I think that this is an important  process to go through here and to allow the children to work out that they can think of part of a verb but they are going to fond the verb they need in a bilingual dictionary as an infinitive - so they need to convert the word in their head in to the infinitive form and look for that.
  5. Now ask the children to work in pairs and to convert all the actions however they are written in English on the whiteboard in to target language infinitives. 

  1. Now share a "talk walk" with the class.Display a large version of the Georges Seurat picture.Invite volunteer pairs to the front to mime  one of the target language infinitives they have found and to show the card strip with the written out infinitive and say the infinitive in the target language.Can another volunteer come to the front,locate whereabouts on the picture we can see the action and  blu-tac the infinitive to the Georges Seurat picture in the correct place.Repeat this with all the actions you brainstormed and different volunteers from the class.
  2. Ask the children once you have completed your "talk walk" to look for spelling links between the ending of the written words they have blu-tacked to the picture.Explain that these endings are the key to making the infinitives come to life and to creating stems of the verbs we can then use.   
  3. Let's focus on one group of regular verbs in the target language and by this I mean that the infinitives all have the same "endings".I have selected to talk,to swim,to jump,to walk,to look (watch) for this picture as in German that's easy as verbs in the infinitive end in "en" , in French I have selected  "er" verbs and in Spanish these verbs end in "ar" in the infinitive.Remember the focus is on can the children go through the process and understand how to conjugate a verb and not can the children recite a verb accurately .We are therefore keeping the activity to one group in French and Spanish as this will help us to focus the practise of the process around the skill of "conjugation" and less so on memory and recall.
  4. Verb Artist Talk Walks .Share with the children a small portion of the picture.Ask them to help you to decide which of the verbs you are now focusing upon fits this portion of the  picture (for example the woman looking out on to the lake on the far left of the picture).Can the children help you to bring the action "looking" to life? To do this you are going to have to find the infinitive, create the stem of the verb- demonstrate how you can form the stem.I like to ask the children to think of the letters we need to remove from the end of the infinitive as box lid ....so  suggest that you are opening the artist's paint box.In the paint box are 6 personal pronouns and 6 important matching endings.Now take a "verb artist talk walk" with the stem of the verb! Can they help you to sketch the character from head (infinitive , first person singular etc)to foot as the present tense verb ...? The children must talk you through the process otherwise you can not add the next part of the verb and you can not complete your artist's sketch of the character and their action.
  5. Ask the children to work in pairs and take Verb Artist Talk Walks with other characters and their actions in the picture.Add a time limit to the activity - so some groups may complete two characters and other pairs may complete more or less than this.They need to talk through the process with their partner and show their "workings out" - infinitive, create stem, add verb endings and personal pronouns on paper.
  6. Can they create an "Verb artists sketches "artist's sketch of one of their verbs as a paradigm( in the shape head to toe of the character in the painting who is performing the action ?
  7. These "Verb Artist Sketches" would make wonderful concertina characters - head and feet drawn in the style of Geroges Seurat ( notice they way he uses dots and lines) with the paradigm of the verb written as a concertina for the body.Add a QR and a recording of the children or take a photo with Chatterpix APP and record the children saying their paradigm and you have creative evidence of the children conjugating a high frequency verb.Take a photo of the "workings out" and you have evidence of the children working through the process of creating a paradigm and conjugating a high frequency verb. 

  1. You can take this one step further and .....you probably know what is coming next - as I love performance! Make this in to a "live park talk walk" ! Each pair is responsible for a verb and must speak and perform the verb as an interpretation of the type of action associated with the verb and in the style of the artist.One child speaks for singular and both children speak for plural .You are now Georges Seurat walking around the park ,looking for the characters for his picture!Actions and verbs may be repeated but ask all the children to freeze frame in their first action positions and as you walk around the classroom.When you  the artist stands next to a pair they should come to life and start to perform their paradigm.The class are helping you the artist to step back in to the picture and create a "live park talk walk"!


Setting out our language learning stall for 2014 2015

Today the associate language teachers and assistants met for our CPD Day.Part of our discussions where based upon how we are going to set up effective environments for primary language learning this academic year.

 Here are some of the tools,approaches and resources we will begin to implement or use across all year groups in KS2 in the next couple of weeks.

 The rights of the language learner
You can access the PDF from Bsmall publishing here.

 The rights of the language learner


The poster reminds children about respecting others, taking risks and having a go and allows us to think of some of our own important learning strategies for the year! Brilliant to have in the classroom and to refer to when children are struggling or not sure how to approach a challenge or just as a prompt when required. We are sure that the children will want to add strategies and pictures of their own.

Creating a whole school supportive language learning environment 
We identified the need to support the whole school staff to feel a part of the language learning taking place in school and loved the idea of the " target language postbox"


great to post and share successful activities, questions or requests around language learning.Maybe this blog will help.....
Ready steady go!

Welcome back! 
We identified how important it is to welcome children back or for the first time into our language learning classes and how we can link this to the idea that all children are going back to school right now across the target language countries. We want to share with the children greetings in the target language pertinent to "returning to school" on the IWB or as individual cards just like these in French:


A memorable learning journey 
If we use individual cards (welcome back) then these can be stuck in to our learning journals. This year we will have learning journals that are personal to the children created along the lines of the one described in the blog below:


A journey worth taking

We want the children to keep a growing record of the experiences, sights,sounds,smells and creative activities along their language learning journey and individual or class learning journals just like these seem a good way to create a  memorable journey!

Unpacking our suitcases from last academic year 
With some of our children we will be unpacking their virtual language learning suitcases from last academic year to remember and to revisit some of their favourite activities and stories . Take a look at emilie's blog and see the suitcases she packed with her classes...


Our suitcases of learning

A child's record of how much they grow in language learning and knowledge across the academic year.


How does your garden grow?
We discussed the elements we see the children developing across a year of language learning (language content , structure ,all 4 skills, links between language and other subjects, cultural knowledge etc). I suggested the " how does your garden grow record" for Year 3 and Year 4 but colleagues felt that this was still a valid and age appropriate activity for UKS2 too! This will be kept in the children's journals or learning logs (see above) and we intend to start these pictures in October.

Exploring culture and celebrating languages through creative and imaginative work.
We discussed  ways this year we will use Art,literature,poetry ,song, music, Drama to explore  both language skills and the culture of the target language country.We are setting off on a " a grand day out"  in the week of the European Day of Languages ( 26 September) with this in mind!

Transition in a suitcase
And at the end of the year we hope to be able to pack those virtual suitcases again with memories , games, creative outcomes ,songs, stories and poems that we want to share at the start of the next new academic year of learning!
Transition in a suitcase between year groups












Art and language learning , my blogs so far ....



This blog post is my own mental note and list of  the Art and language learning blogs I have written so far- to help the associates, colleagues within the network and me  plan purposeful and language rich learning opportunities:

 3D Art and verbs using Renoir the Boating Party - Drama and Art /spoken activities (personal information , feelings, 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular questions and responses)
3D Art and verbs stage one
3D Art and verbs stage two
3D Art and verbs stage three

 KS2 Matisse Cut Outs Art and colour - dance,drama, spoken language , reading and writing
Matisse Cut Outs

Conveying emotions through Art - using the target language
conveying emotions

Rousseau and shape jungle animal sentences for jungle display  (noun verb adjective and animal descriptions) 
shape sentence jungles

 Poster Power Poems (revisiting familiar language : weather,people, reactions,emotions, activities etc) - using the visual evidence in a poster to create spoken activities and performances (based on the Tour de France but activities can be used with lots of different posters etc)
Poster power poems

 Preposition Picnic: creating our own sculptures using foods and cutlery/crockery and prepositions-using all 4 skills
Preposition picnic

 Sentence calligrams- creating our own suitcases of Summer clothes - full sentence descriptions of items for a class display
Sentences ,objects and calligrams

 Abstract Art - how we can use art to revisit and practise basic core vocabulary- colours, numbers 
Abstract art and beginners language

 3D Clay and conversations - using clay sculptures to generate dialogue and conversations
3D clay scene questions and answers

If a picture paints a 1000 words. Portraits of women's faces through the ages used to practise eye, hair colour, target language names and emotions. Linking Art , Drama , music and language learning,
If a picture paints a 1000 words  

Châteaux et chevaliers

Châteaux et chevaliers!

This sequence of activity based around French castles and creating our own class chevaliers was inspired by a tweet by Emilie

@EWoodruffe

 who works with 

Janet Lloyd Network

in a 

primary school teaching French, where language learning  is a part of the whole school creative curriculum model . Her challenge this half term is to link language learning to the year group focus : “Castles” .

I have created a sequence  of language learning suitable for UKS2 French with listening , speaking , reading and writing  performance and DT .

Activities below can take your class on a journey to France , to the Loire , along the Loire and the castles , inside a creepy castle and to meet knights and give these French chevalier personalities , equipment and physical descriptions . You can mix and match activities to suit your class focus and they all lead to the creation of your own class chevaliers! 

Stage One : Les châteaux de la Loire

Pretty obvious place to start. Here is an evocative clip from You Tube introducing les châteaux  de la Loire

We love using child friendly maps of France to bring the country nearer to the children, with symbols and 

information they want to know. Often in UKS2 we will use these maps alongside Atlas work looking at the geographical features of the country .

For this focus we need to locate the Loire on a map Below are two of favourite child friendly maps of France 

Languages Sticker company map of France

   /    

la jolie ronde map of France

We sometimes take a virtual visit via google maps and their v

isites virtuelles 360 France

Once you have watched the video clip with the children , located the Loire on one of the child friendly maps and taken a virtual tour of the Loire and the castles via google maps , then it’s time to ask the children to annotate with Art work a simple map of the Loire valley and the châteaux. You could use a map like this one and allow the children to decide how they want to annotate five castles along the Loire

map of the castles of the Loire

This stage can also include the joining in and practise of an authentic French comptine: “Ah mon beau château

 "

Build a cardboard castle

And what about following French instructions to work in pairs and create castles of our own for a class display from teteamodeler !

fabriquer un chateau

Stage Two : Stepping inside the castle

Take the children on a story journey into a creepy castle, and listen to the wonderful Dark Dark Tale in French. You find a clip of the story on You Tube , search for "

u

ne histoire sombre , très sombre"

This French school’s website below has a wonderful PDF of  step by step activities linked to literacy which may like to try:

une historie sombre PDF

You could come back to this castle and the creepy story once you have learned about the knights who might have lived there …..Children love changing what is in the box at the end of the story and this time it could be something linked to the knights’ equipment or characteristics etc that  the children are about to  learn about .

Stage Three : les chevaliers

Who are the chevaliers ?

Introduce the class to these wonderful 

cartes de chevaliers

Play Quiz Quiz Swap and investigate names and personalities

Each child can be one of the Knights from a selection you decide of 6 cards from this pack .The children can practise introducing themselves as the different knights . I would select five or six so that we can  practise the names as a class and look at their portraits and decide how they would bow or introduce themselves flamboyantly . 

Now give each child one of the 6 cards you selected . You will need enough for each child The children can walk around the room with a card and play Quiz Quiz Swap (just ask a question – name – give a response – name of knight – swap cards and move on). 

Play this a second time and build  dialogues ( ask and answer questions about names , (pick a castle from Loire) where someone lives , how are they feeling and make sure to add a greeting and a farewell )

Hold "listen ins " where the class need to stop and listen to a dialogue between two of the children who deliver their dialogue  performing as the knights would do and then the class restarts the conversations and the Quiz  Quiz Swap  game. 

S

tage Four : Jousting

Knights and jousting go together  ! So we could go back and revisit familiar language and families of words during this unit by introducing an ongoing “jousting match” between tables of children that takes place for five minutes during the period of time in the term that we are working on our theme of chevaliers . Each table is given one of the knight's names from the cartes de chevaliers as their table's knight .

Jousting is between tables or as an "in front of the class" competition. A class “jousting league table “ is required , to record points that the  “chevaliers” win . If one table wins a joust it gains 3 points , if it’s a draw then both tables of chevaliers gain one point.  Set up table jousting matches where the tables have to select a knight to go into battle with a knight from the other table. These are games where each player speaks  alternately  e.g. I speak , then you speak , then I speak etc.

Hesitation means the other knight wins!

The jousts could be   based on the following …

…

·

Saying the months in chronological order.

·

Saying the months in alphabetical order

·

Say the months from December backwards

·

Counting in twos from 0-30

·

Counting backwards from 30

·

Saying the days of the week in alphabetical order

·

Stage Five : Knights and parts of the body calligrams

Revisit the parts of the body that the children already know and introduce new nouns you may need for the following parts :heart, brain, body

What type of body does a knight need to be the best? 

Here are a few suggestions…

A brave heart

Powerful  body

Fast legs

Strong arms

Clever brain

This is an opportunity to work with the children on the physical attributes of a knight and to look at the position and agreement of adjectives after nouns.

Working in pairs ask the children to investigate with bi-lingual dictionaries the key adjectives and to find the gender of the key parts of the body that are needed to describe their knights .

Build your own class chevalier

Draw round a child and then stick the outline to the wall . This will be your class knight and will work as a memory prompt , a working wall and a focus for other stages as we build our class chevalier

  1. Give out key body parts and ask children to place them in correct positions on the outline
  2. Give out the key adjectives  as cards to other volunteers Where do they think the adjectives fit best? 
  3. Now ask a final group of   children to add any adjectival agreement they think is necessary to the adjectives and/ or to move the adjectives around if they think they fit better next to a different part of the body.

Last knight standing

Ask the class to help you decide upon an action for each physical description and then play our favourite type of bingo “Last knight standing” .

Ask the children to freeze frame in an action linked to the physical description. Call out a physical description and any children freeze framed in this action is out and must sit down Knights remaining must change their freeze frame action and play the game again. Who will be the last knight standing

?  

Knight calligrams

Give out the outlines of the knights . Here’s a simple knight template

knight template for calligram

Ask the children to create a calligram of the physical description of the knight you have built .

Stage Six : Personality of knight

Set the scene with this wonderful song. Thanks to 

@Janejaneheg

for this suggestion by the way! Chevalier de table ronde 

Today we are creating personalities for the knights. 

Children need bi-lingual dictionaries to look up the French meaning of   key adjectives to describe their ultimate knight e.g. brave, kind, trustworthy etc that you have written on the flipchart. 

Collate the list after the activity on your flipchart or whiteboard.  

Play Chinese whispers with the attributes

Create a memory game with the attributes  with children working in groups of six where they have to say what was said before and something for themselves and include the phrase

Now the children need to create in their best medieval handwriting on a scroll template an advertisement for  a new knight.

They have the language  to physically describe a knight , say what personality attributes he must have and they have the key phrase “Je cherche un chevalier qui est ……” .You will need to help the children to say also “Je cherche un chevalier qui a ….+ physical description

Stage Seven : The armoury of  knight

Look at the possible equipment a knight might need :

l

'

equipement du chevalier

Select from this equipment key language to create a game of 

lotto

First equip your class chevalier

Using the large outline you drew of a knight and physical description ask the children to help you using pictures , cognate recognition and bi-lingual dictionaries to decide where you should now add the equipment for the knight that you have selected  .

Introduce each item to be placed on your knight by saying “le chevalier porte……”

The volunteer who comes to place the equipment on the knight must say the complete phrase too.

Now play lotto – who will be the winning knight?

Finally have a game

of table armour beetle drive

with six pieces of armour that the children need to win for their own knight’s template (use the templates from the knights’ calligrams) . The children must take it in turns to throw a dice, name the item they throw which is linked to that number – picture and number clearly displayed at the front of the classroom - and then draw the item in  the correct place on their template. If they throw a number that they have already thrown they mustn’t draw anything and wait until their next turn  . First person to complete the armour wins the game . They must tell their table what their knight is wearing

“Le chevalier porte ……………!”

Stage Eight : The identity of our class chevalier!

You are now ready to create an identity for your class knight .

Ask the children in pairs or on tables to create an identity for the unnamed class knight

He needs a name , a castle where he lives , a physical description , a description of his armour and a description of his personality .

You will have to decide whether the class is ready to write in the third person singular or if you want to ask the children to write in the first person singular as if they are the knight.

The children need to present their descriptions to the class and the class needs to vote on the best knights description , marking it on the following : pronunciation, 

fluency , 

interesting description 

( each area can be awarded a maximum of 5 points ) . 

Which descriptions win? 

From these descriptions which one will the class decide to keep when they hear them one more time?

And finally

Following the instructions here your class chevalier needs to have a selection of shields in his armoury! The shields  are to be made by every child and then used as display around the chevalier , displaying their handwritten descriptions of the class chevalier that they created with a partner

un bouclier