French story books with purpose 2015!

Last month whilst in France I had a shopping list of books that I wanted to buy and spent a brilliant hour in Cultura in Carcassonne doing just that! 


The books I had on my list are to support and extend the work we already have organised in our SOW.





Here are the books and my reason for buying thjem:

Books that are linked to festivals and are also stories based on popular French story characters.
Our young learners like the idea that they are looking at books that real French children enjoy.So Tchoupi and Petit Ours Brun cam immediately to mind!

Birthdays: 

Christmas

Carnival 

Books that are educational books for French children that we can use to introduce or investigate a specific learning context that we cover.

The first two books I selected are for LKS2, short stories about visitrs to sepcific places.They are   inexpensive and again I chose two from the Petit Ours Brun series:

I found these three Kididoc books ( I love Kididoc) and feel that they can be used in UKS2 too as we can discuss how we can make books to help younger learners, focusing on the way the books inmtroduce language and use visuals , flaps etc.The books are also very informative and the text is accessible.With these books non specialist teachers can also  be creative aswell- I am thinking display made by the children etc.

I chose these three themes:

School for our Y5 school focus

The beach again for our Y5 focus

......and finally this Kididoc book caught my eye.We are extending our cross curricular work and here is a gift all about planet earth .Each double page spread is a different focus withon this context.Brilliant!

Our cross curricular focuses are already part of the network packages we create and whilst looking for stories within a series based on a fictional French character. I came across the character Barri and could not leave this book behind!It is beautiful .On each page it poses a question and then you need to lift the flowers or the pond or the grass flaps to see what mini beasts are hidden underneath! Fantastic.

Great for our KS1 mini beast focus and new resource for a theme we use each year plus what a great book to use with KS2  linked to DT and making lift the flap books for KS1 - or even a performance and use of questions and answers.

Last year I saw both of the following books but just didn't have room to bring them home! As I have just mentioned we are working in mofr detail on our cross curricular themes in the next couple of months I decided to hunt them out and bring them home! 

First a sophisticated look at travel to France by ferry- so UKS2 definitely!.Makes  lot of sense as so many of our children travel by ferry to France!  Several sentences per page , very detailed pictures to discuss what we can see in English and to look up key nouns in dictionaries etc and then to create our info docs!

And this wonderful book from larousse!" Le bord de mer" .It is a book to cherish I think .On some pages there are facts on others just pictures to discuss.There is a story that explains how to get to the seaide , pages on sea animals, rock pools ,under the sea, divers, keeping safe by the sea..... and  the list goes on.I love it!!

...And finally I wanted to find a book using instuctional text for Year 6 and our cafe culture theme! I found the most incredible recipe book which will be so easy to use in class because it is all about making sandwiches.

Double page spread, colour pictures and the most clear instructions and pictures! Great ideas that link to alsorts of themes too so you can use it with Y3,4,5 and down in KS1 too and not just in primary foreign language teaching either!

  

Putting poetry in to French primary language learning

Today is a "clearing the decks" type of day and I have collated the blog posts I have written about using poetry in French primary language learning in to one blog post- mainly because a school recently asked me to recommend a poem and I had to scroll through my blog posts to find the one I wanted.Could be useful to others too though! (nearly all are based on authentic texts, but where i have added a poem we have created ourselves I have added an asterisk *) 

Practising a simple rhyme with actions: mon chapeau a quatre bosses

*Creating a very simple rhyme to remember numbers sunflower rhyme 1-10

School daily routine verbal phrases  A performance rhyme for daily routine

An authentic seaside song/rhyme  as part of unit of work on the seaside les petits poissons

Drama and cafe culture with UKS2 dejeuner du matin ,jacques prevert

* Making our own eye in the sky poems

Addressing 4 skills and grammar with an authentic children's poem Dame Tartine

Travelling the world in a poem Sept couleurs magiques

French "poem painting" of a Summer's Day

Writing about a day at the seaside using a poem as stimulus summer french authentic poem

*Hearing and identifying prepositions of place with a nonsense rhyme positioning rhyme

KS2 leavers' poems using a text in which we explore how colours make memories through a poem

School, memories and doodle poems based on Pierre Gamara's mon cartable 

Autumn percussion and performance poem based on French poem  les feuilles mortes

*Fireworks performance poem 

House,home,prepositions,performance all based on the personification of  la nuit

Possessive pronouns mon,ma ,mes , performance too with this poem in French mon chocolat

A twist of grammar to the familiar French poem/song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Aspects of Winter in a poem for UKS2 onwards  about icicles

Colourful creative poetry using les crayons as a stimulus text and scaffold.







 

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!

A taste of great literature.Drama and mystery in the café!

Drama in the café! 

Poetry with Jacques Prévert

Although my example is in French, once you have found your poem in Spanish or German etc then the activities  will be  equally useful.This poem though is just so evocative and thought provoking by 

Jacques Prévert. We are working with the first verse only of this poem.This is because the poem's content beyond the first verse is too mature for the children . We want to zoom in too on the first verse and look at the simple caf

é

 language and how it evokes a mystery.

In the new DfE KS2 POS we are encouraged to read “great literature” with our KS2 pupils ,so here is a way to do so with UKS2 as we consider café culture in Summer second half term.

.

Déjeuner du matin

(Jacques Prévert)

Il a mis le café

Dans la tasse

Il a mis le lait

Dans la tasse de café

Il a mis le sucre

Dans le café au lait

Avec la petite cuiller

Il a tourné

Il a bu le café au lait

Et il a reposé la tasse

Sans me parler

At the end of KS2 we explore “café culture” with our Year 6 language learners. This poem by the French poet

Jacques Prévert will enable us  to explore “great literature”on several levels.

Some of you may say but it’s in the past tense ! I don’t think this is an issue here as the messages are clear and the children will be able to understand the text once we have investigated the language.

Recently I wrote a blog post about ways to  begin to 

explore the simple past tense

 using “ il y avait”,asking the children to become factual observers of what takes place in the café as they watch the World go by.The ideas below are about observation brought to life!

Déjeuner du matin , 

Let’s first put it into context for young language learners.

Café culture

Find some pictures of French cafés 

through the ages- both photos and paintings

.

• Ask the children to look at the people, to think about what the people might be saying to each other
• Ask the children to explore what the people may be thinking. 
• Ask them to jot down on paper their thoughts as they discuss this in groups of four.

Whispering galleries

• Ask the children to make a whispering gallery ofthe utterances and thoughts they have come up with in the activity above (probably at this stage of learning ranging from greetings, feelings, selecting food and drink , opinions about the food,/people and clothes , comments about the weather , third person singular simple descriptions etc) 
• Bring children to the front of the classroom and ask them to bring their whispering galleries to life in front of the pictures.

Sound scene

Now bring your classroom to life as a café. 

• Ask the groups to sit at tables and to perform their whispering galleries again. This time you will direct from the front. 
• Just like singing in the round you will indicate when a table should start talking and when they should stop – so sometimes you will have one table talking and sometimes you will have all the tables talking etc.
• You will also control the volume by raising you arm to indicatelouder and lowering your arm to indicate when the tables need to be quieter or whisper. 
• Finish the activity, by one by one stopping each table and their whispering gallery,until only one table is speaking. 
• Explain to the children that they have just created the “Sound Scene” of a café.

An Observation

• Discuss with the children the key objects we may find in a café.
• Discuss this in English and elicit from thechildren the key nouns you will need to bring the poem by Prévert to life. 
• As the children offer the key words such as cup, spoon, saucer, table ,plate , knife, coffee, tea, glass , milk , sugar – set a table with the items at the front of the classroom and as you do so name the items in French.
• Give the children picture cards to represent the items used in the poem –coffee, cup, spoon, milk, sugar. 
• Now you have discussed the key language with the children ask them to listen to the poem and lift the correct items as they hear them said.
• Repeat this a second time and ask the children to try and anticipate the order of the items- pausing before each item to give the children time to secede which picture card to show you.

Here is a reading on You Tube of the poem.I would suggest that you stop the clip after the first verse.The words are on the screen so you can see when to stop the clip.(The second verse continues on to talk bout lighting a cigarette etc). You may like to show the clip up to the end of the first verse now the children understand some of the key nouns in the text.

A physical performance

Now hand out this part of the poem , cut up into sentence strips . One set between two children. The cards should be in a random order.

Il a mis le café

Dans la tasse

Il a mis le lait

Dans la tasse de café

Il a mis le sucre

Dans le café au lait

Avec la petite cuiller

Il a tourné

Il a bu le café au lait.

Can the children reconstruct the lines of the poem?

Share with the children the whole first verse of the poem and add actions for “il a mis”/il a  tourney/ il a bu.

Can the children help you to understand what physically happens in the poem? Read through and ask the class to help you act out the poem?

A silent movie

But what is the customer really doing, thinking and feeling?

Ask the children in pairs to read the poem themselves again and in English discuss what the “back story” is to the customer. 

Why is he there? What has happened? What will happen? 

Can they   create a silent movie of the action in the correct order that has emotion and physicality to portray what they think the back story is to the action?

Putting life in to our poetry performances

Using voice recorders and  filming the action each pair can now create their own short filmed sequence of the first verse of the poem?

Reading in the target language is great

Target language books are great !

Reading story books with target language learners was a revelation to myself back in about 1997! At the time my children were young readers themselves and it seemed crazy that I hadn’t made the link myself between the types of colourful , engaging and repetitive stories that they enjoyed and re-read and the type of books that my young target language learners would enjoy and ask to read again and again.

The delight back then on  the Year 6 child’s face when we read la chenille qui fait des trous and the delight again  when the Year 8 child realised I was reading  Max et les maxi-monstres ! This was perhaps a mystery to me at first (although I have always loved children’s books and am also an avid reader of all literature )but then I realised it was because they felt they could understand and follow the whole story . They were revisiting books they had enjoyed in primary schools too! They even felt like competent translators of texts !

Now we work with a comprehensive SOW  from Year 3 to Year 6 and try to integrate target language story books as often as we can .  A tweet this morning from my colleague @EWoodruffe just made me smile. She’s been to  

Cultura

back home in France and bought some more books that we will be adding to our collection of stories next term. (Somewhat jealous really as love book hunting!)

The network news article from Sam the languages coordinator at St Philips in Warrington caused me to think about how reading crosses boundaries as an effective learning tool and how all children can appreciate books !  Sam  read and used my blog on Vive les livres for  Day 

World Book Day

 and created activities where children looked at and appreciated English language books but the children                                                     

categorised them with French language

Sometimes we use stories that we can sit, watch and  listen to  and appreciate with the children for example   die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt (

die kleine Raupe Nimmersat

 on You tube ) 

 by Eric Carle (actually read in German by the author

Les trois souris peintre s( 

les trois souris peintres on  You Tube ) 

 : The story of three mice who want to be artists read in Fren

ch

The German song retelling the story of Hansel and Gretel (

Hansel und Gretel Lied

 on You Tube)

Behind each story is a learning purpose – so the hungry 

caterpillar is a great

way to revisit days of the week and reinforce foods before making your own diary of a week’s food or your own books of the simplified stories 

The story about the mice allows us to listen for pleasure to watch the moving pictures and to reinforce our practise of colours with the children

And the Hansel and Gretel clip is an excellent tool to look 

for nouns ,

identify verbs and develop the children’s ability to follow 

and comprehend a story . 

Plus there’s the added bonus that they can practise the song 

and join in and perform this at a later date !

Here’s a link to the story books we will select from each half term to support the children’s language learning in French. We have similar plans for Spanish and some German too .

Books used from Y3 to Y6 in French language learning

And here are my   thoughts upon   why these books are appropriate   for the stage of the language learner and his/her development in the target language. These books are the gateway for the children in Year 3 ,4, 5 and 6 to familiar language in unfamiliar contexts , to creative opportunities to re-use language , to memorable stories with humorous twists , to familiar stories that the children haven’t before realised  exist in another languages as well as  English, to other cultures and to non-fiction with facts they really want to know or investigate!  Our learners reactions enable us to see what they find interesting and engaging and encourage us to use text in ever more 

                            creative ways .

We would certainly pinch the phrase from the DfE new POS and call them “great”. 

“great” to support learning , 

“great” to read with the children , 

“great” for independent reading 

“great “ as a platform to develop young language learners knowledge of a new language and its structure . 

The icing on the cake are the “great” traditional target language  stories such as roule galette when we celebrate epiphany in Year 4 les rats des villes et les rats des champs from Fontaine – a great favourite in “our town- your town” focus in year 5 or Astérix BDs we share with the children when we look at funfairs in Spring Year 6.

We start them early with target language books – we follow Uki from KS1 and puppets we make right through to a more grown up and argumentative Uki in Year 6  and we introduce the children to non-fiction too ……

With KS1 we enjoy traditional rhymes ,  tales and familiar stories . Here are my blogs on how we develop creative education of the ear learning opportunities in KS1 with 

shadow puppets and Goldilocks

 and 

We are going on a bear hunt in KS1

Spanish

We love "Mes p’tits docs " 

Our learners enjoy fiction and non- fiction and in the target language,using books created for the target language young audience we can read  and share facts about the target language countries .

From Year 4 onwards we will dip into and share mes p’tits docs – great non-fiction books to support our learning about the bakers and french bread, circus – what a French summer event , la station de ski ( a huge hit with our Y6 children!)

Books open our children’s minds to creativity . 

Take a look at my blog about one of my all time favourite books : Chapeau

chapeau and carnival time

Books allow us to  investigate core language through the engagement of the imagination – a choral performance of une histoire sombre

We can develop a class and group rewriting of key sentences in  il y a un alligator sous mon lit makes learning about rooms in the house so much more exciting! 

We make  creative DT displays based on Aaargh une araignée 

We can work with traditional tales combined with a  more mature investigation of fairy tale characters and fears through ” Même pas peur”  . 

Finally this year we have stepped out into trying to combine music and literature -indeed great music Au carnaval des animaux from Mozart with a great story about these animals going to a fancy dress party – funnily enough called au carnaval des animaux!

And guess what the target language results were great !

Please don’t read anything sarcastic into this above statement . 

We must select the books carefully  , encourage young learners to walk with us through stories , select books for their structure or their creative learning opportunities and then provide children with the supported learning environment to step away from us and explore simple target language audience stories on their own.  

As for me I will still be spending hours of pleasure in target language book shops finding the next great book to use in our language teaching and learning  . 

Must check my diary for when I am next abroad  !