Starry night and counting stars

Getting ready for CPD and thinking of ways to practise simple language with beginner target language learners  with a possible wintry or  Christmas focus which also encourage the development of listening, speaking and reading skills I have put together these two simple ideas........

The first idea is based upon the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to practise numbers 0-12. This is an idea that can be used in KS1 and also in KS2 .
In KS1 there is a very obvious and simple Maths link too as I have made and laminated some simple domino counting star cards.

My domino stars are in three colours (as you may also like to link numbers and colours and ask the colour of the stars too).The stars are dominoes( 0-12) on one side and on the reverse have the number written as a figure.All my domino stars will be popped in to a starry night sky bag to be pulled out by volunteers one by one  because Ii am ljnking this simple language work to Van Gogh and ......

I am using the Van Gogh painting "starry night" too: 

Practise the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in your target language. We will be using the French,spanish,German or Italian versions of the song.

• Ask the children to hum the tune of the song
• Ask the children to make stars in the imaginary night sky with their hands that twinkle as you him the tune
• Ask the children to now sing with you the numbers 0-12 in the target language to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and to make their fingers twinkle like stars in the night sky
• Show the children the famous Van Gogh painting and ask them to look for the stars which he painted in the night sky.Can the class help you to count them?
• Explain that you are going to add coloured and numbered stars to this sky.
• Now invite volunteers to pick a domino star from your "starry bag" and to count the domino side of the star.What number do they think that they have and can they say this  in the target language?Turn the card over - were they correct? Does their counting match the number they can see? 
• Ask the children ,who volunteer, to stick (with blu-tac) the star to the picture wherever they would like to and to make sure it is domino star side up. 

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• Now sing your number version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but at the end of a verse , invite two children up to locate two stars.You say the number they must identify the star by looking at the domino stars
• The children select the star and then take it in turn to say the number and turn over the star and look at the number on the reverse.Does the class agree that they have picked the correct star?
• Time to create your own starry night display ....and add stars in the night sky of your own,but this time each child creates a star out of the written target language number in the shape of a star! You could ask the children to come and place their star on the starry night picture and make a silent wish too!

My second idea is based on Christmas greetings and Christmas bells

Autumn Markets and simple effective links with Maths and Literacy

For many of us in October in our own Primary Schools,it's the season of Harvest festivals, Autumn Fayres and celebrating the produce we have seen growing around us.
What a wonderful opportunity to practise those numbers ,colours, simple transactional language phrases we have introduced in our language learning plus an even better authentic opportunity to explore the fruits and vegetables of a target language country!I was in Germany a week or two ago and spent a very happy morning wandering around the local fruit and vegetable market looking at all the wonderful produce!

Simple ways to incorporate this into language learning

First of all.."What in the World is it?" Why not touch, feel and taste some of these new vegetables and sort them alongside more familiar tasting fruit and vegetables? Create your own  "Taste and Look Like Venn Diagrams" to record the results ....but in the target language of course! 

Number of.....: if you are just practising numbers with the children - when then an obvious activity would be to practise counting up what you can see in a picture or the fruits and vegetables you have brought into class

Number, fruits and vegetables  guesstimations : if the children are practising the names of the new vegetables and already know the name of some common fruits and vegetables ,then why not create guesstimation games where they have to say or write the number of each item they think may be in your "shopping bag" of  fruit and vegetable items.

Guesstimate!  You could guesstimate the weight! Guesstimate the circumference or length! Teach the children the key phrases for measurement and weight( in the target language) and apply the target language to a Maths challenge of guesstimation and compare the guesstimations to actual weight and measurement (circumference or length)

Investigating description: Use prior knowledge of language and the use of bilingual dictionaries to find and use adjectives alongside the names of the items and the verb "to be" to write your own class descriptions of fruit and vegetables,(best after a class food tasting of the produce of course!).Use both familiar and unfamiliar produce.   

Market Stalls Museums : create your own class display of autumn fruits and vegetables but use the target language to label the produce- colour, shape, size and name. Ask the children to create the labels (and you could make these moveable labels for simple individual reading activities so that the children can read and place the labels where they think they fit best) 

Primary Physical Target Language Maths

This week at a local primary school,where the staff are working together to establish a pattern of language learning delivered by the class teacher I wanted to look at some simple Maths activities to help the teachers see how language learning can be both useful and easy to link across the curriculum.

Physical Maths

Last week I was reminded by my colleague Emilie in her

bonjour madame blogpost

 how much the children love "physical maths in the target language".  

This tried and tested activity led to discussion amongst the staff about how this would make a good simple AfL activity both in the target language and listening /responding and also if we then thought about how this could become a Maths pen and paper activity.Here are a few of these very simple and easy to manage ideas..... 

• You could  ask the children to write on their whiteboards the mathematical sentences that they have just watched in the physical target language maths
• You could give out mathematical sentences and ask children to create the physical French/ Spanish/German etc maths performance for other children to then say in the target language  
• You could give out a written French/Spanish /German maths sentences and ask pairs to create the physical performance which then the class need to write on their whiteboards as mathematical sentences and compare against the original card instructions.

Months and Physical Bar Charts

We then went on to consider months of the year as this is part of our

SOW

 next half term Year 3.The teachers were all very comfortable with the idea of physical bar charts and counting up children to see who had a birthday in which month etc. We added a twist - because the months of the year labels were randomly placed around the room and the teachers had to first find their birthday month, reading and recognising their month of the year in French.

Once the teachers had gathered around the correct month, they had to put themselves into calendar order.This meant that each birthday month group  called out its month in French and one volunteer listened and organised the groups into calendar order and then into a bar chart formation.

All they had to do then was count up the number of birthdays in each month and create a written target language record - month and number!

Months,physical bar charts and dates 

With Year 4 onwards I have added a challenge to this physical bar chart in the past. With children who knew numbers 1-31 or with children who can form the date in the target language then the individual month groups can share with each other their birthdays e.g "10 August" and put themselves as a birthday month in to numerical order within their bar chart line!  

This allows you now to  handle data - by asking children to say their birthdate in French/ Spanish and German etc and asking a volunteer to spot the same date but different month - so let's put all the children who have a birthday on the second of a month for example together etc!