poetry

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.





 
















Aspects of winter in French poems and flights of the imagination

It's getting cold outside and I am certain that when we come back to school after Christmas we will be talking with the children about wintry weather, wrapping up warm and maybe even building snowmen.

Today I found this poem on this web page www.mespetitsbonheurs.com and thought that this would make a great poem to use in UKS2 and Y7. 


Les glaçons

Les glaçons qui pendent du toit
Dis-moi, c'est de la glace à quoi ?

Elle n'a pas de couleur,

Elle n'a pas de goût,

Elle n'a pas d'odeur,
Elle n'a rien du tout !
Alors, c'est de la glace à quoi,
Les glaçons qui pendent du toit ?


Corinne Albaut

  • What attracted me to the poem was the idea of icicles hanging from the roof of a house and the questions it caused the poet to ask about what is ice ......
  • I like the way the poet makes statements that ask questions but he/she doesn't give answers and suggests that the readers can make up their own answers.
  • I like the way we can use the text to look at the negative form of the verb and there is potential to investigate the use of more descriptive verbs to replace "avoir"

 Let's focus on colour,scent and taste of the icicles in the poem.
We will focus our imaginations on these three negative verbal sentences in the poem:
Elle n'a pas de couleur,
Elle n'a pas de goût,
Elle n'a pas d'odeur,

  1. Read the poem with the children and locate the negative forms of the verb "elle n'a pas".Can they see the cognates and semi cognates used as nouns? (couleurs/odeur)? What do they think "goût" might mean? 
  2. Now let's investigate ice.Using ice cubes is the poet correct? If we look closely can see any colour in them?Is there any scent to them? What do the ice cubes taste of? 
  3. Now ask them to help you to create a magical Winter Wonderland scene( you can link this to Frozen the film for example, Narnia or the original story of the Snow Queen ).Ask the children to create magical icicles.......
  4. Give out paper icicle shapes and ask the children working on their tables to write their ideas on their icicle shapes and create magical winter wonderland icicles

  • icicles made up of magical colours,
  • icicles containing magical scents  
  • icicles with tastes and flavours. 
(You will need to remind children of how we linked scents and taste to work on ice cream flavours for example)

Now the children can recreate the poem and with your help can change the three negative statements which use avoir to positive statements e.g "elle n'a pas de couleur" becomes "elle a de couleur"
They can now add the information about their own magical icicles to make their magical winter wonderland poems following the writing template below:

Les glaçons qui pendent du toit
Dis-moi, c'est de la glace à quoi ?

Elle a de couleur,
.............................................
Elle a de goût,
.............................................
Elle a d'odeur,
................................................

Les glaçons qui pendent du toit ?

You now have your poems and your icicles for a magical Winter wonderland display or story book.



Flights of imagination with language learning

I really love to think out of the box and hope that some of the activities I create allow children tom explore the world of their imagination in another language and learning arena. It works for me because it helps me to allow learners to make the link that language is language and is a vehicle to explore the World! 


Over the last year I have posted the following blog posts  which demand that language learners explore their own imaginations through target language learning with a practical language learning purpose. Hope that the list below helps somebody out there to do something similar with their learners! 

La nuit .Unpacking and exploring a challenging poem with more advanced French language learners in KS2/ early KS3

This next half term with our Stage 3 or 4 language learners I wanted to find a poem that was sophisticated in message and familiar in context but that had sufficient challenge to move our more advanced language learners forwards.These young learners have a good understanding of present tense sentences made up of nouns, simple common verbs and adjectives.Most of the children can add adjectival  agreement relatively accurately and will be revisiting and practising prepositions in the context of house and home this half term

 I found the appropriate challenge and context in this poem by Luce Guilbaud and what a fantastic poem too! 

La nuit
La nuit est entrée dans ma chambre
sur ses pieds de velours
elle s’est cachée derrière les rideaux
elle a cueilli des roses dans le vase
installée au fond du grand fauteuil
elle a lu tous les livres
elle s’est roulée sur le tapis
elle était si bien endormie
Quand la lumière a jailli
la nuit surprise a fui
elle a   escaladé la fenêtre
et disparu dans le jardin
derrière les sapins

Luce Guilbaud .Poèmes tout frais
La farandole. Scanédition

Why do I like this poem and why do I think that our learners care up to the challenge?
Well in ,my opinion because you can break this poem down in to component parts and because it evokes the feeling of night passing through a room like a cloak that moves from one side of the room to the other.Night comes in through the door and climbs put of the window and disappears in to the garden .The poem could act as a stimulus material to some wonderful poems in english where the children personify weather or times of the day etc.Plus on a more simple note there is the content of house ,home and prepositions in this poem and the ideas are sophisticated enough for 10,11 1,2 year olds!

Do I realise that the poem is written in the perfect tense - a past tense?
Yes but I want to challenge the children to look beyond the grammar and understand the pictures and images that are created.It's an opportunity to introduce and expose the children to the written form of the perfect tense but not to  focus on how the tense has been formed.

The activities below would form two lessons of language learning

Activities: the night's cloak
  1. Discuss with the class in english the difference between light in the daytime and the darkness of night
  2. Can they think of adjectives in english to describe the night? Give them thinking and pair talking time and take feedback
  3. Share with the class the idea that the night is like a cloak that passes over the world and moves from one area to another and as it leaves the daylight arrives.Explain that this is just like being covered by a cloak
  4. Ask the children to look up adjectives in a French/English bi-lingual dictionary that they think are powerful adjectives to describe the night
  5. Take feedback and collect the adjectives on the whiteboard and ask the children to share the french and the english meaning so that all the class can understand the adjectives.Take a class vote on the top five adjectives by using a class tally chart and a show of hands.
  6. Show the class the french word for night "la nuit" .Ask the children to tell you something important about this noun( we want the children to identify that this is a feminine singular noun because they can see "la" in front of the noun)
  7.   Share with the class your cloak to represent the night ( A4 card folded to resemble a cloak). In the centre you can see "la nuit est ...." and around the cloak are written some adjectives spelt to agree with the feminine noun "la nuit"
  8. Ask the children to help you complete the gaps next to the stars on the cloak with other favourite adjectives to describe the night- making sure they are spelt accurately to agree with the noun
  9. Now let the children create their own cloaks of the night:

I think this would work best with black A4 card and chalks for a class french display.

Activities: movements and actions in the poem

  1. Before you read the poem with the children you will need to unpack the poem so that all the children can successfully access and enjoy the poem.Explain to the class that they are first of all going to look at the ingredients and ideas that a french poet has put together to create a very evocative description of the night passing through a room in a house.
  2. Ask the children to think of verbs that might describe the way the night might move in its mysterious dark cloak through the room .Listen to their ideas
  3. Share with the children the movement cards that track the night as she moves through the room in the poem.Can they think of verbs in english that would explain the movements. I have selected  the following key past participles from the poem and drawn simple symbols to explain the movement.The blue arrows indicate the type of movement (entrée/cachée/installée/roulée/escaladé/disparu):



 4.Now give the children the key past participles as separate cards.You will see that I have highlighted in blue key clues in the words that will help the children associate the french past participle with a specific action.Can they match the words to the symbol cards above.

5.Ask the children to share their decisions with a second group to see if they have matched the same symbols with the key word cards, for example ......

6.Have the children been able to work out the meaning of all the movements? discuss woth teh children which ones were easy and which ones were more challenging and did they think that for example escaladé meant escaped? Ask the children to check the meanings in  bilingual dictionary by looking up the infinitive - you may need to write the infinitives on the whiteboard for the children.
7. Explain to the children that these actions have all taken place and the poet has recorded what has happened - so how would you say these actions in english if you wanted to explain the same idea? 
8.Now ask the children to find a space in the room - this would work best in the hall - and to become the night as she moves through the classroom. Can they stand in their space and mime carefully the night's actions as you call out the past participles from the poem.

Activities : investigating the poem
  1. Give the children picture cards of the key objects in the poem.Explain to the children that they are entering a room in a house.Can they put the picture cards in order as they find them from the beginning to the end of the poem.Do any of the pictures belong outside of the room? (chambre/les rideaux/le vase/fauteuil/ les livres/le tapis/la fenêtre/le jardin/les sapins)
  2. Now read through the poem with the children- explain first that there will be parts of the poem that they do not yet understand fully but that they are now on a mystery tour with the night through the room. 
  3. As you come across the following phrases see if the children can help you to understand what the meaning of each statement is to build up an even better picture of the night and how it behaves.Remind the children that the night is acting like a person so they need to look for the nouns they can understand.Perhaps they will need to use the bilingual dictionary to find out the meaning of words they think could be important but don't understand plus  look for familiar clues in the unfamiliar words.
sur ses pieds de velours
cueilli des roses dans le vase
lu tous les livres
bien endormie

Activities: the key to the poem

  1. Can the children help you to see what happens to the night when the daylight arrives? Give them the key to the poem: la lumière
  2. Can they locate the word in the poem and see the change in the behaviour of the night after this word is mentioned?
Activities: la nuit - making the poem your own
  1. You could use the hall space and read the poem for the children and let them act out the movement and behaviour of the night as it travels through the space of the hall.
  2. You could create chalk drawings of the night as it passes across the paper as if it's passing through a room and then on white paper show how the night behaves once daylight arrives, using pencil sketches this time






Using drama and grammar to go on an Autumn walk through a French poem



L’automne
L’automne au coin du bois,
Joue de l’harmonica.
Quelle joie chez les feuilles !
Elles valsent au bras
Du vent qui les emporte.
On dit qu’elles sont mortes,
Mais personne n’y croit.
L’automne au coin du bois,
Joue de l’harmonica.

Maurice Carême

This beautiful poem I find is lyrical and there is a hidden thread within the words of the music of Autumn.It's a piece of poetry that we can use in target language learning to explore nouns and the imagery of dance and music to create a magical picture of  Autumn.  



Walk through the nouns
  1. Share with the children the fact that you are on an Autumn walk and the wind is blowing and the leaves are blowing around.
  2. Ask the children to read through the poem and find the nouns in the poem and write them down on a rough piece of paper (just like they were collecting Autumn leaves)
  3. Which nouns in the target language have the children found? How did they do this? What helped them to find the nouns (e.g definite articles or words that looked very similar to english nouns)?
  4. Are there any hidden nouns that we need to look ? Use the clues of "du" and "au" to find the hidden nouns.(With more advanced learners explain the use of "du" and "au" and how it has been formed and how it conceals the definite article).
  5. Engage the children in an imaginary Autumn walk.Explain that you are going to say each of the nouns they have found in the target language and you want the children to close their eyes and listen to the sound of the words and see a visual image of the word and the object or item or scene it describes
  6. Now ask them to create a visual image of their own of each noun- they need to stand up find a space and create a movement and a facial expression to portray the nouns as you say them. Ask the children to repeat this and say the nouns with you and give the nouns "life" like the poet does in the poem.


Step into the Poet's World
Read the poem with the children and ask the children to listen for the key nouns and  “step” into the poem through their physical reactions to the nouns.

  • Talk with the children about the types of weather they expect in Autumn. Ask them to help you find the sounds in the text where they can hear the  wind as it blows through the wood?
  • Focus now on the use of the noun “l’harmonica”. Discuss with the children the sort of the sound a harmonica makes. If possible access the sound of the harmonica. Can they hear the squeal and sound of the wind as it plays? What type of wind do you think is chasing the leaves in the poem? 
  • Look at this key sentence in the poem: “Quelle joie chez les feuilles, elles valsent au bras du vent!”  Explore the magic of the image in this line..........

  1. Ask the children in pairs or on their tables to investigate the language they can see in the sentence when they read the sentence. 
  2. First they must locate the cognates, the nouns and verb.
  3. Then they must look up the key language they are not certain about. 
  4. Finally can they create a visual translation of the sentence- a picture, a cartoon or a physical performance? Give the children a time limit of 15 minutes to unpack the sentence, understand the sentence and to create their visual translation. Watch or view some of the visual translations and practise the spoken form of the sentence with the children each time volunteers share their work.


Adding music, dance and movement to the poet's world 

Read in French and then explain to the class the meaning of the sentence : On dit qu’elles sont mortes, Mais personne n’y croit”.Ask the children to help you find the magic that brings the leaves to life in the poem. Allow the children time to realise that the wind is music to the leaves.

Can the children explore the rhythm and the beat of the sentence “Quelle joie chez les feuilles, elles valsent au bras du vent!”  and create the "drum beat of the dancing leaves"?

  Share the world of the poet with others!
I selected this poem because of the magic of the wind and the music and dance themes that run through the poem. The poet wants us to understand that the wind is bringing what appear to be dead leaves to life. Can the children help you to create these visual images and bring the music and the dance to the poem? 

  • As a class read the poem and look for repeated lines and words
  • Read the poem and stress the repeated lines and words
  • Look and listen for the rhyme
  • Give all the children the music magic and suggest that they all have imaginary musical instruments. They must help you now to read the poem with stress and intonation that brings the music of the poem to life and add the drum beat of the sentence where the leaves come to life and dance “Quelle joie chez les feuilles, elles valsent au bras du vent!” .
  • As a class now re-read and stress the repeated lines ,words and rhythm
  • Ask for volunteers to perform the poem as a mime whilst the rest of the class create the music of the poem by reading it aloud with the stress, intonation and rhythm you have already explore.  



French percussion and poem performance les feuilles mortes


Using this simple , effective and beautiful poem about Autumn in French we can explore and interpret and perform linking languages to percussion music. This could be a poem to be explored by the children in UKS2 (with two or three years language learning) or possibly in KS3 Y7. 

  1. Can the children identify for you the verbs in the text. Can they spot the repetition of the verbs?
  2. How do they know that the poet is speaking (j'entends)
  3. Can they identify the nouns in the poem and can they identify the noun which is repeated over and over again in the text . Is it singular or plural and how so they know? Maybe they are able to tell you whether the noun is masculine or feminine using detective work and looking at the spelling of the adjectives after the noun.
  4. In each verse explore the descriptions of the leaves,looking up the final adjectives in each line where necessary ,using a bi-lingual dictionary.
  5. Can they practise the nouns and adjectives for the leaves and descriptions as sound bites ( saying the description e.g les feuilles rousses/molles/d'or and making the sound of the words create a "sound bite picture of the leaves as they fall to the floor)
  6. In each verse explore what the poet tells us he can hear- which words for seasons and weather can they identify in the individual sentences that start with "j'entends....".
  7. Identify the pattern of each verse and the use of the verbs in each verse and the repetitive nature of the verb "tombent" and ask the children to suggest reasons why this might be the case (i.e perhaps to suggest leaves falling gently from the sky over and over again)
  8. Identify the rhymes at the end of each sentence in each verse.
  9. Write down in random order on the whiteboard the final words in each sentence.Can the children match up the rhyming pairs?
  10. Ask the children to read the poem with you and to visualise what is happening and how Winter is drawing in.Ask them to describe to a talk partner what they have visualised. 
  11. Give out the poem as cut up sentence strips . Can the children reconstruct the poem?
  12. Can they now close their eyes and listen again to the poem and imagine Autumn moving toward Winter as they listen to the poem with their eyes closed?
  13. Read and practise the poem out loud with the children.
  14. Ask the children to suggest musical percussion instruments to portray the falling leaves and also to portray the weather or seasonal changes in each verse. Ask the children to work in groups with percussion instruments to create the sense and  rhythm and  to convey the description in one of the verses of the poem. they can select their favourite verse to match the percussion instrument they have been given on their table.
  15. Ask the groups /tables to create a performance with spoken language , actions and music of their chosen verse. Ask them children to create the dynamics of the verse through the actions , music and the way they alter their voices (volume and stress etc)  
  16. Listen to the groups performances of the verses.
  17. Can the class decide which percussion performance matches the French poem description the best? 
  18. Can the class read the poem with you and can four children representing the selected percussion performances create the different music effects for each of the verses as the class reads out the poem?

Power and dynamics of poetry in a target language

Last term I spent time considering ways to introduce and use poetry in language learning. It's an area that I have always enjoyed with young learners (and as an English and Drama  teacher in a former life) I am always delighted when children realise the power of poetry!

 This academic year I am keen to focus on the "power of poetry " to bring words to life! Not just to look for images or to play matching and rhyming games but to engage the young learners with the power and sound scapes behind a poet's words.

 Let's look for the dynamics of the poetry!
The  cadence, the pictures created by the sound- scapes ,the beat and rhythm of the syllables and the words chosen and the mysterious world that the poet has encapsulated in a confined use of language.


How do I think we can achieve this during a year of primary language learning...?
Well ...nursery rhymes and songs enable us to encourage young language learners to join in, participate, create actions, move around .... so let's look at poetry in KS2 in a similar way.

Build opportunities to explore poetry across KS2, where you engage the children with:
  • listening for the beat, 
  • the rhythm, 
  • drawing the shape of the sounds they hear in the air or on white boards,
  • creating actions that interpret the story of the poem or song,
  • creating physical performances of the poems 
  • taking an original text and making it up to date and modern e.g. generating a rap
  • using APPS to add dynamics such as drumbeats and music to a class recording of thew spoken poem.


Let's consider what opportunities already exist in the work I know is being planned for within the network this Autumn term. 
We will be working with the children on Autumn poems in October  - based on the sounds and the smells and surprises of an Autumn walk.We will create Halloween poems and explore authentic poetry and songs about witches such as la sorciere grabouilla. Here's a You tube clip of the French song...  



In November we work on firework poems both  as reading and writing activities and we explore the shapes, sounds and colours of a firework display. In UKS2 some teachers will be generating wizard's potion poems after exploring a written simple potion to create a wizard. In December we will be getting ready for our Christmas activities and with KS2 children we might be preparing the poem and now song  le bonhomme de neige by Jacques Prévert.

Inspired ?
Well then why not get started in September with one of this back to school theme poem blog for both French and Spanish called Physical Pop Up Poems Daily Routine and Back to School,where you will find that I have suggested activities that will allow you to explore the dynamics of the poems hopefully to enable you to generate memorable learning occasions for the children and yourself!

 You may also find some of my blogs on poetry from last year useful too. I have included opportunities for you children to explore the role of the poet and use limited language to great effect in creating their own poetry too! Hope the blogs,the ideas are useful and the possible transfer of activities to poetry in other languages is useful too!  

 Spanish  KS1 rhyme based on the bear hunt Bear Hunt Rhyme
French, Spanish, German : The verb to have and a wizard's potion
French : simple Easter movie based on un petit lapin rhyme
All languages : Creating our own simple past tense mood swing poems
All languages : Using video clips  to generate poems Eye in the sky
 French and Spanish writing our own sandcastle poems to perform
French :using an authentic comptine to explore the skills of  listening,speaking,reading,writing , drama and phonics Dame tartine
French sept couleurs magiques
French painting a poem of a Summer's Day
French writing our own poems about the seaside based on authentic poetry
French emotions and doodle sense poems based on authentic poem mon cartable
French Drama and mystery in the cafe dejeuner du matin






Emotions and "doodle senses" poems in French

I am looking for poems for Year 6 which evoke senses and emotions and encourage them to collect good memories of their time in primary school.

 I found this beautiful poem by Pierre Gamarra- Mon cartable 



What a brilliant idea with Year 6 !
Simple and effective!

First there is a great game ......
A blindfold game :guessing by taste or smell or touch.

  • First share with the class a tray of items of familiar target language items.
  • Ask children to come to the front and label these  objects on the tray.selecting the correct noun from a variety of h target language word labels . 
  • Now hold a smell,touch and sense experience guessing game,where you challenge volunteers to touch , smell and sense the items without being able to see them.
  • Allow children to come to the front and put on a blindfold and guess:
  1. What fruits they can smell?
  2. What foods like chocolate or coffee they can smell?
  3. What smells and touch sensations of classroom equipment they can guess (crayons/paints/pencils/paper/books)?

Rmember that you should use items that the children already know as target language word.Enourage the children to utter their guesses using full sentences or questions(if they are uncertain) too? 

A poetry reading 

  • Share the text with the class and read the poem for the class.
  • Ask them to smell and sense and imagine that they can touch the items mentioned on the poem.
  • Can they tell you some facts about the poem and the smells and objects are mentioned?
  • You could create a pictorial list of the items on the flip chart as the children read about the objects in the poem.
  • Find out more about the poet! Can they tell you whether this is a person living in France or somewhere else in the World and how do they know this( e.g.bison/cow boys)

Creatimng "Doodle senses poems".
How are they going to do this ..?
Ask them to create a "doodle senses poem".This is a poem where the children literally doodle or scrobble on the written poem, to remove some of the text and leave a [partal text that shares the message of the poem.In this instance the children should be left with the key items and memories of the poem.

  • They will need copies of the text and a black pen or a pencil.
  • With a black pen or pencil they need to colour out words they don't know and then see what doodle smells and senses they are left with. 
  • Some children may want to work in pairs and you may decide to ask a TA to work with a small group of children to guide them through the text.

I feel that our children should after four years of language learning have most of these words in brackets "undoodled"because they are familiar to them.
(mon cartable/odeurs/la pomme/le livre/la gomme/ les crayons de couleurs/l'orange/le bison/le nougat/la mandarine/le papier (d'argent ou d'or)/les bateaux/ le port/les cow-boys/ les noisettes/le caramel/les confettis de la fête/les longs cheveux/ ma mère/ mon papa/la rose /le chocolat)


  • Ask the children to read their comppleted doodled poems to each other.This will be essentially the list of language they have left.


 Mon cartable: a place to keep their own happy memory sensations of primary school. 

  • Now ask the children to fold a piece of A4 paper or card in half and create their own cartable.
  • Inside they need to write  the phrase

Mon cartable a cinq odeurs.....


  • Can the children then add five objects,five colours and  five smells or tastes of school that they know they won't forget and that will be good memories when they think of school in years to come? 

Colours make memories through poetry

It's almost the end of the term.I wanted to find a poem in French that linked Year 5  UKS2 prior learning and knowledge of colours and nouns (since Y3 ) and the use of a bi-lingual dictionary to create memories of the school year and their French language learning.
I didn't need too look far -did I?
Here is the poem by Chantal Couliou :
Crayons de couleur

Le vert pour les pommes et les prairies
Le jaune pour le soleil et les canaris
Le rouge pour les fraises et le feu
Le noir pour la nuit et les corbeaux
Le gris pour les ânes et les nuages
Le blue pour la mer et le ciel
Et toutes les couleurs pour colorier 
Le monde

So how can this be used? Well each line is about a colour and objects associated with the colour. It would lead on very well from an early blog post of mine about word association and colours which the children always enjoy - even if they have played the games and created word association symbols before .Colour mimes and word association

Let's unpack the meaning of the poem 


Read the poem for the children.

  • Ask them to listen for the colours.
  • You could ask them to order coloured cards from top to bottom in a row as they hear them mentioned or place counters on the table in the order or pop dots of crayon colour on a strip of paper in the order they hear the colours.



Let's investigate the nouns and find their meanings 
Now let's ask the children to see what links they can see between nouns. 
The poem is being used to unpack language learning memories so these activities are based on reactivating memory - of words/ links/ ways to investigate meaning...

  • On tables of four give the children the nouns from the poem- which do they immediately recognise (probably les pommes/ les fraises/la mer/le soleil ) as we will have practised these before e.g. when learning fruits or when practising greetings and farewells (bonne nuit) or weather (il fait du soleil). 
  • Which are cognates or which are semi cognates (e.g les prairies, les canaris)?
  • Which might they need to look up in bi-lingual dictionaries ? However before they do explain that the nouns are linked as pairs of nouns by colours.
  • Can they identify colours that they would associate with any of the nouns they can recognise (e.g noir- la nuit/ rouge - les fraises/ bleu- la mer/ jaune - le soleil)?
  • So does this help them now to take an informed guess at the nouns they may still not know - if nouns make pairs linked by colour? 
  • Only now let them check their informed guesses in bi-lingual dictionaries.
Create a calm performance with full concentration
You will need small picture cards that represent each colour and each noun- enough so that each member of the class has a card.
  • Take feedback from the children on what they think their pictures represent in the target language from the nouns they have investigated or the colours they know.
  • Ask the class to listen to the poem again very carefully.
  • Can the class lift their cards as they hear the word represented by the picture?
  • Swap cards are repeat the activity again
  • Now invite a child holding one of each the cards to the front- stand them in random order.
  • Can the class recall and reorder the cards in the order they have heard them spoken in the poem?
  • Ask the class to listen one more time and check their cards are in the correct order. Are there any cards that they want to reorder?
  • Can the class say the whole poem up to the last line with you using the cards as prompts?
Et toutes les couleurs pour colorier le monde ....
Give out paper and ask the children to create a pictorial depiction of the poem they have heard, investigated and spoken in all the colours and using all the items that the poet has referred to in the text.
They must draw the world and add their own pictures in correct colours within the shape of the world.

Reading opportunities  
You may be inspired to offer the children when they have finished their pictorial depictions some independent reading of poems written by young pupils based on the poem above.
I found some lovely examples on this school site here:ecole elementaire examples  

Finish with a song 
We always love this particular song about colours so maybe this is one you could either play whilst the children create their own pictures or at the end of the lesson - just to listen for pleasure or whilst they tidy away.. 


French Poem writing about a day at the seaside

In my previous blog post  I shared with you how we can paint a picture of a Summers Day using an authentic poem. This is based on a poem abut a quiet Summer's Day . I also suggested that hopefully lots of children will have lively , loud, active Summer's Days perhaps by the seaside and that we could use the original poem about a quiet Summer's Day below to create our own alter-ego poems about a lively Summer's  day at the seaside.

So here we go!

L’été
Silence
silence
l’ été
se balance
où l’oiseau
se tait.

L’herbe
séchée
tremble
dans l’air
brûlé.

Silence
silence
l’ été
chante
dans
les blés.

(Anne Marie Chapouton)

Step One 
Revisit the poem that as a class you have analysed and used to paint a picture of a peaceful Summer's Day Ask the children to read the poem with you again and to perform the poem as described in the previous blog ...here is the activity again: 

 Read the poem for the children again.
The class and yourself are now going to try and create a spoken picture of the poet's descriptions.
  • Ask the children to help you put a backing track to the poem. All the children need to do is repeat over and over again in a whisper the first two lines of the poem "Silence,silence" like it was the breeze wafting through trees. 
  • Read the poem for the class with the children's backing track (whispered quietly) accompanying you as you read aloud.
  • Divide the class in to three. Each third of the class is responsible for the reading of one of the verses of the poem with you , whilst the rest of the class are the backing track.
Step Two 
Ask the class to help you to re-identify the key words in the text and remind yourselves of the pictures that have been painted by the words of the author.
Explain that the children are going to create the "alter-ego" poem to this original poem. Instead of a quiet Summer's day it's going to be a fun , lively ,loud day at the seaside
  • Using bi-lingual dictionaries and working in pairs can the children come up with new verbs that they would like to use in their poem ..if the poem was about children playing at the beach on  a warm Summer's day/ the way the sea moves at the seaside/ the noise people make at the seaside  
  • Ask each pair to share with a second pair the verbs they have found
  • Ask the pairs as they share their verbs to give the English meaning too. 
Step Three 
Give each pair  a version of the table  below.
On the left is the original poem
on the right is the skeleton of their Summer's day at the beach poem.
Can the children working with a partner or in larger groups generate a poem picture of the day at the beach.
Ask them to add verbs to describe :
  • what the  children are doing in the first verse
  • how the sea moves/behaves in the second verse
  • the sound/noise of Summer  at the beach
The children should use the template on the write of the chart to create their own three verse/sentences to describe a day at the beach.

Practise writing the correct verb forms(using verbs they have suggested) with the children so that they feel comfortable with third person singular and plural form of the present tense. You may want to create a temporary post it working wall so children can go to the wall locate the verb they want to use and if necessary take t back to their tables so they can refer to it .

L’été

Silence
silence
l’ été
se balance
où l’oiseau
se tait.

L’herbe
séchée
tremble
dans l’air
brûlé.

Silence
silence
l’ été
chante
dans
les blés.


(Anne Marie Chapouton)
L’ été

Bruit
bruit
l’ été
se reveille
où les enfants
……………………..

La mer
bleue
…………………
sur le sable
d'or

Bruit
Bruit
l’ été
…………………….
au bord de
 la mer.


Step Four 
Now the children can write up their new poems and either perform them for the class or create a picture background to their own  handwritten poems  about a Summer's day at the beach .

French Poem Painting of a Summer's Day

I have been looking for a beautiful Summer poem in French for a few weeks  and have decided upon this poem below as the starting point from which to create a picture depiction of the poem, a text in which to identify nouns, adjectives and verbs and a platform from which to build an "alter-ego" children's version of a poem about Summer. You can see how I use this poem below and the activities to then support children to create their own Summer's day at the seaside poems.

 The work hinges upon the fact that Summer for adults- especially teachers - is a time for peace and quiet but for children let's hope it's a time when they can get outside, run around and go to the seaside!

Here is the original poem,which paints a picture of a calm Summer's day in the countryside.
Here is a picture to set the scene for the children before you read the poem with them.

 Here are the initial steps to understand the original poem and in my next blog I will explain how you can then use this poem as a platform to create your noisy day at the beach poem.

L’été
Silence
silence
l’ été
se balance
où l’oiseau
se tait.

L’herbe
séchée
tremble
dans l’air
brûlé.

Silence
silence
l’ été
chante
dans
les blés.


(Anne Marie Chapouton)

Step by step we can take the poem above and create our own Summer's day poem  painting .Here is how it works!

Step One
Explain to the children that this is a poem about a quiet peaceful Summer's Day .
Can they spot the cognates in the text of the poem that tell us this?(silence)
Read the poem for the children and ask them just to enjoy the sound of a peaceful Summer's Day in French with you .

Step Two 
Tell the children that in the text  five nouns are mentioned (Summer,bird,grass,air and wheat). Can they use their "language detective" skills to identify these nouns?Ask the children what we might expect to see written before a noun in French to represent the word "the" and explain this may be the first easiest way in this poem to locate the nouns in this text. Ask them to find the nouns and work out their meaning by a process of elimination:
  • nouns we already know
  • nouns that look like English words
  • which nouns that are left in our list of five nouns
  • any nouns we need t look up in a bi-lingual dictionary?
Step Three

Can we paint our Summer's Day ?
Give each child the text and coloured pencils. 
Agree on colours for the five nouns. Colours that the children associate with the nouns (perhaps yellow for Summer/brown for a bird/ pale green for the grass/blue for the air and golden orange for the fields)
Ask the children to highlight the nouns in the correct colours .

Step Four
Let's zoom in:on adjectives 
First let's zoom in on adjectives in the second verse!
Can the children tell you what type of word helps us to learn more about a noun and adds description (adjectives)?
Ask the class to identify and  then look up the adjectives in the second verse of the text using bi-lingual dictionaries Are any of the adjectives challenging to understand ?Can they find them if they look for the verbs the adjectives originate from ?Remind them that this is a poem and therefore we need to remember the poet is using adjectives creatively to paint a picture.
Take feedback about the  descriptions of the nouns the children think the poet is creating with the use of adjectives.

Step Five
Let's zoom in:on verbs
Have the children noticed that the poem is made up of three sentences? Each sentence is a verse of the poem and paints a picture of an aspect of a quiet peaceful Summer's Day.Now let's look for the verbs in these sentences .Either reveal or write each verse as a long sentence.Can the children find the words they now know in each sentence. Can the identify the verbs. 
  • First verse/sentence In Year 5 and Year 6 we may have looked at daily routine reflexive verbs - so can the children use this knowledge to identify two reflexive verbs in the first verse/sentence? Use  prior knowledge (e.g taisez vous!) and cognates (e.g balance) to try to work out what the poet's first verse/sentence is telling us. 
  • Second verse/sentence can the class spot the verb. How easy is it to understand his verb "tremble" and why? What picture is the poet painting in the second verse/sentence?
  • Third verse/sentence can the children spot the verb and can they use prior knowledge to understand the verb (e.g chantez!). Again what is the picture the poet is painting with the use of words in this sentence?

Step Six 
Read the poem for the children again.
The class and yourself are now going to try and create a spoken picture of the poet's descriptions.
  • Ask the children to help you put a backing track to the poem. All the children need to do is repeat over and over again in a whisper the first two lines of the poem "Silence,silence" like it was the breeze wafting through trees. 
  • Read the poem for the class with the children's backing track (whispered quietly) accompanying you as you read aloud.
  • Divide the class in to three. Each third of the class is responsible for the reading of one of the verses of the poem with you , whilst the rest of the class are the backing track.
 Step Seven 
Give each child one of the sentences from the poem and ask them to create a coloured drawing of their sentence, depicting in their opinion the picture the poet's words describe.
With the finished pictures create a display of the poem - each child's picture is a component of one of three "snapshots" of either verse one/two or three.
Add the text to each of the "snapshots" of your "quiet Summer's Day" 





Sept couleurs magiques

I have been looking for a French poem about Summer for a while. a poem we can use at KS2 to celebrate the end of the school year and the start of adventures outside of school. Well here it is ,thanks to mes petits bonheurs poesie comptines chansons.

 Here are some calm ,summery activities that you may like to try with your KS2 children who are learning French.

 I like this poem because it's about  colours, luxurious and exotic items and takes us on a global journey!It celebrates the colours of the rainbow!
Sept couleurs magiques
(Mymi Doinet)

Rouge comme un fruit du Mexique
Orange comme le sable d’Afrique
Jaune comme les girafes chics
Vert  comme un sorbet  Jamaïque
Bleu comme les vagues de Pacifique
Indigo comme un papillon de tropiques
Violet comme les volcans de Martinique
Qui donc est aussi fantastique?
Est-ce un rêve ou est-ce véridique?
C’est dans le ciel magnifique
L’arc aux sept couleurs magique

My sequence of activities is as follows:

Map work
Take a look at a map of the world in the target language....
  • Share with the class a child-friendly map of the World .I like the map here carte du monde. Why ?Well the map contains images that share wit the children objects, animals , items associated with the different countries around the World.
  • Take time to look at some of the items and to  ask the children to help you place some key target language nouns next to the correct items. Can they use their "language detective skills" to do this? (Cognates, semi-cognates, elimination,sounds like ....)
Now investigate and find the areas mentioned in the poem are on the map. You may need to refer to your class atlases (Mexique/Afrique/Jamaïque/Pacifique/tropiques/Martinique).

Reading and investigating the poem
Introduce the children to the poem . Ask them to read it with you and try to decide what the poem is about.
  • Can the children help you to read in the target language the poem
  • Can they spot the rhymes?
  • Can they spot the colours?
  • Can they spot the number?
  • Can they decide what the objects are that are written in the first seven lines of the poem?
  • Can they create an action for each item (un fruit/le sable/les girafes/un sorbet/les vagues/un papillion/les volcans)
Read the poem for the children a second time and ask them to try and remember which item is linked with which colour as you read the poem.
  • Call a colour and can the children show you the action for the item they associate with that colour in the poem.
  • Say an item and perform the action and can the children say the colour they associate with the item.
What's the poem about?
Have the children been able to work out that the poem is about a rainbow? 
Ask the children to look for the word clues in the poem that are the proof of this (couleurs/sept/rouge/orange/jaune/ vert/bleu/indigo/violet).

Pictorial portrayal of the poem
Can the children generate their own pictorial version of the first seven lines of the poem? 
They will need to re-read the poem on their own and make sure their colours and the objects they draw are accurate and match the lines of the poem.

 Calligram poem
And look what I found thanks to www.ac-nancy-metz.fr , a child's handwritten rainbow calligram poem based on the poem above! So now perhaps we can also have a go at your own rainbow calligram poems!