Ding!Dong! Bell!From phonics to language recall to beginners writing!

The activities in this blog post are additional ways to exploit our simple Christmas greetings song: Feliz Navidad or Joyeux Noel .
You can read about our original activities in listening and speaking ideas here Ring out those bells tonight.

The activities in both blog posts  are transferable to other contexts.
In my opinion the activities below allow us to explore the following DfE POS objectives:

• explore the patterns and sounds of language 
• speak in sentences using familiar language
• write phrases from memory

The object of the activities below is to continue the theme  of bells and ringing bells but to deconstruct the language so that we are looking at letter combinations and listening for key  sounds in the target language.We then reconstruct the Christmas greetings songs line by line from memory.It is helpful therefore if you have practised the greetings song in the blog post mentioned above first.(In French we use the key phrases : joyeux noel / à tous /à vous)

For the Ding Dong Bell activities .....

• Teach the words to our simple Christmas greetings song
• Sing the song in a round and play the game with the phrase cards (see Ring out those bells)

• Create your own bell letter combination cards for the key sounds in the text.You will need a template 

• On each bell write one of the key letter combinations here in Spanish (for example: fe/liz/na/vi/dad/mis/a/mi/gos/mi/fa/mi/lia)

• On the reverse of the bells you need to add a  symbol to represent a recent and familiar piece of language for example with our beginners we have chosen stars  symbols in different colours,numbers,gapped months of the year and smiley or non-smiley faces to suggest feelings.

• Now the language learning fun starts! Give out the bell cards and ask the children to become bell ringers. They ring their bell when they hear their sound.Children without a bell come to the front and they are your carol singer
• At the end of the song ask the children to swap bells and make sure your carol singers get a go at bell ringing too
•  Finally ask the children to help you to either peg the sound bells to a classroom line or blu-tac the bells to the board to reconstruct the complete song 
• Children could then take responsibility for one bell and one sound and create their own classroom Christmas decoration – like a bell paper chain of the Christmas greeting song

Make it a class challenge

• Divide your class in to four teams. give each time a different phrase - say it orally do not give them the written phrase.

feliz navidad

mis amigos

mi familia

feliz navidad

• Blu-tac the bells to the board with the sound/letter combination face up.
• Each team must try to win the bells for – that once they are put back together, make up the line.
• Can each team take it in turns to select a bell ,say the correct sound , suggest in which word it is located in the song
• If they are correct ,turn over the card and can the team give you the Spanish for the number, colour or month clue on the reverse of the bell?
• If they are correct they can keep that bell .Can they collect and create a full line from the song before the other team does? 
• Can the class reconstruct the whole greetings song and sing it one final time?

Sound in the French word for numbers and colours : ladders and scaffold games

These activities are  quick to create and simple to develop and involve key sounds in numbers and colours for teachers just starting to work with French (or any language- but it really works well in French)  with their primary school children.The games  can easily be used as a revisiting activity at any time in a language learner's career.They can lead to puzzles and performance opportunities 

The games in the first instance involve numbers 1-11 and  simple colours (bleu,jaune,orange,vert,noir,blanc )

• As  the teacher think about the numbers and colours you have taught. 
• Practise with the children key sounds in the words 
• Create a chart of key sounds as letter combinations for sounds that are in both colours and numbers or just in the colours or just in the numbers.
• Take a look here: 

Can you see the key sounds and letter combinations in the numbers 1-11 and the colours:  bleu,jaune,orange,vert,marron,noir,blanc?

Take  quick look some of the sounds and letter combinations are in both the colours and the numbers.

Sound in the word ladders and scafffolds

• Ask your class first of all to create a "sound in the word ladder or scaffold " of the words they think that the key sounds come from- they may think of both a number and a colour for some of the boxes in the table
• Can they add performance (mime,actions and volume)  to their sound in the word  ladders and scaffolds. They can decide to work across the table in horizontal lines or run down one column and then the other column of the table. Maybe they want to start from the bottom and work upwards etc .They can decide!
• Can they perform their "sound in the word ladder or scaffold "for another group of children and can thwy trace the path that has been followed on the table of sounds?

Step Two !All shook up!

• Cut up the table in to individual sound cards and put them out on the table.One set per four children works best.

The groups of children  can now play several different games:

• Take it in turns to select a sound and say a number or colour
• Take it in turns and collect number cards only - who has the most when the sounds' cards  the children can use run out?
• Take it in turns to create a run of cards of all the colours or all the numbers 
• Take it in turns to create a run of cards of all the colours but in French alphabetical order/ try this with numbers but in numerical order or in reverse order