Spanish, a song from Frozen with a twist and a celebration of learning

I am currently undertaking a routine series of observations of the language assistants and teachers who work alongside me in our primary schools  delivering primary language learning on a weekly basis.It is such a rewarding and pleasurable opportunity to see what is really taking place in schools.

This series of blogs is an additional support mechanism for these colleagues,as they can't be in each others classroom and as a team  we meet once per half term for a twilight CPD,So you can hopefully see that these blogs (with a cup of tea and a biscuit back at home) offer them an insight in to each others classrooms and schools. 

So far this term I have observed Ana and target language teaching and learning with Y4 and also Y3   and Janet W with aYear 5 class where the whole school is starting off on a language learning journey together.Today I have observed Year 5 and also Year 4 Spanish in a local Warrington Primary School.



Meet Senora Hornby (Joanne) and her snowman song in Spanish with Year 5!
 Each teacher's style is different and suits their personality and their approach to the classroom and Joanne loves to music, drama and performance to enhance the language learning in the primary classroom.

I first met Joanne as an ITT at Hope University on a PGCE Primary Languages Specialist course, when I delivered an afternoon in about  2006-7 on Drama and Language Learning.Her second placement was in Warrington and she stayed at the school as a primary class teacher and now works with us a language teacher in one of our network schools.the school is more than fortunate as not only does it have Joanne , but also Senor Artingstall - who was also an ITT PGCE Primary Languages Specialist from Hope and now the Languages Coordinator in school and Year 5 class teacher.Thanks to Robert the school had an excellent platform in Spanish upon which Joanne has been able to build.Robert still teachers his own class Spanish though - of course !He loves teaching the language! 

Unfortunately I missed the lesson with the children in Year 5 due to snow,sleet  etcetera - but the Year 5 children and Senora Hornby shared with me  the song they has created and the language they have been practising!I have to add too that this performance was observed by the School SIP and the Languages Coordinator too!!

Over the last couple of weeks the Year 5 children have been focusing upon healthy eating and fruits , vegetables and buying items from the market , baaed on the JLN SOW .
Today Joanne  had done what I always love to see - made the style of learning and the creative outcome her own! She gave the children ownership of the language and they created a beautiful performance .Did I say it was sleet- snow today - so how appropriate- during the lesson the children had been focusing on creating a snowman with  fruit and vegetables for parts of the body! I think Joanne was rightly pleased with the results!! (Certainly looks so in the photo!)

• Joanne had practised and revisited key language for fruits and vegetables
• The class had listened to her sing her version of the Build me a  snowman from Frozen and had identified the fruits and vegetables she had added in her sentences about the snowman's body.
• the children had read the song with her and decided upon possible missing items ti make the missing parts of the body

• The children had learnt her version of the song with her.....

• And finally had created their own versions that they came out to the front and sang in groups for the class.

It helps that Joanne also teachers Choir in the school.All the children sing confidently and beautifully for her.She often links her language learning to song .....and as I  was late (!!) the special performance for the three special guests was:  

• a warm up greetings song
• a quick practise of parts of the body
• a rendition of Joanne's song 
• and finally the class singing the song but volunteers deciding upon which fruit / vegetable item to use for the parts of the body and singing these items on their own in that part of the song!

My Observations....?

• Sheer delight of the children in singing for an audience 
• Confidence in singing Spanish
• Accuracy in pronunciation and intonation
• Whole class participation
• A sea of hands to be the volunteers with their own words for the gaps
• Sharing between colleagues , as the Languages coordinator went away deciding to try this with his parallel Year 5 later in his Spanish lesson
• A impressed SIP - who wanted to look more closely at the links between languages and literacy !

Elmer Explorers with KS1 and LKS2,listening,speaking and writing

I am busy thinking of ideas for World Book Day and as Elmer is one of the books that children will receive,I decided that this was an ideal focus for our KS1 and also KS2 Year 3.It is also an ideal opportunity to share with students I train how we link across curriculum areas and can take one focus and develop primary language learning games,songs, role-play and our own writing opportunities - if we just think out of the box a little! 

Dressing Elmer with KS1!

With KS1 , we can practise our colours and our colour question"Which colour is it?" with a dice game where we roll the dice and say the question together and then the colour  the die lands on.

Now we can add a patch to our class Elmer( who as you can see is colourless at the moment!)  

Going on a colour hunt with KS1 and Year 3

We can pretend to be jungle explorers and hunt round our classroom for coloured elephants.With KS1 let's play "hot and cold" and hide coloured  card cut outs of elephants.

With KS2 Year 3 let's make it an Elmer treasure hunt and hide our multi coloured elmers around the room and ask two volunteers at a time to follow simple instructions to find the coloured Elmers (left ,right , straight ahead, turn around, stop , hot and cold).The class can hide the elephants and then help you call the directions as the two volunteers look for the elephants.  

Singing an Elmer song

We have found a great Elmer song in French.,

Here are the French words

French

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

De tout le troupeau je suis le plus beau,

l’éléphant le plus elegant.

Je suis bariolé de la tête aux pieds

Tout le  monde me reconnaît

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

Être différent c’est parfois pesant

je voudrais comme mes amis

être un éléphant qui de temps en temps deviendrait simplement tout gris.

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

Chaque année pour fêter la fin de l’été

Tout le monde se deguisait,

Bariolés, decorés furent mes amis et moi je me suis peint en gris

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

and here is the clip we found ......

Elmer Explorer Roleplays

Finally what about with KS2 Year 3 or Year 4 some Elmer totem pole prompt sticks for an Elmer role-play?

You can find out more about the totem pole prompt sticks and their general use

here

Here is an example of my Elmer totem pole prompt stick- one between two .It's a coliumn of four picture prompts.

You will also need rolled tubes with a letter box cut in it,so you can feed the totem pole prompt stick through slowly and look at each picture.This is the "Elmer explorer" telescope.

Each partner takes in turns to be the "Elmer explorer" and with their "jungle telescope " as they feed the totem pole prompt stick through the tube , they can ask a specific question of their partner.The partner looks through the binoculars , see the picture and uses this to help them form their response to the question. 

With these Elmer totem pole prompt sticks, the cue pictures invite us to ask:

What are you called?  (I am called Elmer)

Where do you live? (in the jungle)

What colours are you?  (opportunity for lots of colours here)

And one final question is one to be made up by the totem pole prompt stick holder- hence the question mark... (This could be age, personality , likes, dislikes .....)

Elmer mini books and describing things in writing

Now let's bring together all this work in our own mini book.I just followed this 

You Tube Origami mini book clip

 and created the book I needed.

Firstly I used familiar pictures from the totem poles - so the children can write down famiioar phrases and then I added colour clouds so that the children can then write their own colour sentences about Elmer.

The task in itself will be differentiated by outcome - as some children may write short phrases and single words and other children may write sentences , whilst other children may write questions and answers as if it was a story between Elmer and the narrator.

Here are some pictures of my mini book ready to be written in.

Stretchy sound and letter string carnival balloons

I am getting ready for the first of several local network meetings where we will look at some of the new POS learning objectives and put these in to real language teaching and learning contexts.Our theme is "Celebrating Carnival" and our learning objectives look at how a young learners develops the skills of communication in the target language.We are considering help young learners to move on and become independent users of their developing language skills .Each session we take time to consider an activity  which supports the learners to explore these learning objectives  from the new DfE POS: 

Explore the patterns and sounds of the language

Develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases.

So here is my carnival theme idea! It's based on "The blue balloon" by Mick Inkpen.

This interactive book encouraged the children to see the balloon as having ,magical qualities - you could stretch , pull, squash , fly with this blue balloon but you couldn't pop it and in the end it becomes a rainbow balloon.

Here is my magical colour stretchy sound and letter string balloon.On one side it has the colours and on the other side it has the letter strings that make up the colours.It starts off as a concertina with just the single picture of balloons and then it stretches to become one very long balloon of either the colour words or on the others slide blocks of colour in the same order as the colour words.

To make a balloon like mine, you will need four A4 documents for six colours.I have shared two my templates here.The templates  have two lines- one of colour filled blocks and a second line which has letter strings from the appropriate colours. These are the letter strings from key familiar colours (or any language content you prefer- although I think colours and balloons fit best together here)

You need to cut out the templates and stick the 4 strips together end to end to make a long continuous  strip.

Fold the balloon template length ways between the solid colours and the letters

Fold the strip in to a concertina using the external thin solid fold line and the internal fold lines.

The children will either be able to see all the coloured blocks or all the letter strings when it is pulled out as a stretchy balloon

Now you are ready to share your magical carnival balloon

1. Remind the children of all the key colours they know in the target language and ask them to think about how some of the key sounds are written in the target language. Write these up on the whiteboard and then remove these letter strings before playing the balloon games
2. Share with the children your very special carnival balloon and explain its magic qualities 
3. Show the children the first picture on the word side of the stretchy balloon- it's some balloons - but what colour do they think your balloon may be?
4. Explain that the balloon is stretchy and long so how many colours might it be made up of and what colours might it be? 
5. Can you ask the children to stretch out the sounds of the colours in the target language , to squeeze the sounds of the colours in the target language , to twist the the sounds of the colours in the target language, to wave the sound of the colour in the target language  etc.... - just like the magical balloon
6. Time to investigate the colours as letter strings.... only reveal one letter string at at time - can the children say what they see, discuss with their talking partner and then anticipate the next letter string and the colour.You may like the children to write down on mini white boards what they anticipate as the next letter string.
7. Can the children remember the colours ? Squash up your balloon again and this time ask the children to whisper the letter string to a partner and then the partner can give the thumbs up if that is the letter string that is revealed.Partners to take it in turns to be the speaker or the listener here.
8. Now fold up your stretchy balloon one more time and ask the children to write down on their whiteboards the order in which they think the colours will be revealed - as you open up the colour block side of your balloon.Ask the children to read aloud their lists to their partner or volunteers to read out loud to the class.

And finally .....

Ask the children to create their own letter string word balloons so that they can play partner and table games with their classmates to anticipate target language familiar colours.

Carnival conversations in speaking and writing with triaramas used as stage sets

I am getting ready for the first of several local network meetings where we will look at some of the new POS learning objectives and put these in to real language teaching and learning contexts.

Our theme is "Celebrating Carnival" and our learning objectives look at how a young learners develops the skills of communication in the target language.We are considering how we move from 

asking and answering questions

to 

engaging in conversations
and

 describing people places and things orally and in writing

The activities described below will allow children who are moving on in their language learning - so in their late second,third or fourth year of learning to practise their use of questions and answers and to move on  to possibly develop conversations accurately.

We are basing these activities on our "Aliens at Carnival"  power point where we will investigated the language required to share some simple facts about a target language carnival -(the sounds , the sights,  the fun , the fancy dress etc).

We are going to create stage sets and put our "aliens on the stage" as puppets/ actors, which the teacher and the children can decide to make "live" ( spoken) performances between alien characters or "freeze frames" (written speech bubble) frozen conversations between two characters.

Here is a step by step guide top how I made my "stage set"

I printed off the stage set ,using a slide from our alien ppt.I think you just need to find a similar background colourful picture if you can't access the ppt

I cut the picture down to a square shape,folded the picture  to make the Triarama and inserted a cut from the bottom right hand corner to the centre of the square

With blu -tac(or with glue ) I crossed over the bottom left and right triangle to create the stage in my triarama.

I now printed off the ppt slide a second time, but this time on card and cut out two alien characters that I wanted to talk to each other on my stage set.I made sure that there was a small strip of empty card below their feet , so that I could fold this over and stand the characters upright on set and secure  the characters to the set with blu-tac.Blu-tac  so that I can change the characters and therefore move from questions and answers to a conversation and maybe introduce other characters too and asides and and additional opinions!

And now I thought of the text I wanted to write on two card speech bubbles.These are secured with blu-tac to the characters om the reverse of their heads so that I can change the questions and answers and again create a sequence of questions and answers that would in turn create a dialogue which could lead to a conversation .

Why do I like this and how might I take this further in KS2 learning?

• Well this strikes me a s a learning device that can be used with children in KS2 who know basic questions and answers based around likes and dislikes.
• It's a physical way of developing role plays that can be dynamic and can be changed and questions and answers altered,adapted  or given to other characters   
• It can also be an opportunity to offer more independent speaking and writing opportunities to children to describe people,places and thing and to add opinions  
• There is the opportunity here to set the scene, so one pair writes the speech bubbles and gives these to a second pair.The second pair reconstructs the dialogue using the  characters they have and creates the dynamic conversation using their characters and their triarama  stage set.

And in to KS3?

This could be an opportunity in Y7 to revisit the carnival and look again at the alien story of the carnival , but this time to write a past tense dialogues, asking what was seen, heard, eaten , likes, dislikes etc or a near future dialogue about what the characters are looking forward to seeing etc! 

Dennis the Menace concertina characters

Simplest of ideas to share target language learning and  Dennis the Menace on World Book day, (which is one of the World Book Day freebies!) with your more advanced orimary target language learners.
Make your own concertina Dennis the Menace characters and practise the new DfE POS learning objective.

Describing people in writing

and 

Broadening vocabulary and developing ability to understand new words!

Here is a simple example in the third person singular- the description sentences make up the red and black stripes of his jumper!

I would suggest you support children with either key sentence prompts : name,personality,pets,likes .....or that for some children you provide writing frames with gapped sentences

And now we are ready for some spoken activities based on the sentences we have written on our concertina characters.

Here they are written in the third person singular - but the challenge could have been less by writing in the first person singular.

Ask the children to swap their characters with a partner- can the partner think of the questions they might need to ask to find out the information on the concertina character? Take the key sentence prompt words : name, pets, likes, personality and ask the children to think of core questions you can ask to find out this information.

Now your class are working on two more DfE POS learning objectives : 

either 

asking and answering questions 

or 

engaging in conversation 

and all the time they are 

describing people orally .

Getting language learning right in school,is a delight!

I am currently undertaking a routine series of observations of the language assistants and teachers who work alongside me in our primary schools  delivering primary language learning on a weekly basis.It is such a rewarding and pleasurable opportunity to see what is really taking place in schools.

Today I was with my colleague Janet W and her Year 5  French beginners in a local St Helens' school.Two days ago I was with Ana in a Warrington school,observing Spanish .

This series of blogs is an additional support mechanism for these colleagues,as they can't be in each others classroom and as a team  we meet once per half term for a twilight CPD,So you can hopefully see that these blogs (with a cup of tea and a biscuit back at home) offer them an insight in to each others classrooms and schools. 

A little bit of background knowledge to set the scene
If you have followed my blog posts you probably already know that I work alongside a group of really committed and enthusiastic teachers and that we work very week of the school year in 37 schools to support the delivery of French ,Spanish and German. Part of my role is to guide and support the teachers and the schools as the project in their individual settings develops.

My observations below are about what I saw and experienced in a local school today and the Year 5 French lesson.The whole school ethos to language learning and the attitude and progress of the children in the class sprang pout immediately!This is our first year of working with the school. Today I felt like the "cat who got the cream" as the learning was a delight to experience !

Why was it a delight?

The actual lesson is probably a lesson you can all recognise.It was a well planned and paced lesson ,started with a new greetings song which contained lots of familar basic  language.Interestingly the children began to join in straight away and had no problem with singing and reading the words from the screen accurately.The class enjoyed practising questions and answers about themselves and this led to practising a less familiar question and answer (about age).Today the class wre introduced to the aliens- just like Ana's year 4  yesterday The Year 5  children today  are having a combination of year 3 and 4 learning to accelerate their content knowledge but keep the skills level of early learners.The introduction of the alien pictures is always great fun and there are opportunities to look for cognates and semi cognates plus grammatical links between nouns languages.The pair games to practise the new nouns and the new  question "Qui est-ce?" are  rounded off with a simple plenary to check the children have internalised key language.

So what made this lesson so "delightful" was the whole school positive attitude and focus upon learning to communicate in another language.It makes the learning of a language an integral, regular part of the children's learning and the school day.Therefore the participation and concentration and success is in my opinion very high.

Here are some of the factors I observed today that contribute to how I think the school is "getting language learning right".

• The school has a history of interest in international links,with an established and thriving link with China.As you walk through the school there is evidence in displays of links with China,children's work and information for parents.  
• SLT are committed to making language learning and communication an integral part of the school learning curriculum.They plan alongside us for progress and to make sure that it's primary language learning that suits all their learners needs.
• The children have previously learned some German and the school is committed to a quality language learning experience for all KS2 in French
• The school has set up effective liaison between the school language coordinator and the language deliverer (Janet W).
• Teachers and TAs are present and take an active part in the lesson, supporting Janet W, learning new language alongside the children and supporting children where necessary.The teacher and  TA participated in the pair work games  and sang the greetings song and prompted children to recall key responses to personal information questions and answers etc.
• The teacher and TA saw and made links between the new focus the children started today on the "family and family trees" with their Science project- (growing up).
• Janet W is an excellent deliverer of the target language and although she has only just started to work as part of our team ,she has been delivering primary languages as a teaching assistant in a local school.She has an understanding of pace,rapport with staff and children, using the primary classroom space and the understanding of working in a primary language learning context.
• There were natural pauses and opportunities for assessment for learning and a final plenary check of learning that had taken place.
• Children loved the alien family and delighted in creating "alien voices" for the characters as they learned the members of the family.One pair really enjoyed changing the game to make "Darlek voices" too.
• All the children loved the pair activities -guessing games, based on the question "Qui est- ce?" with the aliens."Ooh it's like Cluedo!" was one enthusiastic comment
• All the children participated well in the pair game and I saw the reaction from the children that you see when the children like the resource they are using, (colour laminated pictures of the aliens) holding them like precious playing cards.
• A link  was made  between local primary schools as it was explained that the grandma and grandad alien were created by Barrowhall CP Year 4 in Warrington .Now Parish CE Year 5  want to create additional family members and this got them thinking even as they walked out to the classroom.The teachers cleverly  popped it on the agenda for circle time too- so French language will be used later in the week and new words will be looked for!
• And the aliens ?Well this is the first of several appearances throughout the next couple of years of language learning. We have used these characters for several years now and they never fail to delight the children (and the teachers)! Today I saw what an engaging focus this  is for primary UKS2 children.Yes it's the family, yes we are learning words but this is la famille extra-terrestre ! Wow and just how did the children engage with the fact this was an extra terrestrial family! 

Getting ready for carnival,being creative and exploring a story based upon le carnaval des animaux

Every year we love carnival! Last year we celebrated with a theme based upon:

"carnaval des animaux-camille st saens"

The theme linked so well with our Y3 focus on animals and teachers found ways to create masks, perform dances linked to the music and to investigate Art and DT - all based on this theme.Truthfully this was a theme and a focus that whole schools took as an opportunity to use as creative shared learning across Music,Dance.Art,DT and Language Learning

We were able too to look at nouns in the singular and plural , to investigate unfamiliar animal nouns using bi-lingual dictionaries and to generate simple question and answer role-plays about animals and descriptions of animals: "What is it? What colour is it? how many can you see? Do you like.....? "

(Teachers decided upon the most appropriate questions and answers for their learners and the prior knowledge of the learners).

i knew about this book "Au carnaval des animaux" by Marianne Dubuc based upon the music by Saint saens and so as a carnival activity, mask making and fancy dress followed quite easily.The book is available in several languages.

We used the book in French and Spanish:

The blog link here gives you a flavour of the book in French Litterature de jeunesse .Simple repetitive story which allows the children to invent their own animal characters. We used  simple cut out cards such as these below, to create our own fantastical fancy dress animal costumes and the cards where ideal for simple "Guess who I am ?" games- where one child holds a card and the other children /or another child has to guess which animals are on the card the first child is holding.

Leads to the children being able to make up the most amazing animal names - combining all the names of the animals they have know in one fancy dress mixed up animal written or spoken description.

And hot off the press just found this brilliant primary unit of work guide for a whole unit of work based around la danse des animaux- useful if you are a French speaker! 

Brilliant ideas

And don't forget the possibilities of a wonderful dance to this famous song! Le livre de la jungle!

Here are some ways that we have in the past developed very simple beginners language learning based on carnival celebrations and the story of au carnaval des animaux  

Seeing progress in action!

I want to call this blog post - "you can always learn more!"

It's a post about progress and observations in the primary classroom from a school visit yesterday.

I am certain that many  of you who read this do achieve similar success in classes across the country.I think it's so important to create a written record of your successes to help others.
Firstly the record can celebrate what is taking place. 
Secondly it's a tool by which to share practitioners and learners progress.
Thirdly it is hopefully a fair record of what school are achieving across year groups and across the school academic year in primary language learning.

A little bit of background knowledge to set the scene
If you have followed my blog posts you probably already know that I work alongside a group of really committed and enthusiastic teachers and that we work every academic week of the school year in 37 schools to support the delivery of French ,Spanish and German. Part of my role is to guide and support the teachers and the schools as the project in their individual settings develops.

Yesterday was one of those wonderful days when I went in to a school, to observe a practitioner delivering language learning and to support the school to see how best to support staff and children with their language learning.
Below is an honest account of what was observed - simple language learning content and context that became one of those rare magical moments !Less about the teacher and more about the progress of the language learners


Ana is one of our Spanish native speaker QTS practitioners. She has worked alongside me now for four years and has worked in this specific school for just over two years. Her relationship with children,staff and SLT is excellent. Ana works with a core programme of learning across KS1 and KS2 and is happy to change or adapt learning to suit school needs and special events.
The core programme is in line with the network JLN SOW ,which means staff and especially the language coordinator can access the core language,activities and  resources and develop simple assessment opportunities with Ana.Ana has provided sound files for our SOW ,which help staff to listen again to those core words and structures too. Ana shares medium term planning for all year groups from YR to Y6 with the coordinator and staff.......

............but didn't I say you can always learn more ? !

Yesterday the observations made,were about the balance of the four skills in accordance with the new DfE POS and also about what progress young learners in the school are really making.
The Head and I observed two lessons.In both lessons the class teachers and TAs are always present and encouraged to participate.The school is still working toward what this participation will eventually look like and how the school, Ana and the staff can support different groups of learners.It's a case of positive SLT supported and staff implemented "work in progress".Spanish is now becoming an integral part of the learning curriculum across KS1 and KS2.

A lesson of two halves with Year 4!

Now here is an interesting thing! 
With Y4/5 mixed age class Ana was looking at the family and creating descriptions using familiar language of a new family- our alien family. She was concentrating also on our New Year's resolution to encourage children to apply rules of pronunciation to new language, applying knowledge of prior learning and to look for those semi- cognates and cognates.You may have read the blog post Look! Think! Read The children are in their second year of language learning and it was in the second half of the lesson,after we asked Ana to deliver everything in the target language- instructions , questions to the children and the speaking card game  to "describe people" (a DfE learning objective!) that the lesson came to life! 
Why? Well the children, it seemed to us, became really keen to engage with the learning through Spanish.It was great to see them all sat on the edge of their seats, listening for clues in the language Ana was using,with Ana carefully selecting the key language she used and actions to support what the children had to do e.g "Para" ,"Movea".......With not a word of English spoken the class wanted more!! 
What is important to remember here is that the children work every week with Ana, know her well and are used to her speaking Spanish with her - and she knows what they know too! 

It was this second half of the lesson that was most remarkable as every child was engaged ,some supported by teacher and TA  but all the children were trying to understand what Ana was saying....and the teachers were too!

The Head and I wanted to take this further so ....



A Year 3 lesson to remember!
The Head and I followed Ana to her next class and asked her this time to speak only Spanish from the beginning to the end of the lesson.These were Y3 children who have two years language learning with Ana, behind them. 
Ana wanted to teach the class how to read and write names of animals, some familiar spoken language and some unfamiliar language in preparation for the work on animals they see and find around them.
She asked the children to  put on their Spanish brains and to travel with her in their heads to Spain.From this moment on she explained everything in Spanish.They were Spanish children in a Spanish classroom with a Spanish teacher for the duration of the lesson.

We observed normal routine warm up language- questions and answers  about the date, month, what day was it yesterday or would it be tomorrow,personal information, favourite months, days , weather on the day , etc etc! 
When she asked the children where they lived,she reminded them that they now lived in Spain( all explained in the target language) and my favourite response had to be "Vivo en Real Madrid" !! 
Although most of the children wanted to live in Malaga, Barcelona or Sevilla- all places that Ana will have talked with them about when for example she talks about her home city Sevilla , or Gaudi and colours and Barcelona and Malaga because we have link schools in the city! 

Then  something magical happened..... one of those "goose pimples" teaching and learning moments which you want to keep forever !

Ana asked the children about their favourite animals and The children were able to tell Ana about the sea creatures they liked -pulpo, tiberon etcetra, without prompting ,from their Y2 language learning focus and recalled  farm animals from their Old Macdonald work in Y1 !! 
All the children were busy thinking about what they could say and remember....




From this point onwards we observed the clearly identifiable progress these young learners are making in language learning.
Ana asked children to come to the front and share how they thought these favourite animal words were written .Hands up all around the classroom! "Casi" said Ana as children added too many consonants or forgot that a "h" sound could be a"j" in Spanish! They weren't put off - the whole class wanted to help sort out the spelling! "Pez" was interesting and the child writing self corrected himself .It's not "th" it's "z" he said "because it's like diez"! Definitely a WOW moment!

Ana introduced new animal pictures and asked the children if they already knew the word for the animal and was it un or una....? Could they write the word if they already knew it? And the new animal words - well could they listen, repeat and then decide from prior learning of numbers , colours, etc how to spell for example "caballo" ( amarillo link) , conejo, pajaro (rojo/ jueves link) etcetra.

The children were applying prior learning to new language and making sound -spelling links and confidently coming to the front to volunteer the written word.Meantime the class teacher and TA were observing and  identifying the confidence of hesitant writers, happy to share their clear and exact writing in a different language and the way that the more able learners were being stretched by challenge of the target language.

These young language learners are inquisitive,keen to learn the language and confident that they can succeed.The thoughtful class practise of the pronunciation of "v" for "vaca" ,the additional information offered about the animals e.g.the impromptu spoken language from some of the children with the colour of the animals in the pictures and trying to describe this in a sentence and the links the children could make with their own experiences e.g raton- oh that's like "ratoncito Perez" said one pupil.(Her Spanish friend told her about this story, she added).

   
And Ana - well Ana was thriving on the engagement of the children and as an experienced primary classroom teacher and practitioner, using only target language, was being guided by the children and drawing the children further in to their application of language learning skills.

This was a lesson not to forget and needed to be recorded.
Progress of 7 year olds with some prior learning in Spanish across listening ,speaking , reading ,writing, culture and grammar.
Thank you so much Ana for a remarkable snapshot! 

What have we learned? 
Well  there is always room for improvement - perhaps more talking partner opportunities  and use of mini whiteboards ...... but truthfully it was the impact of the learning through the target language and the way the children naturally made those sound -spelling links, recalled language with ease and began to want to engage in sentence level activities outside the learning context that have caused Ana,the Head and I to stop and think!



Next steps?

• To allow staff time to shadow Ana and see this progress in different year groups and the links the children can make between prior learning and new learning.
• To begin to plan for Spanish learning which can support teachers and TAs with their own everyday learning skills observations of children
• To plan for as much use of the target language as is sensible and supportive for the young  learners
• To plan for staff CPD time to discuss what they have observed and what they think are the next achievable steps! 

Colourful French creativity

Just found this rhyme 

here on nounoud56.centerblog

You can listen to and sing along with the song

here

 on this page too! 

Thought this would be a great way to develop reading and dictionary skills with our LKS2 Y4 French learners during Spring term. It will enable is to extend their knowledge of colours and reinforce our knowledge of nouns ....and maybe look for verbs in the text.

I love the idea that the crayons play whilst the children are outside on their playtime break and I love the fact the poem starts with a question....just what do the crayons do when there are no children in the classroom?

Step One

Highlight or underline each sentence of the poem in the correct colour.

Spot the two sentences that contain no colours.

Step Two

Make the poem a picture in a picture frame .

• Children should use the words in the question of the first sentence as the header of the frame and the words in the final statement at the end of the poem as the footer of the frame.
• The sides of the frame are pencil calligrams:the colouring pencils mentioned written as word calligrams of the different colours.For example I might put red ,yellow and blue on one side and the black and grey on the other side.
• Now ask the children to investigate the sentences in the poem that explain what the different coloured pencils have drawn.Ask the children to circle the nouns in the sentences and check or find the meaning of the nouns in a bi-lingual dictionary.
• Have they spotted the unusual colours for the objects- let them share with you what they have found out! (e.g the mouse is red....or is it?)
• Can the look at the picture evidence around the outside the written text and spot the anomalies? For example the "green" crayon has drawn a yellow sunshine etc 
• Now all they have to do is create the drawing as described in the text!

Step Three

Make sense of the poem...

• Ask the children to explain the meaning of the word "dessine" - you may encourage them to think of English words that are similar (e.g design)
• Can they explain the role this word plays in the sentences in the text?
• Ask the children to create a more sensible set of sentences for the poem completing the sentences below: 

le rouge dessine .............

le vert dessine ...............

le bleu dessine ...............

le gris dessine ................

le noir dessine................

• Now they can become artists themselves and draw the objects they have decided are more sensible and match the colours and describe what is happening in French to a partner using the key sentences above.

And finally here is the You tube clip of the text above!

Easter Egg Trail and beyond. (Moving on learners) Adapting an Epiphany idea !

In December ready for Epiphany I wrote the blog post "Pass the galette or the roscon de reyes", It has proved to be very popular and I have really enjoyed looking at people's ideas and ways of adapting the activity to suit their own learners.A delight!

You can read the original blog and ideas here galette or roscon de reyes

All these shared wonderful ideas made me think a bit more about ways to adapt the activity.You see I think it's important to revisit and reuse familiar activities to allow the children to explore the language in more details.

So here are my notes to self!

Easter time 

Let's create an Easter Egg trail with the same type of activities, in the shape of an Easter egg maybe or one of those wonderful "Easter egg" clocks I always wanted as a child.This is a circular clock with each small egg representing one of the numbers on the face of the clock (so twelve eggs in total).

The treasure hunt idea  would work wonderfully in German trying to look for the Osterhase or in French looking for the bells from Rome that fly the eggs in to the gardens!

Handing the activity over to the learners 

I do think it is so important that we remember that the actiivities are purposeful and about encouraging the learners to play the games and do the activities so that they either learn something new or consolidate prior learning. 

To this end I think that this would be a great activity to ask the children in UKS2 to engage in the making process equipped with the principles of the learning activities e.g. recognising and using sounds and letter strings and revisiting familiar language.

The UKS2 children can then make a gift galette/ rosocn de reyes/Easter egg trail etc for their younger LKS2 classes .Cutting, sticking and glueing- yes- but also thinking through links between phonemes and graphemes and remembering previous learned language!

Thanks to everyone who has made me think through the potential  of these ideas a little bit more!

And should you want to use ready made templates then thanks to Sue Cave,she has shared here phonics galette template in smart notebook on this page of Sharing Primary Languages

0-100 percent! It's the Winter sales!

Les soldes!

It's January and it's the Winter sales - what a gift to help us practise familiar and new numbers between 0 and 100 with our moving on language learners. You can add a mathematical twist for our older learners too and revisit familiar content such as clothes, colours and Christmas gifts. 

These activities will work well with our Year 5 and 6 children but could also be useful with Year 7 too.

The steps are:

1. Practise those numbers 
2. Take virtual tour of a sale
3. Getting to grips with percentages and written numbers
4. Play the percentage converter game 
5. Convert the real price and find out where the sale tag belongs!

Simple first steps: practise those numbers! 

• Counting up in fives or tens from 0-100
• Counting down from 100- 0 against a count down clock in fives and tens  
• Un-muddling mixed up number words- e.g. which two numbers in French can you see below?

vtringteen

Why not take a virtual tour of the sales in the target language country? For example here are the sales in the French department store Galerie Lafayette for Winter 2015

les soldes lafayette 2015

Getting to grips with percentages and the written form of numbers  

• Step one with your class may be to practise percentages with the class in English 
• Now you need some cards or bags labelled like the bags you can see on the picture below. It works best if each table has a set of bags or cards to sort- so all the class are actively working with numbers.
• Ask your tables to sort the bags/cards in ascending order or in descending order
• Ask the tables to listen carefully to a percentage reduction you call out and to use two bags from their table to create the number you called out.

• Share written labels with the class and ask the tables to call out what they can read on your labels - loudest and most well pronounced "call out" wins the label for the correct bag on their table.
• We are asking our children to really think about how they read and write familiar spoken words so there may be an opportunity here to ask the children to Look, think ,link and read
• Ask your tables to label the bags in the target language with a written number card.
• Ask each table to place the cards they have written labels on into the bags or under the percentage cards- they can decide to out incorrect labels in to the bags / under the cards.Ask a second table to investigate the labels and bags and to reorder the labels correctly .

Where does the sale tag belong?

You will need some sale tags like the ones in the picture below and pictures of/ or real items that you are going to reduce on price.

• Try a percentage converter game in the target language.Say a cost and then ask the class to say the reduced cost when you write the percentage reduction on the flip chart .Let the children work in pairs or groups and use mini whiteboards to work out the new cost.
• Ask the class to help you convert the real price to a sale price on items of clothing that the children are already familiar with in the target language.This makes a great listening activity.Share items or pictures of items of clothing with the children.(You could make this a challenge by saying each item of clothing adds so many seconds on working out time in the game - e.g 30 seconds per item of clothing remembered accurately) On the flip chart share as a written percentage the sale reduction for an item - you say the item in the target language and the normal cost of the item and the class must work in pairs on mini whiteboards to convert the price to the sale price. Who is confident to come to the front and label the item with the new sale price? Does the class agree?

Count down to Epiphany! Numbers and dates.

Thanks to one of my wonderful associate teachers Andrea for this simple idea to start the New Year in Spanish ,,,,and I think this will work in other languages too!

Andrea brought home from Spain a couple of weekends ago this advent calendar with a difference if you are a Spanish child waiting for the three Kings to bring your presents on 5 January!

The activities below would  transfer to other languages too where there is a festive celebration of Epiphany.

The activities are about numbers and dates

Puzzle It Out 

• Give out number cards on each card is the figure for one of the numbers 
• Ask the volunteers with the cards to stand at the front of the class
• Don't give any of the children any clues but ask the class to decide how to put these numbers in to a sensible order.
• Can they work out that these are dates of the calendar month from 25th December to 5 January?
• Explain the significance of these numbers and how they are linked to the dates from 25 December to 5th of January.
• Can the children say the numbers with you?
• Can the children count with a partner the missing numbers from 6 to 24?
• Listen to volunteers count the missing numbers.

Hunt the first!

• Share with the children the written form of the number as a date.
• Can the children spot an odd one out because the first of the month will be el primero in Spanish and le premier in French.  
• Can the children identify and explain the difference between the first of the month and the other dates they can see.
• Can the children now help you to write some of the dates in the target language between 25th December and 5th January

e.g. Spanish 

el primero de enero / el triente de diciembre

e.g.French

le premier janvier/ le trente décembre

Dates and a Quiz Quiz Swap Game of "Happy New Year" or "Kings for the Day"!

• Give out date cards - one to each child (each card is between 25th December and 5th January).
• Ask the children to remind you what is special about the date "first of January~" and why it's different to the other dates they can see on their cards.Have they remembered that its el primero /le premier...? Share with the children the importance too of 1st January or ask the children do they know the significance of the date. Practise with the children wishing  each other a "Happy New Year" in the target language.
• The children must walk around the room whispering the question "What  date is it" to  another child.
• The other child says the date on his /her  card.
• The two children swap roles and then when they have completed the question and answer this second time, they swap cards and move to a new partner.
• Hold pauses in the game and anyone holding the date card for 1st January must sit out the next round of questions and answers until you pause the game again.The class should wish them a "Happy New Year" in the target language: "
• Anyone with the date card of 5th January gets a team point...as their Epiphany treat! At the end of the game which team will have most points and be "Kings for the Day" ?

Happy New Year in Spanish!

Happy New Year in French!