Going to the Seaside and exploring DFE POS Learning Objectives

We have had the brilliant fortune over the last year to work with WTSA to develop a DFE funded project to support teachers as they get to grips with the DFE POS and the learning objectives of the KS2 PoS.

Each term we have hosted and led a series of local network meetings around the designated NW area and had as a core theme "seasonal content" for whichwe have created packages of learning linked to the DFE POS Learning Objectives.If you are a teacher in the North West then you would be very welcome at our LNMs next term (Autumn 2015).The dates of the twilight meetings held in local schools during the first half term will appear here DFE Training Schedule


This term our theme has been "Going to the Seaside" .We try to share ideas that are suitable for beginners ,moving on and mofre advanced learneres.I have tried this year to share these ideas with a wider audience through my blog posts.The ideas and activities are intended to  help primary and secondary teachers understand more about the approaches and types of activites which will support progress in primary language learning 
Here are some of the activities "going to the Seaside" activities and the DFE POS Learning Objectives I think you can try to explore in more detail through the activities:

DFE POS LO: Explore the patterns and sounds of words

Seashell sounds and sand treasure hunts
(Thanks to Jo Shore for the pictures from her network meeting that she leads in Mid Cheshire.Brilliant!)

Fishing for letter strings and sounds
(Jo added additional ideas of her own with this game.I love this as it is about networking, growing and sharing etc)







DFE POS LO:Broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words
DFE POS LO:Understanding basic grammar

Sandcastle Sentence Building








Jo tried it out in Italian too!

You may also like the following activities too:

DFE POS LO: Speaking and writing in full sentences

Under the sea triarama for speaking,writing and a puppet show







DFE POS LO:Describe people,places,things orally and in writing

Seaside geography comparison,verbs and sentence structure
An interesting way to not only look at the seaside and language about the  seaside but also to compare two towns not far from each other- one is French (Biarritz) and one is Spanish (San Sebastian) 



Now it's over to you!
How do you want to use these activities in your work around the theme of "Going to the Seaside"?
Or maybe... how do you want to to take the idea and change it to fit different content and contexts, but still explore the specific learning objective with your language learners?

Going back, to get to the future!

Strange title I know - "going back,to get to the future" but this is a possible learning opportunity with Year 6 during this final Summer half term !

I am very excited about the work some of my colleagues will be undertaking this half term with their Year 6 language learners! 

Some of my local colleagues have decided this half term to work with their Year 6 classes to explore other target languages - 

• to excite and enthuse  Year 6 learners with a new language 
• to see how language learning skills  are transferable and can help access a new language
• to help our young language learners realise that they are now ready for secondary school and KS3 language learning and maybe a new language challenge!
• to encourage our young learners as they leave primary to see that they are at the start of a very exciting language learning journey not necessarily stuck in one foreign language!

Take a look at this message from our Janet Lloyd Network Facebook page from @Deprezprez on 31 May this year !

Looking forward to starting to teach Spanish to my Year 6s at Burtonwood CP and Locking Stumps CP this half-term after many years learning French!! Will be a great challenge for them and interest after the SATs come down!

In my opinion learning a language involves risk taking and involves the transfer of both prior learning and skills.

We all need to be able to make mistakes and feel that we can try again and certainly be able to overcome the feeling that if it's not perfect use of language then there is no communication! 

Primary language learners need to be able to take risks, make mistakes,have another go and try to improve!

The experiment is a sort of "blast from the past" for myself really!
In  1995 I began working as a primary languages teacher with Year 6 children in a local primary school.The children were in a feeder school to a language college where half the children would learn French and half the children would learn German in KS3 Y7. I decided to teach half a term of French followed by half a term of German througout the school academic year.The same content and activities were used in both  half terms but in alternate languages.So many of the children thought German was more fun and that it was easier and at first as a Germanist I was very excited about this .I had obviously created lots of "German" language  enthusiasts...then I realised what was actually happening.The young language learners were relaxed during the second half term as we re-applied skills and participated in  very similar activities from the first half term.  In my opinion they were relaxed and learned effectively because they had already practised the language learning skills in French!

Let's go back to when I started teaching in 1985... maybe a similar thing was happening there too? 
Our "top sets" learned a second foreign language and were called the "accelerated language learning group" because they started their second foreign language in their third year at high school.
"Mmm?"I ask myself as I look back , maybe other children could have achieved this too? Should we have identified more clearly the skills that we were practising with all our language learners? Just a thought!

And if we go right back in to my past..... why am I a Germanist? Well,I learned French as my first foreign language alongside Latin and then two years later- German. I thought I was better at German- but was I? 
Maybe I  applied skills effectively that I had already practised in French and this helped me to access German more quickly (memory,recall, listening,speaking, reading aloud confidently,using a bilingual dctionary etc)?  This was probably on reflection proven at University ,but I didn't realise this at the time.It was expected that we studied Dutch or Swedish for two years whilst studying German and within those two years we  reached A Level standard in the language. I love drama and reading texts such as  Miss Julie by Strindberg in Swedish was a delight and that has always stayed with me! Did I realise at the time that I was using transferable skills?

It seems to me that skills help make you more confident to try to communicate in another language.In the last couple of years I have had to begin to understand and communicate at a limited level in Spanish and I find my understanding of the transferable language learning skills so useful and so powerful! 

And why do I believe that this is for more then just the "linguistically" able?Well the truth is that I am a "trained" not "true" linguist!
Yes I love languages and exploring languages and helping others to do the same! 
My first love is being able to communicate and be creative with language and text! 
On reflection I have become very adept at transfering skills and analysing language and looking for grammatical and structural patterns.

So this half term is maybe less of a great experiment and more of a great celebration! 

The Year 6 learners are about to start the next stage in their great  language learning adventure. We hope our activities this half term will help our young learners see the links between languages and how the mystery of language learning, isn't really an unsolvable mystery and that language learning skills and tools are transferable life long powerful assets!

The experiment does demand that the children trust us,are confident and excited about exploring a new language/culture and  want to see how the practise of language learning skills during their primary career can be used to access language a new language.

Skills? Well ....here are a few for starters!

• listening and responding in a new language
• looking and listening for similarities between languages to aid comprehension, 
• knowing how to listen to and practise the sounds of the new language
• accessing bilingual dictionaries to find the words to aid comprehesnion and comminication
• trying to accurately copy the sound and the spelling of new language

It also demands that the teacher is confident enough in some cases to say "I am the facilitator" not the expert- let's explore this new language together.Let's consider the skills and tools we have been developing and let's step out in to a new language and see if we can communicate at a simple level in this language". Life skills I think that could be invaluable to all concerned! 

Who knows what language someone may need to understand or speak during the course of their own lifetimes!

A sample of our network year so far- to share!

We have a "Network News" section as part of our membership update and we share this with the wider community as the ideas and activities may help others too! Indeed yesterday ,whilst working with Lynsey McHugh primary languages coordinator at Christ Church CE. we discussed the "joy" of the network.she reminded me how much teachers do appreciate sharing local successes and progress and how this sharing helps us all in our language teaching, learning and planning for next year.It's probably been one of the contributing factors why we never stopped teaching primary languages in 2011!

You can visit this part of our website here: 
Network News
We started Network News in September 2013 and we have seen so many wonderful primary ideas and activities that local colleagues have shared with us.

Today I have been loading up yet more ideas and pictures and reflecting on my conversation with Lynsey.
I decided to put together a sample of the types of language learning activities shared  so far this academic year. 


So here we go - pictures of real,simple to organise, achievable and effective primary language learning practice in our local NW area.
It's a sample in academic calendar order just from Summer 2014 to May half term 2015.


Summer 2014

Taking a trip abroad
A report back from the Callands CP trip to Normandy with Year 6 in the Summer holidays

Celebrating learning a language across the whole school
Whole school French celebrations at Locking Stumps CP .Great to see teachers and children having such a great time!









September 2014 

Making the transition from one year to the next
Unpacking those virtual suitcases of favourite activities that some of us packed with the children at the end of the last term! Ready to learn a language again! Sharing with new teachers and classmates.

Linking with a French primary school
Building links with a school near Carcassonne .Miss Perkins shared her Summer French upskilling CPD and the school she visited with her class.Ready for a year of snailmail and contact with real French children at St Barnabas CE

Learning about French children and practising French handwriting
French cursive handwriting at St Luke's Catholic Primary 
Thinking about the similarities and differences in boys and girls names in France and England

Linking language learning and literacy.
Roald Dahl Day and describing characters in Spanish at Barrowhall CP 

Practsiing familiar language in  new contexts European Day of Languages and a child's assessment from Culcheth CP of a "grand day out at our virtual French language learning street festivals

Food tastiing and working with a native speaker European Day of Languages and food tasting with Jose at Latchford CE!









October 2014

Using bilingual dictionaries  Dallam CP independently using bilingual dictionaries to write their own descriptions of an ideal school 

Puppets for role play Puppets, personal information questions and answers and monsieur grenouille at St Teresa's

Retelling and rewriting a story Linking languages, the Hungry Caterpillar and the class literacy project at Holy Family in Halewood.







Creating target language display ,written by the children.

Je me présente bunting all about themselves French writing from Y4 at St Phillips to decorate their classrooms during their school project.

Linking language learning to the seasons
Writing independently about the colours of Autumn at Rainford CE in Spanish







November 2014

Linking language learning to national and global events  Poppies at St Philips CE to celebrate Armistice Day

Linking language learning to national and global events
Writing and thinking about Armistice Day at St Barnabas CE 

Practising phonics Sounds and colours games with Y3 at Woolston CP

KS1 language learning linked to projects Animal puppets for KS1 farm project at St Gabriel's 








Exploring other areas of the curriculum through language learning

Linking geography and languages with a tour of North America at Our Lady's Catholic school

Exploring the planets at Plantation CP 

Learning more about the target language country
Starting to create a 3D map of France to be added to over the year at St Andrew's CE Wigan
Over the year new objects , cities and key geographical features are being added.








December 2014 

Celebrating Christmas and practising language A sapin de noel made up all the numbers the children in Year 3 have learned since they started French in September at St Andrew's CE in Warrington.

Celebrating Christmas and practising language
Playing a snowman beetle game at Winwick CE

Celebrating Christmas and practising language
A festive French grammar lesson based on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at Woolston CP

Communicating with other local children in the target language Oakwood and Latchford CE Spanish Christmas card swap!









January 2015

Making our own target language food Investigating a real Spanish Epiphany at St Gabriel's 

Practising our sound spelling links Making your own letter string galette games -so many of you really enjoyed this!

Developing a project between French and English school children  Cinnamon Brow CE's "Who is who?" project with their link school! A parcel arrived ... great excitement! 

Making language learning current and topical Barrowhall designed snowmen -" because it was snowing" and they were practising body parts and they sang a song made up by their teacher to the tune of Frozen!

Exploring texts linked to the language learning focus Birchwood CE used the Herve Tullet book to investigate eye colour! 

Learning about nouns and sound spelling links
Moorfield CP beginner language learners sorted their animal nouns in to sound boxes!







February 2015

Extending our spoken language with opinons
Carnival Time and so many of you enjoyed the triaramas 

Listening to stories in KS! and joining in
Dallam CP Year 1 listened to the hungry caterpillar in Spanish , joined in with the story and made their own fruit caterpillars

Cross curricular language learningOur Lady's Catholic primary went to the circus!

March 2015


Theatre performances in school Westbrook Old Hall invited a real French theatre company in to school to work with their UKS2!

Using target language texts to reinforce a Science project St Michael's in Halton listened to and joined in with una rica merienda and listened out for healthy and unhealthy foods as part of their cross curricular work.

Outdoor language learning Nutgrove Methodist YR went on an outside French animal hunt

Using objects of interest to explore new language
Park Road CP investigated a real French doll's house,donated by a kind grandad to look at the rooms and colours in the house

Putting on a performance Cuddington CP practised their samba style masks and dance for their Mother's day assembly

Putting on a performanc to share and celebrate a unit iof language learning! Beech Hill CP Year 3 Spanish learners performance of Brown Bear as part of their animal unit

Taking part in competitions
Parish CE found out who were the winners of their design an alien competition









April and May 2015

Making role play real LockingStumps hold their French cafe afternoon for their Year 6 learners as part of their cafe culture unit

Creating our games to practise language Bruche create a life size game of the hungry giant for their food unit - and play as a class !

Using our imaginations to revisit and reinforce language St Ann's hold a madhatter's tea party

Making language learning an integral part of the whole school development Beech Hill CP hold a fiesta enrichment day with "tapas" for their Year 5 and 6 in Spanish!

Visiting the country and using the target language for "real"! Latchford CE Year 6 go to the real market in Malaga and practise their language

New Spanish books and the reasons I selected them

So last week I was in France and Spain and I spent sometime looking in book shops (as I always do). Here is my list of books from my last visit to Spain (Barcelona) Spanish books 1  but this time I had a specific shopping list. 

Here are my buys and my reasons why I selected the book(s)!

A book of simple KS1 rhymes
I wanted a book to refresh the rhymes we have been using in KS1 language learning.
This book has 6 traditional rhymes in it-one per half term as a new action rhyme to learn and practise with Year R/ Year 1 

• a train rhyme (let's change the mode of travel too!)
• hands and actions (verbs- possibly useful in Y3 and Y4 too!)
• a rhyme about riding a horse ( we could change the animal here!)
• a rainy day rhyme (que llueva,que llueva- we can learn and then watch from a clip on You Tube and use on rainy days whenever they hapen!)
• a rhyme about ducks in the water- great for a lazy summer rhyme with actions!
• a bedtime rhyme - one for the children to learn and                                                  then teach their parents!

A Colours book for KS2 (beginners to moving on)

We have lots of books aboout colours but i wanted to find a book in spanish that began to unpack adjectival agreement.

Lovely book which has two objects per double page with the spelling similarities or changes using on colour (e.g.fresa roja/bol rojo)

We are going to be able to use this as a model to discuss and then also to create our own booklets about colours and adjectival agreement!

A book to develop and extend vocabulary at word level (Y4)

We seem to have spent some time this hyear developing our yooung learners use of bilingual dictionaries and this very simple book allows us to investigate "opposites" 

I have written a blog post abpouyt a game I think we can create with the children using this book - or the concept of the book. 

Twizzle Stick Opposites

A book to develop or reinforce  cafe language and roleplay  about the cafe (KS2)

If you read the blog mentioned at the top of this post you will know that I breally love this series of books.I bought " supermercado" last time!

This time I have bought the cafeteria.

It's got signage , language in speech bubbles , lists and the wonderful pull out roleplay frieze at the back , that makes in to a small cafe.

I think teachers will be able to use this frieze to create or adapt their own role play areas.

I see teachers across KS2 being able to use the book to develop roleplay , performance and signage for their own role play areas!

Links with maths (KS2)

This book packs a punch! I was looking for a book about shapes as we have probably got enough counting and number books and I wanted ot investigate another area of maths through language learning.

• The book has a lift the flap page at the front with the names of the shapes under the different shaped flaps.(We could cretae our own books like this!)
• It has double page spreads with a theme - at the port/at the circus /birthdays - so we can revisit thew book over and over again!
• Each double page spread has simple questions- problems to solve (We could create our own simple problem questions!)
• Plus there are maths problems such as how many sides/corners fo the shapes have! (We can do some                                                  shape/ sides and corner maths here too!

Year 6 Leavers and writing full sentences

The new DFE POS aspires to language learners writing independently sentences using  nouns, common verbs and adjectives.This book met the criteria I had as a coourful lighthearted book at the end of Year 6 to celebrate what our Y6 can do in the target language and to look forward to the future.

It is a book about roles and jobs in the first person singular describing thje role each character has / does.

Here is my Y6 leavers blog post with ways I think we could use this book  roles and jobs and statements

A book with instructional text to help us be creative and make items for special events (KS2)

I was looking for a book that had clear instuctions and pictures to guide non-specialist/specialist teachers and their classes in the target language as they made special items to celebrate events .

It contains colour,well laid out clear double pages for:

party bags

birthday cakes and candles

christmas cards

lanterns

butterfly mobiles

summer flowers

witches hats

pirates hats and eye patches 

etcetra!

Books that are just that bit more sophoisticated for UKS2 with links to other areas of the curriculum (UKS2)

I found two great books one about the faarm and one about castles by Usborne!!
What I like about these is there is detail e.g crops, machinery, seasons etc about the farm and in the book below aboit the castle double page spreads on key features of life in a medieval castle- a banquet/ the kitchen / the grand hall / the tower etc
Both books have flaps to lift and ask and answer questions

Twizzle Stick Opposites!

Being in the target language country allows you to look for marvellous books - just to give you new inspiration!
In Spain last week I found this simple infant book and this led mt to think of a  creative idea.....that could be really useful to practise opposites with LKS2!  

The book in itself is a marvellous joining in text to practise opposites.The children can swivel the objects in the middle of the hard card page, can anticipate the opposite phrase used with  the next page.You can revisit the book  and play anticpation or memory games  too.

This made me think of "twizzle stick opposites"!
All we are going to need are lolly sticks,firm card, glue and seloptape,oh and some scissors!



First a little bit about the book!
The book shows  a picture of an item on each page and and a key word.It's opposite word and the same picture( but drawn to convey the new meaning) are shown on the reverse side of the page.The picture inbetween can be swivelled to match the key word .For example there is a smiley face with "contento" above it and when you swivel the face it is a sad face on the other side and reads "triste"

The pictures can be turned over or swizzled around! Just like this tortoise it can be "derecha" or can be flipped around and on the next page "izquierda"

Twizzle Stick Opposites Game 

• This is my way of creating an interactive game to practise opposites using a physical activity.
• Year 3 or 4 could create the twizzle sticks and share with KS1.
• It will also help the Y3/4 children have a better understanding of the concept of "opposites" plus a physcial and visual memory of key words to describe or place objects.
• I anticipate that each child should make 5 swizzle sticks and therefore explore the meaning of 10 words in 5 pairs of opposites.
• The twizzle sticks can just have opposites written on them or could also have the nouns of ther objects the children have used too, hidden under a lift and reveal flap.

Making Twizzle Sticks

• Ask the children to think of 5 pairs of opposites in English
• Can they now find these woirds in the bilingual dictionary and cross reference their meaning in the front of the bilingual dictionary to check its meaning.(This could be a pair activity where the partner cross reference words and feeds back what they find)
• The children need to write each word out in the target language on a separate small strip of firm card.
• The children can now put the words with their opposite word in to 5 piles of opposite words e.g contento/triste or izquierda/derecha
• For each pair of opposite words the children now need to think of an object that they can draw and use to explain both of the opposite words.For example with contente/triste - this will probably be the face of a child/person/animal etc or maybe with directions it could be a vehicle.
• The children should draw the objects (twice per twizzle stick) so that the images of the objects conveys the meaning of the opposite words .
• The drawings needs to be attached with glue or selotape to the top third of the lollipop stick and the correct opposite word card that they have chosen and written out needs to be glued or selotaped below the correct image of the object.

The Twizzle Stick Year 3 or Year 4 Game!

• Each child shares with a partner all the twizzle sticks they have made and say the opposite word as they show each of the images.They will need to twizzle their sticks to share all the images and the opposite words
• the first child lays out their sticks on the table with one side of the twizzle stick showing.
• The second child  selects a twizzle stick , picks it up says the word that is face up on the stick, anticpates and says the opposite word and then twizzles the stick to see if he/she was correct.
• If he/she is correct then the stick now belongs to the second child.
• Which child wins the most sticks from am partner? 
• Add extra challenge by giving each child a strip of coloured paper long enough to place across the five twizzle sticks of one player.The strip of paper should not conceal the picture but should conceal the face up word.
• Who can now remember the face up word and the opposite word written on the face down side of the stick? 

  

Making a statement to describe jobs and roles in the future with Year 6 leavers

As our KS2 Year 6 get ready to leave primary school, next half term could be a wonderful time to ask them to reflect on what they want to be in the future.

It is also a time to celebrate what they can now do in a foreign language. 

Last week in Spain I found this wonderful book and it gave me an idea about how we can could create similar books with our Y6 language learners in all languages! 

They can demonstrate  how they can now use a bilingual dictionary to access the language they want to use.They can show how they can manipulate simple sentence stucture , nouns and present tense verbs too!

The book is made up of pictures of different types of people.You can see four characters on the front of the book .
As a concept itself it's a brilliant book- just to read and have fun reading and muddling up the sentences with the children on Spanish 

However the concept translates really well in to language work on sentence structure in any language.On each double page spread there is a bright colourful caricature picture of a type of person (pirate/cook/clown etc) and on the left hand page of the double page spread, the page is divided in to three sections and each section can be turned over individually.

The top section is the statement about the character (present tense of the verb to be in first perspn singylar e.g I am / soy / je suis /ich bin ) plus the noun  for the character (e.g. pirate / cowboy etc)

The middle section is the verb in the first person singular present tense associated with the character's actions ( e.g. cowboy - I ride   / cook - I prepare etc) plus the noun that is linked to the action ( e.g cowboy- I ride - my horse  / coook - I prepare - the meal) .

The third section is about where the character's actions take place (e.g. cook- in the kitchen/ in the restaurant etc)

(Turn over one of the three sections and the sentence  is correct grammatically -but the meaning becomes slightly odd or bizarre.That is part of the beauty of the book!)

I think we can use the idea of the double page spread though to create our own entertaining end of our primary school career book .
Each child needs to generate their own three section statement to explain what they want to be when they grow up.It's a description of the job, the role and the objects/people /place involved in the role.

Section one - first person singular of the verb to be and the appropriate nooun for the role or job chosen
Section two - present tense first person singular verb associated with an action involved in the role or the job plus a noun representing an object or person connected to the actipon
Section three - the place the action takes place

e.g"  I am a doctor/ and I help the patients/ in the hospital " 

• All we need to do now is create a large card book with double page spreads for each child in the class. The children draw a caricature on paper of the role or job they have chosen.This is glued on to the right hand side of the double page spread.
• The children then write their messages in the three sections which have been ruled  off on the left hand side of the double page spread.
• Once the book is complete all you need to do is cut to the centre fold the three sections along the ruled lines .

Now we have our own book! 

We can read it as it should be read or see also what types of entertaining sentences we can make by turning individual sections and understanding the new information  we read!

Countryside comparisons :location detective lists and poster presentations

Having spent some time last week in Pays Basque, visiting France and Spain, I not only found an ideal way to compare seaside between France and Spain,using the target language Simple seaside comparison with verbs, conjunctions and sentence structure , but I also visited Ainhoa!
What another gift!I realised that with UKS2 we could create a simple unit of work comparing Grasmere in the Lake district and this French/Spanish border town.



So why do I think that we can make a comparison between Grasmere and Ainhoa and why am I so specific in my choice? 
We are going to be "location detectives" and eventually create our own poster presentations.(It would work well using Book Creator too with sound clips etc)

Ask the children to keep two lists of key comparisons between Ainhoa and Grasmere.
Each list has a heading phrase "Ainhoa" or "Grasmere".These lists are called the "location detective lists"

Now let's start our comparison investigations.....

Here is the first clue! Take a look at this!

The Gingerbread shop in Ainhoa is in a very old building and is just a small counter where you can buy the flat oat- like gingerbread.If you have ever visited theSarah Nelson's Gingerbread shop in Grasmere you will know that this is a very small old building with a counter and the gingerbread is the same consistency.

So bingo! Here we have our first comparisons......

Step One :A "Gingerbread" investigation 

• Share this video of the Ainhoa shop and making gingerbread wth the children- just to give them a sense of the produce
• Taste some simple gingerbread biscuits
• Can the children collect adjectives to describe the look of the gingerbread and the flavours in gingerbread?

• Take a look at the buildings where the shops are in Grasmere and Ainhoa

Here is the Sarah Nelson's  gingerbread shop in Grasmere

And here is the building in which you find the gingerbread shop in Ainhoa.

You could also discuss the fact that we share traditional tales and listen to the shared traditional tale about the Gingerbread Man in French




Step Two
Make a comparison record on our "location detectives lists"

• Can the children working individually or a small supprted group start their comparison lists.
• Can they use infinitives of verbs to describe:

What you can buy (On peut acheter....) 

Where you can find this (On peut trouver le magasin dans un vieux magasin)

What you can eat and what it tastes like (On peut manger...... C'est ......)_

You may like the children to look at recipe for both gingerbreads and compare ingredients using bilingual dictionaries. 

Step Three 
Both villages are beautiful and traditional and are visited every year by many tourists.They are both situated in the heartof the countryside. So here we can make our second comparisons!

• Share pictures of the two villages - you can google pictures of the two towns to find the schools, the churches, the rivers , the hillside and the village/town centres.

• Ask the children to note down the names in French for the buildings- both villages have a church , hotels , a cafe, a primary school,shops
• And the countryside features  they can see in both villages? Both villages are surrounded by hills and mountains and there is a river in each village.
• What colours can they see? Ainhoa is red and white and Grasmere is grey stone with black and white buildings.
• Are there any other adjectives they want to use to describe what they can see? Give the children time to find these in bilingual dictionaries.

Step Four
Make a comparison record on our "location detectives lists"

• Can the children,working individually or a small supprted group,continue their comparison lists
• Can they use the phrase "il y a...." and the correct use of the indefinite article to describe:

The buildings and use colours / additional descriptive adjectives

(Il y a...........C'est .....)

The countryside around the town and use colours / additional descriptive adjectives(Il y a .....C'est ......)

Step Five 

You can also describe the local sports! 

In Ainhoa you can play pelota and there is a court on the side of the church building with seating for spectators.

• Try the game with your class.
• You need a tennis ball (rather than  the traditional hard ball) and  bats- for the  players.Play the game against a wall.

• Watch some of this lonely planet video , which shares the game of "pelota".(You may want to watch the video first to check you are happy to share this with your class)

• And now take a look at the Grsmere Games ( the sports of tug of war, wrestling, tossing gthe caber, and fell runnig all come to mind!)
• On You Tube you can find examples of "fell running" during the Grasmere Games ro show the children.Share some of the video clips of the Fell run with the class

Step Six
Make a comparison record on our "location detectives lists"

• Can the children explain the sport of "Pelota" in Ainhoa- ask the children to write down a simple description with the verb "jouer" - Where do you play? How many people play? What do they play with?
• Can the children explain the sport of fell running using the verb "courir"- Where do they run?(Up a hill/over a stream/ in the mud/ across fields etc) How many people run at one time?

Now it's over to your location detectives to create a poster presentation, comparing a country village in French Pays basque with a country village in the English Lake District!

Simple seaside,geography comparison,verbs and sentence structure

It's great to actually visit the target language countries and cultures of the languages we try to share with our young language learners and last week I was lucky enough to be able to do just that!
I spent part of the week in Basque France and Basque Spain. This next half term with Year 5 our focus is the seaside .We have looked at the seaside before with our younger learners and so I am always looking for more sophisticated approaches to the theme of seaside.
Well here staring straight back at me was a                                                                             sophisticated seaside and geography focus!


It's so simple! 

• Take a look at the map. Last week I visited Biarritz and then later in the week San Sebastian! 
• Here we have an ideal describe,compare and contrast series of activities .
• These seaside resorts are so near to each other!
• The activities can be completed in French or Spanish and will engage our learners in sentence structrure, use of common verbs and the use of conjunctions to make comparisons......

Step One - the country,the resorts and language investigation!

1. Share  the map with the class.Ask them to look at the seaside and coast.Can the class identify the border between two countries? (You may want to explain too about the basque country and their own language- can the children think of similarities in the United Kingdom e.g English and Welsh/ the coast in NW England and North Wales etc)   
2. Can the children investigate the map and find the three resorts.
3. Can they work out how far away the resorts are from each other?
4. Can they decide which languages are spoken in the three seaside towns? Can they write a simple present tense sentence using the verb " to speak" to explain the target language they think they would hear in each town - e.g "A San Sebastian on parle espagnol" and "A Biarritz  on parle français
5. Can they now add a conjunction and create an extended sentence with the two sentences they have written? Give the children a choice of conjunctions - which do they prefer to use e.g et/ mais/pourtant ? 

Step Two - the weather report

1. Ask the children to investigate the weather with you in Biarritz and in San Sebastian during one specific week.All you need to do is google the weather for the two places and find the weather forecast for that week. Can they write a weather report for the two towns using conjunctions e.g "Le lundi  à Biarritz il fait beau mais à San Sebastian il pleut"?

Step Three - the resorts and the food 

1. Let's investigate the food.Can the children find out what food they would eat if they had "tapas" in San Sebastian or ordered cakes in a "salon de thé" in Biarritz?
2. Can the children help you to make a list of foods that they could eat in these two places...."On peut manger ............ à Biarritz, on peut manger ............à Saint Jean de Luz et on peut manger ........... à San Sebastian"
3. Can they now add their own preferences from the lists of food using the conjunction "pourtant"?

Step Four- the places and the activities

It's here that the children will see that the seaside resorts may have different foods, sometimes share or have different weather but that the resorts share similar geography and seaside activities! 

All we need to do is:

San Sebastian

Biarritz

• Give out two pictures of the beach- one of San Sebastian and one of Biarritz- to pairs of children (same pictures for each pair).
• Can the children make a list in the target language of the geographical features and the buildings they can see in the pictures?
• How similar are their lists for San Sebastian and Biarritz?
• Can the children investigate the pictures and make a list of verbs as infinitives to describe the activities they think they can see on the beach in each picture?
• Can they now make a list using "you can ..." e.g in French "on peut..." of the activities and explain that the same activities take place in Biarritz and in San Sebastian?

Step Five -Writing a description

Can the children now write a descriptive text comparing the seaside in San Sebastian and Biarritz?

What  have they found out?

What are the similarities and differences between the two resorts? 

When I grow up, I will be a .....

I spent last week in France and was delighted to meet five year old Sophie who had all her precious possessions in a most marvellous rucksack! (I saw the whole range of these rucksacks in a toy shop window in  Dijon last summer and was inspirec by them then!)
Thanks to Sophie though I now have a noun collector!




You see there is a whole range of rucksacks,pencil cases and bags sporting pictures such as:

The activities I now have in mind could be done in all languages!

1. First of all ask the children to share their aspirations for the future in English
2. Now ask them to look up in bilingual dictionaries their apsirational jobs and roles they would like to have in the future 
3. Create an alphabetical list of the roles the children would like- in the target language.Ask the children to help you do this and to then sign their names against their aspirational jobs and roles on the list.How many doctors, nurses, farmers , dancers etc have you potentially got in your class?
4. Engage the children with table or group games of charades to guess the professions
5. Ask the children to create a a class display of characters (like those in the drawings above) conveying the roles/ professions.On each pucture ask the children to write the sentence in the target language "When I grow up I will be a ....".Ask them to omit the role or profession and to write this on a separate piece of paper or card
6. Create a gap filler velcro or blu-tac display and invite children up to read the names of the roles and professions on the paper/ card and to place them at the end of the incomplete sentence under the correct drawing in your class art gallery
7. Now it's time to design the rucksacks/pencil cases or bags to suit the aspirations of your class e.g the footballer/ prince/ doctor/ teacher/policeman etcetra. 
8. Ask the children to design their container (it must be able to hold card strips with nouns written on the card strips). it could be a rucksack/pencil case or  bag.They must wirte the incomplete sentence on the container (without the noun for the role or profession)
9. The children must then consider what objects  might be found in the  container etc if it belonged to a footballer/ prince etc. For example in Sophie's rucksack she had a crown,a dress and a ring- all for her role as "Princess Sophie"!
10. Can the children use bilingual dictionaires to find the objects to put in their containers?
11. And now we have our final game- display the containers and number them. Invite children to investigate the nouns in the containers - can they guess the role or profession from the objects in the bag?
12. The children must write down the number of the container and the noun for the role or profession they have guessed.
13. Invite the children to bring their containers to the front and to say the complete sentence with  the role or profession  .
14. Which children have guessed the correct role or profession for each container?
15. And finally we can take a photo of the container, insert the face of the child and load the picture on to Chatterpix or Yakit for Kids - now thew children can record for posterity their aspirational role or profession!  

People Pillar Portrait Poem

I am looking for really easy and effective ways to create writing opportunities with young learners who are working out how to use nouns and the relationship between nouns and adjectives in the target language.
For all the ideas you need a picture stimulus and bilingual dictionaries and card strips  to write down their people pillar portrait poems .
i think that this activity would work  really well to for a Father's Day focus, for a Year 6 leavers focus on what describes  a Year 7 "ready to learn" new starter etc .... the potential is almost limitless

Stage One  
Focus on one masculine singular noun and a stimulus picture e.g "un clown"

• Ask the children to look up and cross reference adjectives to describe a clown
• Are there any adjectives that the children need to write in French before the noun- talk about these first!
• Ask the children on rough paper to write the adjective in the correct position next to the noun in a list - therefore you repeat thre noun"clown" and write a different adjective next to the noun each time.

Un clown amusant,

un clown actif,

un grand clown,

un clown .........,

...................

• The children can now make your first "people pillar portrait poem".All they need to do is to write their list written in rough on to the card strip. 
• Create plasticine or blu-tac feet for the card strip and add clown heads to the pillars.

Stage Two 

Focus on a feminine singular noun and a stimulus picture e.g. "une reine" 

Ask the children to look up and cross reference adjectives to describe a queen.

Ask the children to anticipate the familiar changes that they can remember to the spelling of the adjectives if they are being written next to a feminine noun

Explore the spelling of unfamiloar adjectives and find the feminine ending spelling 

Are there any adjectives that the children need to write in French before the noun- talk about these first!

Ask the children on rough paper to write the adjective in the correct position next to the noun in a list - therefore you repeat thre noun " reine"  and write a different adjective next to the noun each time.

Une belle reine, 

une reine magnifique,

une  petite reine,

une reine.....

...............

• The children can now make your second "people pillar portrait poem".All they need to do is to write their list written in rough on to a new card strip. 
• Attach the new card strip to the  plasticine or blu-tac feet  so that the card strips for the clown and the queen are back to back.Add  a queen's clown head to the new card pillar.

Stage Three 

• Ask the children to find their own two nouns -one masculine and one feminine.The nouns should represent people or professions.
• Ask the children to create their own people pillar poems and challenge the children to try to use some of the same adjectives to describe both the masculine and feminine nouns.
• This will allow the children to make comparisopns on spelling of the adjectives when being used with a masculine or feminine singular noun.

Making the activity 3D

Clare Seccombe and I have been busy challengimng each other to take ideas we have generated or found and add a twist.Recently I challenged clare to create a 3D version of the People Pillar Portrait Poem. The challenge was successfu; and here is Clare's blpog post response....

3D People Pillar Portrait Poem

Languages,writing and performing simple creative songs and yet more joined up thinking

This was our first network competition.The intention was to offer individual schools an opportunity to focus on a common purpose and to link their language learning with a  special festival shared by the three languages our network schools teach - French,German and Spanish....so it had to be a carnival song competition!

Below is the challenge we set our network members:

Join in our Carnival Song Competition

The competition is open to all member of Janet Lloyd Primary Languages Network

 Vouchers for primary language story books to be won!

KS1 or KS2 competition entries 

Can your young learners create a carnival song in French, German or Spanish?

All they have to do is base the song on the language from the Year 3 or beginners stage of language learning in the JLN SOW (numbers, colours, days of week, months, animals, personal information).

• We based the competition on common language content
• We made sure the focus was simple language that all the teachers (non-specialist and specialist teachers would be comfortable with)
• We allowed schools to decide which classes would be best to enter the competition....

And we asked the teachers to follow these basic rules : 

• The song should be at least four lines long
• The song should have a carnival rhythm or beat
• The song should be based on a familiar tune
• Percussion instruments such as maracas and a drum were allowed but we need to hear the words sung as clearly as possible
  We required a sound file / video together with a word document

Did it work? 

Well we received 40 entries in French and Spanish! 

Each one was different in style and each entry had been worked upon, practised and performed by the teacher and the class.

We received links to You Tube clips ,sound files and video recordings and then we set about judging the songs!

Joane Hornby judged the competition as she is the member of our Associate Teachers Team who provides us with our own songs to familiar refrains and is an expert music teacher too!
What was very clear was the fact that the children enjoyed joining in and some children were inspired to create their additional solo songs too!
Teachers were working within and outside their comfort zones and this was commendable ! 

Joanne chose the winners and wrote in her summing up that:

" I was really impressed by the variety of musical melodies chosen -  from Frozen to the Conga - and amazed by the clever use of simple language.

1st Place - Westbrook Old Hall with their 'C'est le Carnaval ' Entry. I could really imagine myself at the carnival, it had fantastic description and adjectives and set the party atmosphere perfectly!

2nd Place - Locking Stumps with their 'C'est Carnaval ' . Brilliant class effort, with different groups singing a verse and a real rousing chorus. Super!

3rd Place - Bradshaw School - Wow! Year 2 with their 'Carnaval  de Paris' sung in Spanish and with fantastic dancing. Yo Yo Yo Yo!!"

Here is how Christine Ballance went about making the winning Westbrook Old Hall song with her class

"We looked first at the Carnaval powerpoint with the aliens and worked out what it meant.  Then we talked about carnivals in France and Germany - we have a pupil who lived in Germany until recently - and why people celebrate carnival, mardi gras, etc. 

I explained about the competition and that we were going to find carnival related nouns with garish colour combinations - like the scenes in the photos.  I told them to choose nouns for things we could 'have' with us at the Carnaval, preferably nouns with 2 syllables, by looking back in their books at previous work and to add 2 colours (or one if it was violet) so the words would fit in with the tune.  They went off and wrote verses then we sang quite a few to try them out and picked the best. "

Here is Bradshaw's Carnaval de Paris "third prize" song in Spanish.....

  

Languages ,Literacy , Joined up thinking -making primary languages special!

I do love joined up thinking!
As you may already know we have a network of 110 schools, all loosely working aournd a shared SOW or atleast able to dip in and use resources as they fit best with the individual school curriculum and language learners.

Should you want to know more about JLN membership here is a link
Membership of Janet Lloyd Network (full or local) 

Below is an example of how working as part of team and a network plus sharing information that we learn from others is benefitting our young language learners!

In Year 4 we introduce our learners to the extra terrestrial family - our aliens .Everyone loves the aliens and most of our network members will introduce and use the resources with their classes at sometime in their teaching and learning! 
It is very miuch a case of  team work between four primary language teaching practitioners!
Ana Garcia draws the family,I create the simple stories and activities around the family and then Emilie ,Barbara and Ana provide the accurate French,Spanish and German language and authenticity! 

Thanks to Little Red Languages Company we are now creating several animated stories in French and Spanish to share with our network members and the schools participating in the DFE Language Learning for Everyone  programme too. 

This project though is very much Janet Wallbank's (one of our associate language teachers and the class teacher and children from Parish CE in St Helens!

• I visited the school to observe Janet W.She was introducing the alien family.
• I  happened to explain to the children that the grandma and grandad alien had been created by Barrowhall CP School in Warrington ,the year before! They were fascinated by the fact the children at Barrowhall  had added to the story ppt and began to suggest their own additional characters.
• Janet W and the class teacher decided it would be a good idea to ask the children to create their own drawings of new family members,The class selected  an uncle, an aunt and the pets: an alien dog and an alien cat ! 
• As the family alien focus in  Spring 1  leads to describing the physical features of monsters and aliens in Spring 2, describing the new characters fitted in really well too!  
• First of all though the characters drawings had to be judged and who better to judge the characters than the artist and the alien stories' author (Ana and myself!) 
• Here is the winning picture of the Aunt alien....

• .....and here is the winning picture of the Uncle alien

•  With a "special congratulations letter" from the author and the artist, the winners were revealed to the class and all the class received mini easter eggs for their efforts!
• Janet W and the class had real purpose to learning -how to make physical descriptions of people  because the children needed to be able to do this to complete own JLN story ppt - about their characters! They added names too.Below is  "Asteroide " the dog.

• Last week Janet W shared  the finished ppt with us and then thanks to a tweet by @valleseco Janet W was inspired to create a Youpublisher PDF Flipbook of the story! Hey presto ! We have magic! We have a page turning book ...... and now we can share the book with our other network member schools and  hopefully inspire them too!  

La famille extra terrestre Parish CE