Colour sketches

We have just created  this simple "Colours"video in French to help our schools with Summer 2 Year 3 French as the chldren take a walk through the colours of thr landscape. It will be in our VLE SOW Year 3 Ready Made French.

It is a great resource too as part of my "creative colours" explorations below:

  • Watch the video clip with the class.
  • Ask the children to identify the adjective ( colour) and to explain the meaning of the noun using picture associations that appear on the screen.
  • Ask the children to help you paint an air picture of the poem.Listen and draw each noun in the sky as you all listen.You could add actions to represent the colours too.....1
  • Give out to every child a "colour dot bar"- (three of the colours mentoned in the video as dots on a card) .You could differentiate the challenge by reducing or increasing the number of dots on this bar.

 

  • Ask the children to say the colours to a partner and to try to remember in English the noun in the video associated with the colour .
  • Watch the video again and ask the children to listen for their sentences linked to the dots on their colour dot bars and repeat them "silently" in their heads.
  • Afterwards can the children remember how  to say out loud a complete sentence for each colour dot on their colour dot sticker bar? Again you can differentiate the challenge here- remember one, two ,three sentences and say out loud.
  • You could at this point ask children to swap colour dot sticker bars and repeat some or all of the activities above.
  • Share with the children a set of "colour sketches".These are pieces of A4 coloured paper (colours mentioned in poem) folded as you can see below- with the colour of the paper written on the paper and visible.when you open up the folded coloured card it reveals a very simple black pen sketch of the item from the poem that is mentioned and associated with the colour.
  • Can the children read the colour out loud for you and then guess what the target language noun is that will be revealed in your simple black pen sketch?
  • Take a look here at the colour sketches examples:

 

  • Time to make your  class "colour sketches" .Ask the children to think of items they would associate with the colours in the poem and create their own colouor sketches for a guessing game display, where other children can open up the folded coloured card or paper and see the item drawn on the inside.
  • The children should look up the target language noun they have sketched and write this either under their sketches or on card  that can then be glued to the edge of the display so that other children can find and  locate the correct target language nouns to the sketches.(If you decide to use the second option mentioned here- you may need to leave a bilingual dictionary availabe so children can cross reference their findings) 

Colour wave phrases

A postcard I bought last week made me think about a simple drama activity I have used in the past - passing waves of messages across a room.

So simple.

  1. Give each child a phrase from a variety of phrases from a conversation or dialogue written on different coloured cards. Make sure each phrase from the conversation or dialogue os written on a card in all of the the colours. 
  2.  Ask the children to read the phrase to theemselves quietly .Ask the children now to rrad again to themselves but look at the colour of the card .What mood does the colur of the card suggest e.g green- calm, red- angry, yellow- happy etcetra? Can they now add emotion to their vpices as they read the phrases on the cards.
  3. Ask the children to walk around the room and listen to each othefrs phrases and find the children with the same coloured card.They should assemble ultimately in their colour groups.
  4. Now ask the colour groups to create a phrases wave.They must say their phrases with the emotion they have already added in whichever order the group decides suits the phrases they have.So for example one group may decide to say their phrases in a relatively sensible order or anlother group may decide to say them in a nonsensical  order etc.
  5. Ask each group to perform their phrases wave for the class.
  6. Now ask the children to form groups of identical phrases not colours.Can the children create a performance with emotions displayed by both  voices and added an action for the specific phrase.
  7. Ask each group to perform their wave phrases and deminstrate how one phrase can be daid and conveyed in different ways. 

City photo booths

Last weekend in Sevilla, I was inspired by my visit to the Plaza de España in the city park. It was bustling and busy and filled with people enjoying the Spring sunshine. What was even more striking was the huge cresecent shaped area at the back of the Plaza de España with tiled sections like open cubicles,each one celebrating one of Spain's great cities.I loved the fact that Spanish people were keen to sit in these tiled areas and have their photos taken ,when they found the city they came from or loved!  Sort of "old fashioned " photo booths really.

Gave me an idea for a great way to celebrate the culture of Spain in the Summer half term with our young language learners.They reminded me of photo booths (and this idea would work in all languages ,with a focus on cities of the target language country)- but  first a brief description of the Spanish tiled areas in the Plaza de España...

 The cities were in alphabetical order and you could walk around the crescent and see the name of each city and the tiled picture depicting history of each city.The tiles were typical Spanish tiles and each city had different coloured and styled tiles.On the floor infront of thre history picture backdrop was a large tiled map locating where the city is located.

So my suggestion is .....why not create a corridor display , a wall display or role play area of these Spanish city tiled "photo booths"?

  • Share with the children the pictures above of the Malaga "photo booth". . 
  • Access a map of Spain and then locate the tiled map area in my photo so the children can see whereabouts the tiled map of Malaga and the region fit in to the map.
  • Take look at the backdrop picture and discuss what event might be taking place.
  • Explain how these "photo booths" are in a crescent shape in alphabetical order in a large park where people come and look for their own cities. Explain that these tiled areas where designed and created atleast 100 years ago.Can the class help you "update" the booths?
  • Give out some  cards to members of the class- maximum 10 cards , each with a the name of a Spanish city written on it.Ask the children in thr class to help you to make an alphabetical crescent  of the cities by organising the children holding the cards at the front of the classroom in alphabetical order.
  • Set the children a task to research modern day facts about these cities you have selected and to update the Spanish "photo booths" for a city that they can select from your 10 chosen cities. The booths should include a map of the region and where the city is located , tiles to depict the colours they feel represent the area- so it coud be the football team colours or it could be colours that link with the sea or the mountains etcetra if the city is located by the sea or in the mountains. The backdrop should have a picture that represents the modern day city and a simple Spanish sentence or sentences that explains what you can visit in the city.  
  • Now you are ready to create your display!
  • As a class you could create one large photo booth and take photos of the children on the booth and ask the children to write on card speech bubbles their descriptive sentences or phrases that say how exciting/ fantatsic/ beautiful the city is. 

Crafty conversation cartoons

Let's practise core spoken and written questions ansd responses that the children learn in the target language.

Spotted this clip on Facebook this morning and realised how this simple craft idea could help us this half term revisit core questions and answers and build up children's ability to practise basic conversational language. The video can be found here on Facebook 5 minute craft activities funny toothy pictures

Let's practise core spoken and written questions ansd responses that the children learn in the target language.

Spotted this clip on Facebook this morning and realised how this simple craft idea could help us this half term revisit core questions and answers and build up children's ability to practise basic conversational language.

  1. Share the video and create the paper cartoon characters with the class. Either use this an independent activity where children create their own fantatscial faces or link this to a theme or core focus . So for example this half term in our SOW we might link this work  with the fishes you see in the clip and our  Y2 "sea creatures " theme just practising greetings and farewells. In Year 3 the children could create hungry giants and servants for the Y3 Summer 1 focus or with Y4 and  jungle animals perhaps personal information questions and answers between the animals, etcetra......) 
  2. Ask the children to brainstorm with you core questions and answers they may want to use with their cartoon characters.
  3. Each child should have atleast one cartoon character.
  4. The children work in pairs and practise their spoken language.The cartoon characters can only speak when the mouth is open of course and the partners working together must take turns and build up questions and responses.
  5. One pair can perfrom for a second pair and children can also perform for the class.
  6. Time to focus on writing! Ask the children,working with a partner, to create  and write speech bubbles with their favourite question and response.The speech bubbles can glued inside the mouths of the cartoon characters and only revealed when the mouth is open. Blu tac the nmouths shut and either put in the children's writing books or create a display where the mouths can be opened to reveal the written sentences.
  7. Challenge other children in the class to read aloud the speech bubbles when the cartoon character mouths are opened.Can they think of the possible question or response that matches what they read?

Coordinators' May Checklist

Welcome back after Easter. This is a short half term but also a powerful language learning half term when your young learners will be at  the point in the learning year where they can revisit  and re-use language you have practised during this year and can also reapply , manipulate and strengthen their growing understanding of the skills of target language phonics, bilingual dictonaries,sentence structure and also at the same time explore the culture of the target language countries.You can look back too at previous checklists from this academic year too if you want to see how far you have all come this year!. Click here on the Coordinators' April Checklist for previous academic year and months' blog posts.

We will be considering how to make good primary progress in language learning at our annual conference.Network members for 2017-18 have a free place available at the conference, so it is time to register for your place.Network members have received emails aboit this week or simply click on the link here .Primary Languages Conference 29 June 2017

Here are some resources, activities and points to consider during this Whit half term.

  • Take time to build on knowledge the children have laready gained either during this year or across several years and revisit and practise familiar core language and high frequency words or use of nouns or asdjectives or verbs with this series of activities.The activities can be used with different stages of learners. Chain Reaction blog post
  • This half term why not take the children outside to learn their language and access our PE with languages folder to use the lesson planning for Boccia, Volleyball, Fencing, or PE Games. This folder is in the Teaching Resources area of the VLE.
  • It will soon be Eurovision (13 May) and what a great opportunity to set up your own classes as voting panels for the song contest You could also learn some key language and facts about the partcipating countries too.Take a look here at the offical website.Kyiv 2017 Eurovision Song Contest
  • You may like to use this idea in a recent blog post to wish children in Y6 good luck with their SATs.The idea is based on the gift of lilly of the valley on 1st May in France to wish friends and family good luck for the year. It could be an activity done in any language and all language learners could learn about this kind hearted French custom too. Good luck and a gift of le muguet  
  • You may be interested in taking a look at the festival in Seville at the end of April/ beginning of May - la feria de abril , where the city celebrates all things artisan - horses, parades of dancers and flamenco .A great way to prepare your own children for a Summer Spanish festival too.You will find our lesson planning and activities based upon this in Seasonal Specials Summer 1 in the Teaching Resources area of the VLE.
  • Last year I was asked for quiet and calm activities during SATs week that could be used at different levels across year groups.I was deloghted with the reaction to the "Sunshine Sparklers" quiet individual work activity here. Hope it might help some of you this year too.
  • You could also celebrate French Mothers' Day, ready to take cards home over the Whit half term , as the French will celebrate this in Sunday 28 May .Our Mothers Day poem on our You Tube channel may be really useful and our materials to create your own Mothers Day booklets are in Seasonal Specials Spring 2.  
  • Watch out for a simple reports' pack being currently created by the associate teachers and linked to the PLN SOW. This will be in the Subject Planning  area in the MFL Coordinators' Tools folder by the end of May.You will also find a simple pupils' voice questionnaire in this area and folder too,should you wish to review the year's learning with your classes too.
  • Should you be in the process of drawing up a presentation on PFL for governors or SLT then take a look in the Subject Planning area of the VLE and access the governors presentation file folder in the MFL Coordinators Tools folder

 

  • We now have native speaker German listening sound files and transcripts for the Puzzle It Out activities and these are in the Tracking and Assessment folder in the generic Puzzle It Out file. French and Spanish are already up on the VLE too.
  • Summer 1 independent creative writing sheets for Y3,4,5 and 6 are now up on the VLE and are directly linked from the Ready Made French and Spanish SOW and are in the appropriate year group folders for German too. We hope you enjoy using these.Here is a sample.
sum 1 writing sheet.png
  • ADVANCED NOTICE! Over the last 6 years we have tried to keep on improving and developing the PLN service for all our network members.This year we are busy updating and reorganising our Ready Made SOW to make the medium term teaching and learning overviews for each focus very teacher friendly .We are amending and adding to our areas for specialist or non-specialist teacher support , offering teachers possible alternative focuses,cross curricular and seasonal special options and ensuring that we help you to cover all language learning skills with your children. Below is a brief look at an example overview.We will be launching this at the conference on 29 June, ready to be used next academic year.The cost of membership for next academic year is the same as this year and we welcome new members either full member schools, online schools or individual teacher members,Membership details are here. Network membership details

Chain reaction

Here is a really effective and ever so simple activity to practise core language and high frequency words with language learners at whatever stage they may be in their language learning. It's actually an activity that I have used for many years and allows children of all abilities to participate and has an added memory challenge too.

  1. You will need sets of five or six  cards which have familiar high frequency target language words written on them.Each set can be  the same words (for beginners) or can be a set of different words (for more advanced learners) or could be sets of nouns or adjectives or verbal phrases (e.g I have / I haven't /I am , it is /I like / I don't like...) 
  2. Divide your class in to groups of five or six children.
  3. Ask the children to stand in a circle as a group.
  4. Ask each group to designate one child as the "memory box". (This should be a child that the group feels will remember the completed task and be able to say this task out loud to the class or as a more advanced activity write it out on the class board for all the class to read.) 
  5. Give each group a set of five or six cards. The number of cards depends on the number of children in the group.
  6. The groups need to read the words they have been given.You could give each group a bilingual dictionary to check any meanings they are uncertain about. 
  7. Each group then needs to put together a set of five of six coherent sentences or phrases using one high frequency or core language word card in each sentence.
  8. As a group they need to say their phrases or sentences and show their card. Encourage them to add feelings and possible actions too.
  9. The child designated as the group memory box needs to say and perform his or her own sentence and then say all the sentences in order,adding the performance too.
  10. You could swap over memory boxes from own group to another and ask thse children to observ and listen and then try to remember the sentences spoken and performed by another group.
  11. You could ask the children to listen to a group and then in pairs try to write down as many of the sentences they hear as possible .If each group has different word cards maybe they could try to identify and underline the words in the sentence that they think are the core or high frequency words.
  12. Children could create their own high frequency /core word challenge packs for other groups ...... 

Good luck!

On the 1st of May in France, people offer each other stems of lilly of the valley "le muguet" as a token of good luck and happiness.What a brilliant way to start this "stressful" month for some of our young language learners.I think this could be used in all languages and the connecton with French culture and tradition can be explored by all the children regardless which target language you then use for the activity.

  • Share with the children a stem of lilly of the valley or show a picture of the flower.
  • Explain that the flower has a beautiful strong scent which can last a long time.You may be able to bring in something with this  the scent.
  • Explain to the children that on 1st May it is tradition in France to give friends a stem or bunch of  "le muguet" as a symbol of happiness and to wish the other person "good luck" for the year.
  • Link the long lasting scent and the symobolic gesture together and ask the children to consider how the pretty flower , the scent and the symbol could make a great token to give to other people in the class or school at the start of May as they begin to take their tests and SATs etcetra this month. 
  • Ask each child to draw a stem for the flower on white paper and to add at least six or seven circles for the buds/ flowers.

 

  • Using bilingual dictionaries ,ask the children to write first in English on white boards or draft paper six or seven words  they associate with "happiness" e.g nouns - such as smiles/ laughter/ sunshine/holidays etcetra or adjectives like jolly , warm, peaceful etcetra and verbs like to laugh.....
  • In the centre of each circle the children should put the first or last letter of one of each of these words (possibly alphabetically as the buds progress up the page).On right hand side of stem these would be the first letter of the word and on the left hand side of the stem these would be the final letters.
  • The children need to glue the sketch on to a coloured piece of paper (preferably green) and make sure there is room at the top to write a "good luck" message and to draw a thought bubble ( big enough to draw symbols inside).At the bottom  of the page there needs  to be room to  add the six or seven words- nouns, adjectives and verbs- they have found.
  • At the bottom of the page they need to write out their happy words that they have found in the dictionary.
  • Now they can hand their sketch to a partner.

 

  • The partner has to look up the words in the dictionary and then cut out each of the words and stick the word next to the correct bud that begins with the first letter of the word t or next to the last letter of the word, when they find the meaning of the word. 
  • Finally in the thought bubble they should draw symbols to represent the "happy" words so that they can visualise these when they need support during the month of May.
  • Now the children have a good luck token to keep in their books and pictures that they can think of when they need that extra support or boost......

Coordinators' April Checklist.

So it is almost Easter and a well deserved holiday .The checklist this month is relatively short because schools' holidays seem to be all over the place this month. Hope you find the information useful below to help you through the month though. You can look back too at previous checklists from this academic year too if you want to see hiw far you have all come this year!. Click here on the March Coordinators' Checklist for previous months' blog posts.

Please sign up now for the PLN Conference on 29 June.Places are going fast and we have four tremendous national speakers and plus a choice of workships and Brilliant Publications and Little Linguist will be exhibiting too.Network member schools get a free place. Link for the registration and details is here .PLN Conference 29 June 2017.

A bouncy Easter poem in French with the words to follow along. Use the 'Easter Basket' resource from our shop to create a lesson with it! https://primarylanguages.network/activelingo

This week and next week you may like to use our Easter poems in French and Spansih.These are short video clips as part of the Es Irene and C'est Emilie series .They are accessible on  our You tube Channel and also they are in Seasonal Specials Spring 2 folder, in a file called Easter poem/Easter baskets. I have created a lesson with listening, speaking , performing and then reading and creating your own Easter basket hunt game to accompany the poem.The lesson and game are also avaible to non-network members in the Active Lingo area on the PLN website 

Here is also a link to previous blog post of mine celebrating chocolate and songs and games from other countries to celebrate chocolate. click here: "International taste of chocolate" 

Spring Webinar Agenda Network News VLE update Spring time resources Mothers Day Poem Webinar involves guest speaking from Michelle Hindley and Robert Artingstall

The new Es Irene and C'est Emilie clips linked to the SOW are up on the VLE in Ready Made French and Spanish .They are also downloadable from the KS2 French/Spanish SOW Plus Activities and resources folder .Plus we have made some short Spanish videos to set very simple listening tasks for classes as brain breaks or warm ups.These are also in the KS2 Spanish SOW  Plus in a "short videos " folder.French will follow.Feedback from colleagues is that these are also useful for staff CPD.

We are currently working on podcasts and materials to explore core language at stage 1,2,3 or 4 in KS2 language learning.These will be up on the VLE at the end of April .Network members watch out for announcements.

If you didn't manage to listen to the Spring webinar but would still like to then the link is here to the webinar on our You tube channel.First 20 minutes are network news and VLE updates, from about 20 minutes in you can find out about our Jack and the Beanstalk sequence of six lessons and how Michelle Hindley adapted these for her young learners in French and Spanish.

Approximately 35 minutes in to the webinar we share our work on the Fruit Salad Masterchef and on the ~Plant Pot Story and there is a lovely interview with Robert Artingstall about his work with UKS2 with Masterchef resources and with Year 2 and the Plant Pot Story.The resources for all three focuses are in Network Resources on the VLE in the Local Network Meeting folder and in a file called "Spring in your Step".If you are not a network member you can buy these from our Active Lingo website area in the Spanish,French and German resources. 

As you can see the Puzzle It Outs for each half term from Y3 - Y6 have been revamped.There are new pictures for the listening, native speaker sound files for the listening activities with target language and English transcripts and reading texts ready to use in the target language for the reading acivities.These are in Ready Made French and Spanish and also they are all contained as one accessible resource in the Teaching Resources -Tracking and Assessment area in a Puzzle It Out folder.

Ready for your work in Summer 1 we have created and added new writing sheets for Year 3,4,5 and 6 .These are available on the VLE in Ready Made SOW and also KS2 German SOW Plus .As you can see above in the tweet the writing sheets continue to be linked to the core language used in the half term focus.In Year 3 we are designing our hungry giant healthy breakfast diaries, in Year 4 we  are designing our own Art and simple sentence jungle animal pictures, in Year 5 as you can see below we are packing our suitcases with useful sentences as we look at the location comparison unit and in Year 6 we are building speaking and writing cafe culture triaramas. We do hope that you find these useful.

In response to KS1 colleagues we have now begun to extend our KS1 resources for French and Spanish .Worth taking a look- it is a work in progress but we now have areas to include - exploring other languages, games and songs, story time, special events , KS1 French and Spanish packs of  lessons and individual basic learning lessons..... More to come yet.Please feedback via email what else you would like us to include on the KS1 area for your network school.

So your checklist this month is 

  • Have you signed up for the conference?
  • Use our Easter poems and Easter basket resources with classes in next two weeks and also look at the cultural similarities and differences in the ways we celebrate Easter or plan to use the video clips in the "International Taste of Chocolate blog post which looks at "chocolate " rather than a religious focus. 
  • Watch out for the podcast email and plan to use these podcasts as a review of learning at different stages (beginners (stage 1 ) , moving on (stage 2/3) , advanced (stage 4) with your learners.
  • Plan to use the writing sheets to add creativity in the learning and as a writing support for all your learners no matter what ability.
  • Share the Es Irene and C'est Emilie clips with children and colleagues and use these as models for all staff on how to present and then practise and set up activities with core language. 
  • Take a look at the Jack and the Beanstalk resources or the Plant Pot Story and see if you can plan for a focus on growing things and Jack and the Beanstalk as a cross curricular unit of work.
  • Watch out for network membership invoices for 2017-2018 

Red Nose Day

Here's a "Knock !Knock! Who is there? Red Nose Day activity.This can be used in  KS2 and KS3. Have fun! 

I have used this idea before- normally as a Christmas activity, but it will work equally well this Friday on Red Nose Day and I have added a few different approaches too .

We can add different levels of challenge. Here are some ideas.

  • Perhaps just use the  "Knock!Knock! " language below and  give the children different pictures cards of comic characters to introduce to other children by name. Don't worry about colours of noses etc.
  • Or as we do, use this to play a guessing game where the children need to say the colour of the nose and therefore practise adjectival agreement.
  • Or uplevel the game and ask children to say colour of the bow tie too.
  • Or ask chidren to create their own comical cartoon characters and as a response to another child introduce  their character and a physical description of body (fits well with our Ready Made Y4 Spring 2 work) and also clothes (fits well with our Ready Made Y5 Spring 2 work)..
  • Maybe record the descriptions with Voicechanger APP and add silly sounds too so that the questions and answers of the dialogue are part of a "spoof" or "comic " sketch.

The core spoken objective of the activity will be to ask and answer questions, so there is opportunity too with more advanced learners to extend what they say and then also to set this out in a comic cartoon story strip or as a set of comic Piccollage photo poster and perhaps even use  props too!

Here are the French/Spanish and German basic questions and answers to keep that Red Nose flavour  and a "Knock !Knock! Who is there? " theme......

French:

                                                       Toc,toc,toc!

                                                           Qui est là?

                                                 Rudolphe avec le nez ……..?

                                                            Le nez .......

                                                            Oui/non

 

Spanish

¡Pon,pon,pon!

¿Quién es?

Rudolph con la nariz ……

La nariz……

Si/no

 

German:

 

Klopf,klopf,klopf!

Wer bist du?  

Rudolph und meine Nase ist .....

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

Ja/ nein

, ,

Snapshot of learning - Janet Wallbank

, ,

Last Friday, I went to visit Year 6 at St Andrew’s C.E Primary School learning French with Janet Wallbank. It was the end of the half-term and the class was just finishing off the topic of ‘sports and how do you play this sport?’

As I walked in, the class was just getting organised for the lesson and I noticed straight away the neatly kept French books on the children’s table and Janet’s tracking sheets – I knew it was going to be a good lesson!

Whilst Janet was getting ready for the lesson she asked the children to work with their partners and practiced as many personal information questions and answers as they could remember – I listened to a few children and heard some interesting and details statement such as ‘Ça va bien car je suis en pleine forme mais j’ai faim’ – evidence that the children are learning to extend basic language and making (huge) progress.

Then the class warmed up to a really fun song that they seemed to be really familiar with

Throughout the lesson, Janet explained EVERYTHING in the target language: going through different slides on her powerpoint presentation and revisiting various questions and opinions about sports: Qui fait un sport ? (opportunities to recap jouer / faire ) Qui veut décrire un sport? Mon sport preféré est… car…

The class had a mini-debate amongst themselves about the sports they liked and disliked reacting to one another’s statements ‘J’adore la gymnastique car….’ Ah non, je déteste la gymnastique car…’ – evidence of children being able to relate their language learning to their own lives and using it for a real purpose: talking about themselves! To support themselves some children spontaneously opened their French book to refer back to previous work and to check words or opinions phrases for example.

Janet then invited volunteers to come to the front and read out descriptions of sport they had written the week before using the written sheet for this unit available on the VLE. These sheets have had excellent feedback both from primary and secondary colleagues.

The rest of the class had to guess which sport was being described and some children had put a lot thought into this activity, adding a lot of details to their description and so the children had to listen very carefully.

As a follow up to this activity Janet asked the children to work in pairs and play a card game describing sports to their partners who had to guess correctly which sport it was – the first step was to choose the correct verb: was it jouer or faire ? then the equipment, where to play the game, clothes, etc. The children appeared confident and fluent with the content of this unit and so the whole class was engaged, on task and …speaking French! 

Finally as it was the very last lesson of the half-term the children referred back to their assessment cloud sheet (stuck at the front of their book) and highlighted what they had been learning during the half-term and managed to tick quite a few boxes. Well done Year 6!

Where's Wally? 0-31 and prepositions

I have to say thank you straight away to Twitter for this very simple last minute World Book Day primary languages activity , which I think could become a class challenge for the rest of the term too! I saw this tweet from Murdishaw West and thought we could create a last minute a simple sequence of activities to link language learning and Where's Wally. 

Numbers 0-31 and Wally

  • Practise your numbers 0-31 in the target language.
  • Put selected number cards (picked from between 0 and 31) on the board and hide Wally behind a number.
  • Ask the children to find Wally. How many attempts does it take?
  • Practise this activity several times.
  • Give each table a set of number cards and a picture of Wally .One person hides Wally under a number card, whilst the rest of ther table look away. How many guesses does it take to find Wally? 

Wally is somewhere in the classroom! Prepositions and photos

  • Practise some prepositions with the children in the target language- infront of , behind, on , in ,under.
  • Practise the nouns for items of furniture in the class.
  • Place a picture of Wally with furniture and ask the children to help you speak and write out on the whiteboard phrases to describe where Wally can be seen.
  • Time to add poses ,photos and find Wally! Ask for volunteers to be Wally .You will need a striped hat and some glasses for this.Dress the volunteer in the items.
  • Ask the class to suggest a place in the classroom where Wally could be e.g. under the table , on the chair, behind the chair, next to the cupboard.
  • Ask the volunteer to pose as Wally in the place suggested by the class.
  • Take a quick photo , load up on your IPad and share on the class screen.
  • Can the class helo you to write your "Where's Wally?" sentence e.g "Wally is behind the chair" to label the photo.
  • Repeat the activity several times and build up a gallery of "Where's Wally?" photos with the class.
  • Now the children can draw and create their own "Where's Wally?" cartoon picture with a simple sentence using a preposition and piece of classrom furniture.

More fun and games! 

  • Just before playtime/break ask the children to help you number 5 different pieces of class furniture with you - e.g. a table , a chair, a cupboard, a door, a box. The children can pick the numbers between 0 and 31.Blu-tac the number to the selected piece of furniture.
  • Hide the picture of Wally .in a specific place (e.g under the table or in the cupboard) whilst the children are out for playtime
  • Ask the children when they return to class "Where's Wally?".Invite  a volunteer to select and say one of the  numbers you have used and another volunteer must go to that piece of classroom furniture with the  number blu-tacked on it, look for Wally and if Wally is there, show Wally's position to the class.
  • Ask the children with a partner to try to say an accurate phrase or sentence using a preposition to describe where Wally was found.  
  • If Wally isn't there then start again.
  • You can play the game again after lunch, after assembly or the following day first thing in the morning!

Story character boxes

Funny what you see on your local garden centre! Walking around yesterday I spotted this jigsaw puzzle.As it's World Book day this week it gave me a simple idea.  

  • First share with the children an empty card board box.Explain in English that inside is a traditional tale character.Set the scene .Ask them children who could it be? (You may want to share pictures of possible characters to prompt the children)
  • Now share with the class the title of a traditional tale in the target language for example here we would share "Puss in Boots" in French or in Spanish :

 

  • Ask the children to read the title. Look for familiar words .Think of traditional tales they know in English and decide which traditional tale this could be. (Goldilocks and the Three Bears , The Three Little Pigs, Sleeping Beauty  would work well as target language titles).
  • Take feedback. Check with pictorial evidence
  • Share a picture of the traditional tale - so the picture of the jigsaw box above would be great for Puss in Boots. Does the evidence confirm the suggestions of the children? 
  • Ask the children to help you put the pieces of the character's personality in the box. Make this as challenging as you think the children can manage.You can differentiate the task within the class itself. Can they write for you a name sentence, where the character lives, a possible age, a possible like and a possible dislike, how the character is feeling and using an adjective or adjectives what the character in the story is like. Can they write a sentence to describe the clothes or the face of the character?
  • Now ask the children to help you to build character boxes. Give out templates for boxes or dice. Printable cube pattern templates 
  • Ask the children to decorate the box with pictures linked to the story line and story character. On the lid the children should write the name of the story character or the traditional tale title and inside the box the children add sentence strips to that they have written to describe the character.