Sunday 8 November 2020

Mon monstre !

 


UKS2 children concluded their Autumn Term 1 French topic “Le corps” (The body) by using their knowledge of numbers, body parts and colours to design and describe their own monster and present it to the rest of the class.  

Many pupils produced an impressive piece of grammatically accurate written work, including correct positioning of adjectives and adjectival agreements! 

Enjoy reading about some of their fabulous fiendish friends:





Bravo les enfants !






Sunday 13 September 2020

Tour de France 2020

KS2 pupils have made a fantastic start to the new academic year with a “Tour de France” themed French lesson where they focused on recalling and retrieving prior learning.

This helped to restore their confidence as language learners after such a long break from school and offered them a platform to help them move forward in their language learning.

Watch this short video clip to see some highlights of what pupils covered in this topic:


If you wish to have a copy of this fully editable resource to use in your own MFL classroom, it is available here:

Tour de France Topic 2020 Madame Birtwistle



You may also find this Tour de France themed playlist on my YouTube channel useful:



Vive Le Tour !

#TDF2020

Monday 8 June 2020

Mon petit livre de cuisine française / My little French cookbook


French cuisine is one of France's greatest cultural contributions to the world! 

Traditionally, each region of France has its own distinctive specialities. 



Last week, I challenged my KS2 pupils to follow a simple French recipe from my new cookbook resource and make a French dish.

Would you also like to set your pupils a home learning challenge to cook a French dish? If so, enjoy this fun, interactive, bilingual cookbook that features 10 classic French recipes for young chefs to follow (with a little help!) including starters, main courses and desserts.

There are two different versions of the cookbook:  

An interactive PowerPoint to use online

French Cookbook interactive PPT

or alternatively a PDF to print off with QR codes to scan.

French Cookbook QR codes


I would love to see your pupils’ culinary creations! Please share your photos on Twitter @MmeBirtwistle 

Bon appétit !



Gallery of photos:

Bravo to Lucia (Y4) in Whitefield, Greater Manchester, who made a lovely French omelette for her lunch!

 

 More to follow...

 



Credits:

www.marmiton.org

Bitmoji

 


Monday 18 May 2020

International Museum Day in 2020 goes digital!



International Museum Day is an international day held annually on or around 18 May, celebrating museums and their collections.

Museums may be temporarily closed, but they remain a source of knowledge and discovery for many - now through virtual tours in particular.

This International Museum Day, I challenged my KS2 French learners to develop their cultural capital by celebrating the inspirational power of the Louvre Museum in Paris from their home.  

Here is their Home Learning Challenge:

Challenge 1: Take a virtual trip to the Louvre Museum in Paris, France and learn about some great works of art from home! Raphael, Mona, and Nabi are 3 cartoon characters who react to some works of art from the world’s largest art museum in Paris, France: “The Louvre”. They invite children (and their parents) to spend one minute with them in front of a painting, sculpture, or antique vase, and to learn a little more about art. Click on the link below to watch some short videos on the Louvre Museum playlist “One Minute in a Museum”:

One Minute in a Museum (The Louvre)

Follow on activity: What was your favourite work of art and why?

Challenge 2: Click on the link below to learn a few facts about The Louvre Museum:

Interesting facts about the Louvre Museum for kids

Follow on activity: Test your knowledge about the Louvre Museum by clicking on the link below to complete an online quiz: 

Madame Birtwistle's Quiz: the Louvre Museum

Challenge 3: Enjoy a virtual tour of the Louvre Museum right from your computer screen:

Virtual Trip to the Louvre Museum


EXTRA CHALLENGE! 

Explore another famous French museum in Paris: The Musée D’Orsay. You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Discover artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others:


Follow on activity:

Create a fact file about Monet (or another French or Francophone artist) and then produce your own masterpiece “in the style of” this artist!

Facts about Claude Monet

10 Monet art projects for children


Bonne Journée internationale des musées !
(Happy International Museum Day!)



Sunday 31 March 2019

Bonne Fête des Mères 2019


Last week, KS2 French pupils were busy thinking about adjectives that best described their mothers.  The children then used these adjectives to create a French themed Mother’s Day pin wheel card or bookmark.
This was an engaging way to focus on an important French grammar point: adjectival agreements in the feminine singular form!
Here are some examples of their creative work:




Bonne Fête des Mères!


Monday 7 January 2019

Un pull de Noël



This December, primary children from one of the schools in which I teach French, got involved in designing and painting a snowman sculpture as part of an inspiring Learning Programme supported by Salford City Council: Walking with The Snowman.



Walking with The Snowman was a festive sculpture trail that took place around MediaCityUK, to mark the 40th anniversary of Raymond Brigg’s heart-warming tale, The Snowman.

To learn more about this festive event, please visit the following website:


or follow @TheSnowmanWalk on Twitter.
As part of this exciting event, a snowman themed week was organised in school across all areas of the curriculum.  In French lessons, all KS2 children used their linguistic skills to design and describe a Christmas jumper for their snowman! Pupils were then invited to present their work to the rest of the class.

Y3 children were introduced to some nouns associated with Christmas and recapped basic grammatical rules about gender.  They revised some basic colours and numbers. Finally, they revisited basic grammar rules about forming plural nouns.  They then enjoyed applying this knowledge to design and describe a Christmas jumper for their snowman! Here are some of their fabulous designs and descriptions:





Y4 children were also given the task of designing and describing a Christmas jumper for their snowman… but their additional challenge was to use correct adjectival agreements in the singular form!  Here are some examples of their wonderful work:



Y5 children were instructed to focus on using adjectival agreements in the singular and plural form and/or expressing opinions about their snowman’s Christmas jumper.  Here are some examples of the amazing work that they produced:



Y6 children paid particular attention to using the negative, in addition to correctly using adjectival agreements in the singular and plural form.  Here are some examples of their impressive outcomes:



The children enjoyed tackling the grammatical challenges presented to them in this creative activity in French lessons, and their outcomes (as showcased above) clearly demonstrate the linguistic progression made across each year group.
At the end of the snowman based week in school, a whole school assembly was held, where pupils had the opportunity to share what they had been doing in class with the rest of the school.  Here are a couple of videos that Y3 & Y4 edited to showcase their work:


Here is another video, showcasing work produced by KS2 children in a different primary school:


Some of the children followed on by using their snowman based French work to create a French Christmas card!


Bravo les enfants!
NOTE
For primary language teachers who may wish to plan a similar activity, differentiated templates used to support writing across KS2 can be found here:
There is a lot of grammar involved, so although the support sheets are created with an appropriate learning expectation and outcome of each year group in mind, the author points out that which one you choose will depend on the time you have available, the children’s prior knowledge and their linguistic ability.