Alice in Wonderland and describing people in speaking and writing

What a gift these new commemorative stamps are to celebrate 150 years since Lewis Carroll told his first story about Alice in Wonderland!

In the new DfE POS we are asked at KS2 to offer children the opportunity to:

"speak in full sentences"

"ask and answer questions"

"engage in conversations"

"describe people in speaking and writing ""

The article on CBBC news about the stamps is clear and child friendly with brilliant pictures of the stamps.Click here!

Here is a perfect way to engage our young learners in speaking,writing and creating descriptions... and as I write I am about 7 miles from Daresbury ,where the village celebrates its connections to Lewis Carroll. Indeed there is a strained glass window to celebrate Alice in wonderland in the church and our local town Warrington has a stone table statue celebrating "The Mad Hatter's tea party"  

Thanks to Ana and Emilie here are some of the main characters' names in French and Spanish

French:

Alice - Alice

Madhatter- le chapelier fou

Cheshire cat- le chat du Cheshire

The white rabbit - le lapin blanc

Spanish:

Alice- Alice

Madhatter- El sombrero loco

Cheshire Cat -- el gato de Cheshire

The white rabbit- el conejo blanco

  

So first of all let's have a tea party! 

Of  course we could act out what we see and hold a simple food, cafe or at table conversation.  

We can use all the language we have practised based on foods, likes, dislikes and if you follow our SOW table language from Year 6 to animate this picture of the table with speech bubbles and to create the perfect menu too.....  

Now let's create our own stained glass window

Let's investigate the series of stained glass windows in Daresbury church with characters from Alice in Wonderland.Take a look at the stained glass window here.

• Let's change the speech bubbles and add our own questions and answers between the characters - as simple as necessary of course ( ranging from greetings,farewells, feelings, likes, dislikes, the time etc)  
• Let's make it a piece opf Art with tissue [paper and clear glue and add our speech bubbles and writing
• Let's bring the pictures to life by importing the pictures in to APPs such as Tiny Tap  and adding a recording of the children's voices as sound patches over the  the speech bubbles in character.Can they say the words in character too?

Let's explore the characters!

Show them the film trailers in the target language! (Alice et les pays des Merveilles is French version and Alice en el pais de Maravillas is the Spanish version and the German version is Alice im Wunderland)

Show them the stamps and the images

A simple description:

Ask the children who are moving on learners (Year 4 /Year 5) to use bi-lingual dictionaries to write two simple sentences using the verb to be and two simple sentences using the verb to have about a character.We could record our spoken language on Yakit for kids. Here is an example......

Alice est jolie

Alice est petite

Alice a les cheveux blondes

Alice a les yeux bleus

Adding challenge to the description

Let's see if the more advanced young learners (Year 5/6) can complete some present tense sentence descriptions about the characters and add at least one independently written sentence of their own.Here is an example :

le lapin blanc est..............

le lapin blanc porte..........

Le lapin blanc n'aime pas .........

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

Now let's bring the characters to life with animation using Funny Movie Maker where you import your picture of the character and add spoken words (so the children's description).There is an android version of this too.

And let's keep a written  record of the descriptions 

• as posters in a class book of Alice in Wonderland or 
• as our own commemorative A4 stamps with a picture of the character and the words and sentences around the character that the children have written in the target language.
• as PicCollage posters with imported additional pictures of the book in the target language from the web!

Different ways to get started with new content and add interest and challenge

A colleague has just contacted me to ask for ways that we might engage young learners when introducing new content.....

Here are some of my initial thoughts, 

Engaging with our senses

• Make the activity touchy feely - what's in the bag/ magic sack/ under the blanket / cloth etc?
• Add an element of sensory challenge - don't look! Just smell or taste - what could it be?
• Hearing the item before seeing it- does it rattle,squeak,clatter  etcetra?

Be detectives! 

• Solve the scenario - what collection/ group/ family / situation might all the new items you are introducing belong to (e.g a weather report/ a zoo/ a jungle/ a restaurant etc).Give them pictures of possible scenarios from which to pick (e.g a zoo and a jungle or a cafe and a restaurant)
• What's the link- in which order should the new items be ordered? Introduce the items in a specific order - can the class spot the link
• Ask the class to watch and practise carefully the new items and then on tables set up their own "solve the link" problems for the rest of the class.Let the class create link problems for the rest of the class to solve e.g.  one table can pout three of the items in size order - can the rest of the class spot the link and place the other items in to the size order so that the link is completed.Or another group might put some of the items in alphabetical order - can the rest of the class spot and solve the link
• Conceal all the items under a sheet- so that it looks like a landscape.Introduce the items as a word and a picture , Can volunteers come to the front and spot the items from  its shape under the blanket?
• Introduce more than one of an item ... maybe specific colours. Can they help you count up the items?
• Play hide and seek with the items ....just where is that new item?Who can find it first- maybe the pictures are blu-tacked around the room or are wrapped up and need to be unwrapped.Maybe volunteers are holding the possible items or pictures you want to share.
• Finding the matching parts.Cut your pictures in half and share one half of the picture - now who is holding or where is the matching half to complete the picture of the food,animal,clothes item etc

Learn together

• Don't just share the words, ask the children to work in groups to initially find possible words that we might need if we want to talk about animals, clothes , foods etc.Take feedback and see which of the words they have found match the words you want to share in the lesson.Make a list of the other words for additional language later in the focus.
• Listen to the words first on sound files and ask the children to spot the written word on a flip chart or on cards in front of them.Can they help you to decide how to say the words by listening carefully to the sound files?
• Reveal a new word or phrase in the target language and ask the children to share in English any fascinating facts they may know about the item - e.g weather (hurricanes/ storms/droughts etc) or animals ( speed of animals/ largest and smallest /habitats etc).Add some fascinating facts of your own- to break up the repetitiveness of practising new words and to add a new dimension to the learning

Set up a challenge!

• Be first to spot the longest word
• Be first to spot the shortest word
• Be first to remember all the words that start with a vowel
• Be first to spot the words with two syllables
• Be first to spot all the  masculine words / all the feminine words/ all the plural words
• Be first to remember all the phrases using the same verb

Make a noise!

Make learning the sound of the words and the phrases fascinating

• Give words and phrases a beat or a rhythm .Ask the children to identify the words/ phrases just by their beat or rhythm.Make it a pair activity
• Make the words silent - just repeated in silence in your head
• Add radio control - loud or quiet responses
• Silly voices
• Put the new words in to a nonsense rhyme and add to the rhyme as you add new language.
• Create an English story interspersed appropriately with the new phrases  and words and  ask the children to see if they can retell the story to each other.

Ways we developed learning based on the book Au carnaval des animaux Marianne Dubuc

So how did we get the animals to the carnival party......?

As this is all about a party , last year I based some simple Year 3 language learning on party games based upon animals.

Listen,imagine and explore the kingdom of the animals.
Well last year before  looking at some of story- as it's a long story " au carnaval des animaux "or "el carnaval de los animales" , we listened to some special music by Saint Saens "au carnaval des animaux" to see if we could imagine the animals that might be in the music.We then  went on an animal thought walk .

• Which animals did we already know in the target language?
• Which animals did we like?
• Which animals might be in the story?
• Which animals might we need to look up in a bi-lingual dictionary because we think they may be in the story?

...and then we made our own freeze frame pictures of the animals we had discussed.I called out an animal in the target language and the children took the pose of the animal .They had to stand very still for a count of ten ...or they were out and had to sit down and be a freeze frame statue judge with me.

We took a vote on our top ten invite animals to the animal party and made a tally chart with the written target language noun at the top of each column.

We wrote out the words for the top seven animals we wanted as a class to invite to the party  

We lined our top seven animal words up in alphabetical order - ready for party invitation printing....

....and then as a class we investigated soe of the story.What happened to the animals as they put on their fancy dress?

We took the first five animals and their fancy dress and listened a second time to these pages of the story and drew the animals in the air- as they appeared before the fancy dress and then with the fancy dress.

We looked through the story for the magical fairy tale characters and played Simon says with the names of the animals and the fairy tale characters and actions we agreed upon to represent each character.(I didn't do this but wish i had ... and this was to create posters of the fairy tale characters with their eyes/nose/hair/teeth etc made up by different parts of different animals )

C Our  challenge was to get the animals we had chosen to the party!

     

I gave out animal name cards and asked the children to remind me of the names they knew of animals and what had happened in the story book.

We listened again to some of the music from Saint Saens.Take a look at my original blog post on this theme 

Exploring a story based on Saint Saens and au carnaval des animaux

I asked the children to pass the names of the animals around a seated circle until I paused the music and then they had to mime the animal on their card for the person sat next to them.Could the person guess the animal? We then carried on with the game.

We then played a memory chain game .We looked at our top seven animals for the party and practised with a partner the names and the actions for the animals.seven volunteers were then lined up at the front and each children had to try to say a different name of an animal .They could phone a friend for help too. Once the children were confident then it became a one against one play off of the game at the front- two children saying animal nouns in turn...who would dry up first?

The sound -spelling of the animals

We played several sound -spelling games:

Animal sounds - walking round the room with a letter string card from the nouns of the animals , quietly saying the sound of the letter string to find other  children with the same sound.Once all the children are gathered in to their correct groups- each group shouts out their sound and the class decides which animal picture displayed at the front of the classroom this sound belongs to.

Build the animal

I divided the nouns for the animals into letter strings- preferably two per animal noun.All the children had a card with a letter string written on it from an animal noun on it.They walked around the room and found someone who had the other letter string so that put together it became a complete animal noun.Once they had found the whole word, they had to draw on a mini whiteboard a quick picture of the animal and sit down with their hand up.Who would be first  or last to do this?   

I used my game "Open and reveal" to anticipate the name of the animals and to link the learning to other familiar language

Open and reveal four corners puzzle

Making masks and practising the key phrase to explain the disguise

....and then we made our animal masks,ready for our Saint Saens carnival parade.

We practised the key phrase from the book   in the target languages "I am disguising myself as...." and used our "animal" voices (voices that sounded like the animals).

If I make them again I think that we should have two animals on each mask....who the children want to be before the fancy dress and on the reverse the animal they want to disguise themselves as.

Exploring role play

This blog post is to support those looking for ways to work with role play that encourage teacher and children to practise:

asking and answering questions

speaking in sentences

engaging in conversation 

and

describing people,places and things orally (and in writing)

It is really important that you plan for the stages of developing this skill:

• From simple responding to a simple question (maybe in a game where the teacher sits children in a circle and the class practise in song or rhythm a question until the teacher stops and selects a children to respond- perhaps by rolling a ball to the specifc child or picking a name tag lolly stick randomly from a tub etc
• Through to matching appropriate questions and answers that are written on randomly ordered cards and reading them in a correct order with a partner
• To developing conversations independently using asides and  additional language.

Take a look at this report for some very real reasons why it is so important to support children to build the ability to engage in conversation with target language speakers.

Latchford Year 6 visit their Spanish friends in Malaga

Here are some creative ways to develop your role play beyond simple personal information questions and answers, shopping dialogues etc 

Talking animals using the Yakit for Kids APP

Who lives here? talk prompts for question and answer practise

3D Art and verbs to create conversations

Totem pole prompt sticks

3D scenes questions and answers in clay

Changing faces and pop art

Paper puppets with a purpose

Christmassy questions and answers

Rudolph and your nose so bright

Carnival conversations and triaramas

Elmer explorers

The aliens have definitely landed

The aliens have definitely landed! Year 4 Spring term observations.

We have an alien family in our JLN SOW.We introduce Year 4 to the family in Spring and then the children meet the aliens  to practise language across all four skills and grammar  at points later in Year 4,5 and 6. We love our aliens and they never fail to disappoint! Here is part of the family at carnival later in the school year! I say part of the family as our young learners keep on making us new members of the family.I have met the family several times in the last couple of weeks and what is remarkable is that each teacher adds their own style to the introduction and practise of the language around the aliens! 

Have a look at the difference in approaches between Ana's Spanish Year 4 lesson on the family.Janet W's Year 5 beginners French lesson on our alien family ,Emilie's Bonjour Madame blog post on her alien family lesson and the use of a Voice recording APP and now here below Joanne's Year 4 lesson in Spanish on the "familia alien" - full of drama and performance!

   

As you may know if you have been reading my blog posts on observations, I am currently undertaking a routine series of observations of the language assistants and teachers who work alongside me in our primary schools.They deliver primary language learning on a weekly basis.It is such a rewarding and pleasurable opportunity to see what is really taking place in schools.

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

Joanne's "Familia alien" lesson

• A warm up greetings song packed with actions and  whole class singing , as they gathered on the carpet for the Spanish 
• Personal information questions and answers - using "the guest" (that was me) as a person to get to know.Praise for children - particularly those who don't always  speak Spanish confidently to new people in the classroom.
• Incidental language all in Spanish and reminders to " sentaos" to a couple of children not quite sat down or "escuchad" and "miradme" and then an instruction to discuss with their talking partners the language they had met for the first time last week "la familia alien" .....
• Looking for links (e.g papa/ mama or hermano and hermana) and praise for correct use of definite articles with reward " a star-cash" for someone who really thought hard before sharing a correct article! 
• Now the whole class was moving around and being the characters with the actions the children had chosen for the characters last week .As many actions as there are syllables in the nouns reminded Joanne. A wagging finger for mama, hands behind the head and a yawn for papa, football kick for hermano and disco dancing for hermana  and  tiny moving fists and feet for bebe! Stereo -typical (as Joanne pointed out) but chosen ,owned  and liked by the children and acted out with gusto!
• Now we started to use the question " Quien es?" and full sentence responses were expected " hola soy el bebe alien" etcetra...always in character , always with actions,accurate pronunciatrion expected and reinforced  and always performed well.
• The children were so engaged that they just listened ,joined in and responded to incidental instructions without even noticing that these were in the target language.
• Today  "abuelo" and "abuela" joined the family! This was a big moment  in this particular school,because when Year 6 were in Year 4 they designed the grandma and grandad to complete the alien family for us.It was their idea! They are precious to the school!
• Joanne introduced "abuelo" and asked the children to look at the slide from the familia alien ppt and work out how to say "abuelo" before she shared correct pronunciation ... and what we heard was excellent!
• Then she asked the children to be language detectives think about what they thought grandma might be in Spanish .... and with their talking partners we could hear them say "Well it's hermano  and hermana so perhaps the word ends in "a" (etc).Back came the response "abuela" and now Joanne could introduce Grandma.
• Of course the class needed actions for the characters and decided on an action that conveyed what one of the children described "Ooh me back" for abuelo and for grandma the class decided on a knitting action.
• "Can we play a dramatic Pedro dice?" asked one child. What a good idea was Joanne's response.Off they went to their standing spaces and how did the children own the game! Performance filled,volunteers as Pedro dice who had to say whole sentences for the rest of the class.One volunteer won a "starcash" reward for excellent pronunciation,intonation,speed of recall, use of complete phrases and correct use of "o" and "a" for our new characters - abuelo and abuela. How proud was that person!
• Time for performance in groups.On their home tables,the children had to create a performance introduction to the familia alien for the rest of the class.Each child had to be a character from the family , keep and enhance the actions and add their own alien voice.Joanne clarified that what she was looking for, was clear confident introductions to the  familia alien.
• As support she offered children the familia alien photo sacks (small card pictures of each character to help with recall of the nouns) but only if the children felt that they needed to use them .
• As additional challenge  the children were encouraged to add their own sentences - names, ages, feelings etc....maybe even questions for other family members.
• And off they went to spend 10 minutes creating their  entertaining Spanish familia alien performances for the rest of the class! 
• Thank you Joanne and Year 4.The aliens have definitely landed!

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Observations....?

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

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

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

Dressing Elmer with KS1!

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

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

Going on a colour hunt with KS1 and Year 3 

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

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

Singing an Elmer song 

We have found a great Elmer song in French and have taken the melody and made a similar song in Spanish. Thanks to Joanne Hornby for this!(There is a sound file too accessible on JLN website for JLN network teachers and schools and those attending DfE CPD) Here are the French words and the Spanish words to help you if you want to sing this with your classes:

Spanish

E L M E R me llamo Elmer.

E L M E R orgulloso debo ser.

Soy un chico, lo más guapo, muy elegante.

Soy multicolor en mi resplendor  ¡Soy un elefante!

E L M E R me llamo Elmer.

E L M E R orgulloso debo ser.

Soy de retazos, y mis amigos son del color gris.

Me gustaría un día ser lo mismo y ser feliz.

E L M E R me llamo Elmer.

E L M E R orgulloso debo ser.

Verde, rojo, naranja, morado, ¡Qué elefante!

Sí sí, İSer así es sobresaliente!

E L M E R me llamo Elmer.

E L M E R orgulloso debo ser.

Azul, blanco, rosa, negro ¡Qué elefante!

Sí sí, İSer así es sobresaliente!

E L M E R me llamo Elmer.

E L M E R orgulloso debo ser.

French

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

De tout le troupeau je suis le plus beau,

l’éléphant le plus elegant.

Je suis bariolé de la tête aux pieds

Tout le  monde me reconnaît

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

Être différent c’est parfois pesant

je voudrais comme mes amis

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

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

Chaque année pour fêter la fin de l’été

Tout le monde se deguisait,

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

E.L.M.E.R. je m’appelle Elmer.

E.L.M.E.R. et puis j’en suis fier.

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

Elmer Explorer Roleplays 

Finally what about with KS2 Year 3 or Year 4 some Elmer totem pole prompt sticks for an Elmer role-play?
You can found out more about the totem pole prompt sticks and their general use here 
Here is an example of my Elmer totem pole prompt stick- one between two .It's a coliumn of four picture prompts.

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

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

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

What are you called?  (I am called Elmer)

Where do you live? (in the jungle)

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










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

Elmer mini books and describing things in writing
Now let's bring together all this work in our own mini book.I just followed this You Tube Origami mini book clip and created the book I needed.
Firstly I used familiar pictures from the totem poles - so the children can write down famiioar phrases and then I added colour clouds so that the children can then write their own colour sentences about Elmer.

The task in itself will be differentiated by outcome - as some children may write short phrases and single words and other children may write sentences , whilst other children may write questions and answers as if it was a story between Elmer and the narrator.
Here are some pictures of my mini book ready to be written in.

Stretchy sound and letter string carnival balloons

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

Explore the patterns and sounds of the language

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now you are ready to share your magical carnival balloon

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

And finally .....

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