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