Christmas Cracker Content!

Christmas Crackers have always entertained my friends from other countries! They love them! This year I thought we could make a simple UKS2 lesson on similarities and differences in Christmas traditions and add a focus on sentence structure and grammar too.



We are going to create a box set of christmas crackers - each containing a full sentence made up of a part of the verb "to have", a noun and an adjective.The noun and the adjective are the surprise content of the cracker and the children are going to be able to determine the content! 

In this activity children will be practising

• nouns, 
• adjectives and adjectival agreement 
• and the verb "to have"

You may want to practise the verb "to have" before you attempt the activities below.Here is a festive approach to practising the verb "to have"Christmas Cracker and Christmas Carol style !
Christmas Carol Verb Singers






You will need Christmas crackers made as follows for this activity:

Plain card tempates - two per cracker.

First template is the base, 

Second template is cut in to three sections - two ends and a middle.

On the left hand end write part of the verb to have.

Gather all the right hand templates together and also make a pile of the centre sections you put to one side.

On each of the right end templates you are going to write adjectives that agree with the nouns you will write on the centre sections .

The activity

The children are going to be able to select a noun and an adjective that agrees with the noun to complete the class "Christmas Crackers" .

Each noun should be a festive object and you should aim to have examples of masculine and feminine singular nouns and plural nouns too.

Randomly place the christmas crackers with the parts of the verb on the board 

Can the children help you to create a Christmas box of crackers - so that the crackers on the board are in paradigm order?

Now ask the children to select nouns for each cracker (perhaps even the objects you find as presents in the cracker or characters and objects we associate with Christmas).

Can they now add the correct adjective- remind them that the spelling of the adjective must suit the noun they are describing!

Blu-tac the noun and the adjective to the cracker selected by the children

Can you make a box set of crackers each with the object and its description!

Time for your own crackers! 

Ask the children to design and create their own "Christmas Crackers Selection Box" ,creating their own full sentences and adding a picture of the object on the reverse of the cracker. 

You can support children by allowing them to use the language you have practised or you can stretch children by asking them o think of their own objects , find the noun and describe the noun with their own choice of adjectives.

Creating Characters and being Junior Judges on Strictly!

I love Strictly! We have used Stictly before in our network - a couple of schools created dance routines with directons, counting and commands.It worked really well.

Joanne, my associate colleague set up a Stictly Come Dancing Judges panel with numbers and personal info introductions too!

This year I am certain that children would love to become target language "Junior Judges"- just like the ones on the real programme.Watching "Strictly It Takes Two" I realised how we couod easily use this idea with children talking in the target language.

We will practise the verb "to be" and nouns.Add interesting adjectives and we could make similes too!
It's a simple but topical way of creating descriptive sentences, practising the verb to be and looking up and using nouns too and writimg,reading and saying out loud sentences in the target language!Oh and don't forget the children in the class will have to listen to each other too!

The tools we will need to be junior judges!

• We need to consider which parts of the paradigm we will need to describe pictures of dancers.  
• Firstly we need to practise the verb "to be" and selecting and placing the correct parts of the paradigm of the verb "to be" under dancers pictures "he...."/"she......"/ "they (male)......" they (female)....." and "they (male and female).......
• Secondly we need to investigate nouns we may like to use to describe dancers and the characters they are portraying.Let's collect useful nouns  from our bilingual dictionaries: ( pirate/ princess/ fairy/wizard/cyclist/penguin/bear/gentleman/ lady/ fruit seller etc).I would show the children some clips of the dancing from Strictly come Dancing or you could show picures on screen of soke of the dancers in outfits etc- Movie night or Halloween night would be two good themes.There are plenty of pictures out there on the internet too to use...... 
• Now let's play Simon says with the nouns and add actions and freeze frames

Judge the dancers!

• Why not show the children a couple of the dancers and the dances and let the children write out a descriptive sentences about the characters in the dances e.g "He is like a pirate" or "They are like monsters" etc
• Why not additionally or alternatively make it a guessing game.One person reads out the sentences he/she has written and the  rest of the class must guess who the sentences desctribes from the people in the show.

People Pillar Poems

You could always finish off the activity by creating some of my People Pillar Poems- using the characters from the dances....as both a writing and 3D display activity.Thanks to Clare Seccombe for the template!

Take a look here 

People Pillar Poems and template

It's a conversion! Rugby World Cup Grammar Challenge

Just a simple game but one I think that some classes will really enjoy! 
How many conversions can a team of children successfully achieve during a focus on grammar in the target language.
Each successful conversion is worth 2 points!

Pick your realistic and stage appropriate grammar focus - nouns, adjectives or present tense verbs!

Now the game is on!

The Rules of Rugby Conversion Grammar

• Each team should have four players (differentiated ability)
• Each player must particpate fully and be involved in the structural change to the noun, verb or adjective.
• Each player needs a small whiteboard and pen or pieces of paper.
• The teacher must set each team a similar challenge with a different item of vocabulary (see below)."The conversion challenge"
• Ask each team to convert the piece of vocabulary in front of them so that it can be used in a different way ( see below).
• Each team player must use their whiteboard or a piece of paper to write or demonstrate pictorially part of the change  to the piece of vocabulary"the conversion "so that it completes your conversion challenge

Possible Conversion Challenges 

With nouns (select an appropriate challenge for the level of your learners)

• Change a noun  and its article from definite to indefinite article and noun
• Change a singular noun to a plural noun
• Find out in the bilingual dicytionary if a noun is masculine or feminine and write it out with a definite artilce and an indefinite article

With adjectives (select an appropriate challenge for the level of your learners)

• Place a correctly written adjective in the correct place in a sentence with a noun
• Write accurately an adjective with a noun that is a feminine noun- expect agreement
• Show the different spellings of one adjective if it is used with a masculine singular , masculine plural , feminine singular, feminine plural noun. 

With verbs (select an appropriate challenge for the level of your learners)

• Spot a verb in a written sentence
• spot an unfamiloar verb in a written sentence and then find its meaning in a bilingual dictionary and write out the infinitive 
• Take an infinitive and write out the first person singular (etcetra) 
• Change an answer using a verb to a second person singular question
• Write a correct sentence using a modal verb and the infinitive of another verb

Physical Tour de France Grammar Game !

The class need to decide on three symbols to represent nouns, adjectives and verbs.

Stand up right for a noun, wiggle your body for an adjective and pump your arms for a verb 

(just like you would have symbols in Charades for book, film, musical etc).

Warm up the class first -

• Show the written word for a noun (discuss this) and ask the children to show you the correct actions
• Show the children the written word for a verb (discuss this) and ask the children to show you the correct action
• Show the children the written word for an adjective (discuss this) and ask the children to show you the correct action.
• Show the same cards again but don't say of these are nouns/verbs or adjectives.Ask the children to demonstrate the action. they think matches the word type.

Divide your class into “Tour de France t-shirt teams- different coloured t-shirts . No team should be le maillot jaune/la camiseta amarilla or das gelbe Tshirt. This one is for the winners at the end of the game! 

Let’s brainstorm nouns, adjectives and verbs that we associate with sport and particulary with the Tour de France. You couod suggest that the children check and access these in the target language in bilingual dictionaries first!

Here are some to start us off  ……….

Nouns Cyclist , bike , wheel, tyre, puncture , race ,helmet , t-shirt , shorts ,road ,city ,start, finish ,speed, power….

Adjectives fast , fit ,tired, thirsty, determined , exciting, powerful , competitive ,breathless,sporty

Verbs to push , to pedal ,to race ,to compete, to challenge , to cheer, to watch , to participate, to win , to lose , to pass , to crash, to celebrate

Put the individual words as written target language words on to cards in a bag.Select five nouns, five adjectives and five verbs .

Check that the children have had time to look at and remember the meaning of the words with a partner in their team before you put the words in the bag. 

Rules of the team competition!

1.  A volunteer  from a team selects a word from the bag and decides if it’s a noun, an adjective or a verb. 
2. They must mime the word type action to their team.
3. The team receive one point for guessing this correctly
4. The volunteer must mime the meaning of the word- one more point for the team if they can guess and say it in the target language.
5. If you play this UKS2 Year 6 or with KS3  there are two bonus points if they can put the noun or the adjective in to a simple sentence e.g the helmet is blue (etc)
6. There is one more bonus point if the team can create a first person singular present tense statement if the volungteer has pulled a verbmout of the bag! (e.g. I push , I pedal, I race etc )? 

Spin the wheel with German nouns and articles!

This is a simple game for UKS2 or KS3 German language learners who are exploring the relationship between articles and cases in German.

All you need are pictures of nouns you are practising e.g foods and a "Spinning Wheel" made of card - see my diagram- with an arrow that can move and is fixed to the centre of the circle.



Step One
Divide you class into differentiated ability teams of 6 children

Step Two
Place a picture of a noun or place the object itself in the centre of the Spinning Wheel Circle.
With the arrow at 12 o'clock invite a member of a team to say the noun  for the class (1 point)
Can the team decide and say the definite article that goes with the noun? (1 point)

Step Three 
Turn the arrow to one of the other written phrases.Can the team now say the noun after the word or phrase with an accurate definite artcile in the correct case? ( 2 points)
Can a member of the team explain why they have used this definite article  e.g it is how you say it after "ich habe..."  (1 point)
They can double the score if they can say what "case" they have used- Accusative or Dative  

Noun Nets and German

The challenge of nouns and definite/ indefinite articles in German and cases with young learners can seem like a huge challenge but I think we need to break this down and look for small steps of progression over four years.
The beauty of German is that there are very clear rules as qe use nouns in the nominative, accustaive, dative and genitive cases
I think that over four years we can help the children in primary German rto have "basic understanding of nouns"
What I am describing below will take the four stages ( four years of primary language learning to develop.

• Let's go catching nouns , like you would catch butterflies.Preciuous , to be looked after carefully and to be  examined and observed!
• Let's make it exciting - I mean how exciting is it that there are three types of nouns in German masculine , feminine and neuter.Let's make it an exciting exploration!!
• Let's make sure from the beginning that the young learners do not asscoaite thes three terms with sexual gender but see the titles "masculine","feminine" and "neuter"  as tags or labels.The blog post here on tags and labels for nouns may help you too .Nouns, definite articles,indefinite articles and colour card tricks
• Let's keep on talking about nouns, revisiting and reviewing nouns with our young learners too- across content and contexts and year groups and stages of learning.
• Let's put our nouns and finding about nouns as we explore the four cases - Nominative,Accusative,Dative and Genitive in to noun nets and let's reviit and explore them throughout the year and then across the year groups as we find out more! 

Noun Nets One!
In our first noun  net with stage one / beginner German learners Let's just collect singular nouns  and let's collect tags or labels.
Let's put the nouns we are learning (e.g. animal nouns) in to one large net as written word cards with the definitie article
Let's take the nouns out of the net one by one and examine the nouns carefully.Can we spot the different definite articles? 

Why not use my idea of the magnifying glass for this? 
The mysterious World of grammar and the maginfying glass

Let's add a new category and add plural nouns and the definitie article "die"
Let's explore plural endings and how we can spot the difference between for example "die Schlange" and "die Schlangen" 
Let's catch and sort our feminine nouns in two different nets! 

Noun Nets Two!
Let's sort our nouns! 
Can we categorise the nouns and place them in three nets - "der/ die and das" nets.
Let's be honest with the choldren and explain that the nouns have speical titles "masculine,feminine and neuter" 
Let's right from the start explain that the masculine does notr mean male etc
We can continue over four years to gently remind our learners so they have lots of chances to understand the "basic grammar facts "



Let's sort nouns using the game in this blog post I Spy Nouns- we can revist this activity many time too! 

Noun Nets Three!
With stage two , moving on learners on Year 4...
Let's look at nouns after the verb "haben".
Let's be positive and let' use "ich habe...."
Can we spot the difference in the spelling of the definite article 
Can we  create four new nets and place these below the first four nets that we already use. 
Where are we going to put the nouns now?
Ich habe den Hund
Ich habe die Schlange
Ich habe das Kaninchen
Ich habe die Katzen


Let's apply the rule we have made as a class and see if it works with a question..."Hast du....?"
(Maybe at this point you want to talk with the children about the "object" of the sentence... answering the question "What item are we talking about?" )
Remember it will be important to keep on talking about nouns, revisiting and reviewing nouns with our young learners too- across content and contexts and year groups and stages of learning.

Let's apply this rule to indefinite singular article nouns too now ......
Bring out I Spy Nouns again- a familiar activity but a new challenge to ask and answer questions with the verb "haben" and to use indefinite articles with the nouns....before sorting in to "noun nets"!

Noun Nets Four!
With stage three, moving on learners  at the start of Year 5 ....
Let's introduce some important prepositions and the effect that these prepositions have upon the definite and indefinote articles....
Break this down - don't bombard them- start with an accusative preposition "für"and investigate and apply the rules the children already used in"noun nets 3 
Now make it exciting....spot the changes and track the family of the nouns definite article- introduce a dative preposition "mit".
Can the children create the next layer of noun nets - "dem / der/ dem/ den!".

Take time over the year to explore some more useful prepositions and their relationships with definite artciles - zu / von / nach .Try to keep these  explorations to prepositions that don't change from Accustaive to Dative.
do talk with the children about these fascinating words "Nominative" "Accusative" "Dative " use them just like with UKS2 you might use the term"Algebra" or "Fraction"
Give your learners the chance over a period of time to just see these words as labels and signposts and useful as list headings for prepositions.....

You may like to use the Spin the Wheel Game to practise use of Nominative,Accusative and Dative Definite Articles.

Noun Nets Five! 
With stage three or four , moving on learners  at the end of Year 5, moving in to Year 5 ....
Let's explore the Genitive case ....
Let's once again use all our apporaches from Noun Nets 1,2,3,4 and let's make it an exciting discovery .
Ask the children if they can define for you what power the definite article in the Genitive has .... Can they suggest a sense of belonging or ownership? Lead them to see this relationship 
And guess what set up your Noun Nets again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now we have our own book! 

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

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

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




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

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

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

Nouns and Articles Stepping Stone Challenge

Over the last six months I have been busy training teachers in primary schools to look at ways to deliver primary grammar and to develop their own and their pupils understanding of grammar.Last week we delivered intermediate French and Spanish. Here are my blog posts,should you like to take a look
Taking a closer look at nouns,adjectives and verbs
Activities to take a closer look at nouns,adjectives and verbs

What I love about this CPD is how dynamic it is and how it depends on the groups of teachers as to where we go with an activity too! It is currently part of our DFE funded MFL project Language Learning for Everyone

 At the start of  "Intermediate French and Spanish" we do look again at nouns (we consider and explore these in our beginners sessions).Here is the blog post on I spy nouns and we revisit definite and indefinite articles and we identify the patterns for masculine and feminine nouns and their definite and indefinite articles. This CPD is to help teachers not only be clear about the grammatical structures for themselves but also to consider ways to revisit and reinforce young language learners. These activities work too in German we just have to consider three noun types: masculine,feminine and neuter and work only in one case e.g. nominative or maybe accusative with this level of learner.

In  our "Spanish Intermediate CPD" we focused on making the possible options of article clear for the children.We focused on the process of identification and then selection....

So let's think! If  the learners know the noun,have identified if it is masculine or feminine, have identified whether it is singular or plural , have unpacked all the terminology just mentioned and worked through the process of identifying the information  required ....now can we help them to practise recalling and identifying possible best fit definite or indefinite singular and plural articles and  then selecting the one needed?  

We discussed as a group how we need to internalise the key words and then we created this challenge game!. Here is a photo of the flip chart page as the game was being created: 

Game One :Get Down the Board!

1. Randomly add the definite and indefinite articles to a board game or flip chart.These can be written more than once and need to written in stepping stone shapes.
2. At the top of your board game add to small circles in a different colour with "m" or "f" written inside these - to denote masculine or feminine.
3. Ask for two stepping stone challengers ( volunteers top try the first game)
4. Invite a challenger to the front!
5. Can the challenger make the journey from the top to the bottom of the board game stepping only on masculine or feminine stepping stones? The challenger identifies for the class which route by first touching either the "m" or "f" circle at the top of the board.
6. Can they make the whole route from top to bottom of the page stepping only on masculine stones if they selected the masculine circle at the top?
7. Does the challenger need to draw a bridge - that means add a strategic stepping stone and write in it another member of the masculine article family ( the challenger can select which specific article) so that the challenger can continue the journey to the bottom of the board?
8. Invite the second challenger to the board and can they complete the journey for the feminine articles?

We liked the idea of this game because it makes the learners think about the possible options,discuss the possible articles and internalise the articles too

We also thought that you could revisit this game again and again as a 5 minute filler or a game at the end of a lesson.

The game could be played on a table or with a group of children too.

Game Two :Noun Challenge

1. Play a very similar game to above but this time the teacher adds challenge - 6 pictures or items that represent nouns the children have already learned.Can they remember if they are masculine or feminine by remembering  which definite/indefinite article they practised with the noun.(Remember that Ana and Emilie tell us that they teach their own children the nouns always with an article and never just as a noun!) 
2. Set up two teams. Each team must select three challengers.
3. Each challenger comes to the front individually and selects a picture or noun that he /she has discussed already with their team and is confident that the team knows whether the noun is masculine or feminine.
4. The challenger names the item and says the definite article for the noun to the teacher.
5. If yes then they can try to make a route across the stepping stones as in the game above. 1 point is awarded
6. If they are not then the challenger must sit down and wait for another go.0 ;points is awarded
7. As the challenger makes his/her way down the board, he/she collects points - i point per correct stepping stone including if he/she needs to create a bridge and add an article stepping stone.
8. Each team has three goes .Which team is the winner?

This game makes the learners recall nouns and think about correct articles 

If played as a team challenge over a period of time the children will have a real purpose for internalising nouns and genders.

Once again it could make  a 5 minute filler or a game at the end of a lesson.

The game could be played on a table or with two teams per board game too so every child has to partcipate if they are teams of three players.

Taking a closer look at nouns,adjectives and verbs .Intermediate French CPD.

Getting ready for carnival,being creative and exploring a story based upon le carnaval des animaux

Every year we love carnival! Last year we celebrated with a theme based upon:

"carnaval des animaux-camille st saens"

The theme linked so well with our Y3 focus on animals and teachers found ways to create masks, perform dances linked to the music and to investigate Art and DT - all based on this theme.Truthfully this was a theme and a focus that whole schools took as an opportunity to use as creative shared learning across Music,Dance.Art,DT and Language Learning

We were able too to look at nouns in the singular and plural , to investigate unfamiliar animal nouns using bi-lingual dictionaries and to generate simple question and answer role-plays about animals and descriptions of animals: "What is it? What colour is it? how many can you see? Do you like.....? "

(Teachers decided upon the most appropriate questions and answers for their learners and the prior knowledge of the learners).

i knew about this book "Au carnaval des animaux" by Marianne Dubuc based upon the music by Saint saens and so as a carnival activity, mask making and fancy dress followed quite easily.The book is available in several languages.

We used the book in French and Spanish:

The blog link here gives you a flavour of the book in French Litterature de jeunesse .Simple repetitive story which allows the children to invent their own animal characters. We used  simple cut out cards such as these below, to create our own fantastical fancy dress animal costumes and the cards where ideal for simple "Guess who I am ?" games- where one child holds a card and the other children /or another child has to guess which animals are on the card the first child is holding.

Leads to the children being able to make up the most amazing animal names - combining all the names of the animals they have know in one fancy dress mixed up animal written or spoken description.

And hot off the press just found this brilliant primary unit of work guide for a whole unit of work based around la danse des animaux- useful if you are a French speaker! 

Brilliant ideas

And don't forget the possibilities of a wonderful dance to this famous song! Le livre de la jungle!

Here are some ways that we have in the past developed very simple beginners language learning based on carnival celebrations and the story of au carnaval des animaux  

Colourful French creativity

Just found this rhyme here on nounoud56.centerblog

You can listen to and sing along with the song here on this page too! 

Thought this would be a great way to develop reading and dictionary skills with our LKS2 Y4 French learners during Spring term. It will enable is to extend their knowledge of colours and reinforce our knowledge of nouns ....and maybe look for verbs in the text.

I love the idea that the crayons play whilst the children are outside on their playtime break and I love the fact the poem starts with a question....just what do the crayons do when there are no children in the classroom?

Step One 

Highlight or underline each sentence of the poem in the correct colour.

Spot the two sentences that contain no colours.

Step Two 

Make the poem a picture in a picture frame .

• Children should use the words in the question of the first sentence as the header of the frame and the words in the final statement at the end of the poem as the footer of the frame.
• The sides of the frame are pencil calligrams:the colouring pencils mentioned written as word calligrams of the different colours.For example I might put red ,yellow and blue on one side and the black and grey on the other side.
• Now ask the children to investigate the sentences in the poem that explain what the different coloured pencils have drawn.Ask the children to circle the nouns in the sentences and check or find the meaning of the nouns in a bi-lingual dictionary.
• Have they spotted the unusual colours for the objects- let them share with you what they have found out! (e.g the mouse is red....or is it?)
• Can the look at the picture evidence around the outside the written text and spot the anomalies? For example the "green" crayon has drawn a yellow sunshine etc 
• Now all they have to do is create the drawing as described in the text!

Step Three 

Make sense of the poem...

• Ask the children to explain the meaning of the word "dessine" - you may encourage them to think of English words that are similar (e.g design)
• Can they explain the role this word plays in the sentences in the text?
• Ask the children to create a more sensible set of sentences for the poem completing the sentences below: 

le rouge dessine .............

le vert dessine ...............

le bleu dessine ...............

le gris dessine ................

le noir dessine................

• Now they can become artists themselves and draw the objects they have decided are more sensible and match the colours and describe what is happening in French to a partner using the key sentences above.

And finally here is the You tube clip of the text above!

Nouns and Primary Languages Grammar. How are we getting on?

We have been considering ways to support all our colleagues to deliver appropriate primary target languages grammar as part of the language learning in school.This first round up blog focuses on nouns.
Here are some of the ways we have done this......

Child's voice,Stepping stones to grammar

Teacher's guide to the ways  to a step by step developmental understanding of nouns,verbs and adjectives from the perspective of a young child in primary school.

Function machines to keep a useful record

Using a familiar technique of Maths' functions machines to enable children to keep a re-usable record of the processes they need to apply to access and use grammatical structures.

Starting to understand nouns

Ways to help teachers to present nouns and the use of gender and definite/indefinite articles with young children who are just beginning to investigate the structure of language

Noun collectors

Several ways to help  beginner learners engage with the importance of collecting and identifying nouns in the target language 

I Spy Nouns

A game that can be used over and over again to help children who are moving on in their language learning .Children use  bilingual dictionaries to explore nouns.

Nouns,definite and indefinite articles, singular and plural!

Games and categorising activities to bring together knowledge of nouns as the children advance as young language learners. 

Creative use of nouns to become "Word Sculptors"

A group activity based on the use of nouns.Each group has the same nouns to investigate and use .The challenge is that the children need to create interesting sentences and performances so just like sculptors they create meaningful and creative spoken sculptures.This will help children to link nouns to adjectives and verbs