May 22-25:
This week, we began our Social Studies unit on mapping and students reviewed community vocabulary and positional language. Students completed a listening activity in which they had to draw a classroom following an oral description applying their vocabulary and knowledge of prepositions (sur, sous, dans, devant, derrière) and designed their own communities.
May 14-18
This week, students continued to apply their letter sound knowledge to the French Prayers "Hail Mary" and "Our Father". We also worked on our unit exploring adjectives by describing ourselves and our friends, paying particular attention to gender accords. Students were also asked to describe a math story in which people joined or left a food truck line. (e.g. il y await 15 personnes en ligne. ____ sont partis/sont venus. Maintenant, il y a _____ (15 ___ _____ = ____)
May 7-11th:
This week, students continued to explore sentence structures with verbs, nouns and adjectives and described our selves using "masculin and féminin" adjectives.
April 30-May 4th
This week we explored sequential writing applying the terms: premièrement, deuxièmement, ensuite, finalement. We also began our health unit on personal safety and read the story "Monsters, Inc."(en français). We discussed how we would have felt if we were "Boo" and lost in an unknown place. Students began working on a sheet called "Je suis important(e)" which required them to know all their personal information for safety purposes.
April 23-26:
This week we explored and applied terminology as it relates to energy and food chains. Students reviewed reading strategies and essential writing skills such as: capitalization, punctuation and spacing. Students are being encouraged to pay attention to punctuation when reading by pausing at commas or periods, or changing their voice when they encouter "quotation marks", exclamation points! or question marks?
April 9th-20th:
Over the course of two weeks, we continued to review letter sounds and sound-blends through various reading and creative writing opportunities. Students practiced their oral and written French using familiar vocab to read various Spring-themed poems, pattern books and poems for Earth day.
April 3rd-6th:
Spring has sprung!
This week we focused on getting our brains back into French mode following Easter Weekend. Orally, we explored the different applications of "J'ai" and "Je suis" when describing things we have done in the past. Students were encouraged to talk about what they did over Easter break using these verbs. We also began exploring spring vocabulary (animals, clothing, nature) and started learning the song "L'arbre dans ses feuilles". To go along with this song we reviewed the sound "on/om" (Phonétique animée Gaston Cochon) and began exploring the sound "ille" (Guillaume Gorille).
This week, we began our Social Studies unit on mapping and students reviewed community vocabulary and positional language. Students completed a listening activity in which they had to draw a classroom following an oral description applying their vocabulary and knowledge of prepositions (sur, sous, dans, devant, derrière) and designed their own communities.
May 14-18
This week, students continued to apply their letter sound knowledge to the French Prayers "Hail Mary" and "Our Father". We also worked on our unit exploring adjectives by describing ourselves and our friends, paying particular attention to gender accords. Students were also asked to describe a math story in which people joined or left a food truck line. (e.g. il y await 15 personnes en ligne. ____ sont partis/sont venus. Maintenant, il y a _____ (15 ___ _____ = ____)
May 7-11th:
This week, students continued to explore sentence structures with verbs, nouns and adjectives and described our selves using "masculin and féminin" adjectives.
April 30-May 4th
This week we explored sequential writing applying the terms: premièrement, deuxièmement, ensuite, finalement. We also began our health unit on personal safety and read the story "Monsters, Inc."(en français). We discussed how we would have felt if we were "Boo" and lost in an unknown place. Students began working on a sheet called "Je suis important(e)" which required them to know all their personal information for safety purposes.
April 23-26:
This week we explored and applied terminology as it relates to energy and food chains. Students reviewed reading strategies and essential writing skills such as: capitalization, punctuation and spacing. Students are being encouraged to pay attention to punctuation when reading by pausing at commas or periods, or changing their voice when they encouter "quotation marks", exclamation points! or question marks?
April 9th-20th:
Over the course of two weeks, we continued to review letter sounds and sound-blends through various reading and creative writing opportunities. Students practiced their oral and written French using familiar vocab to read various Spring-themed poems, pattern books and poems for Earth day.
April 3rd-6th:
Spring has sprung!
This week we focused on getting our brains back into French mode following Easter Weekend. Orally, we explored the different applications of "J'ai" and "Je suis" when describing things we have done in the past. Students were encouraged to talk about what they did over Easter break using these verbs. We also began exploring spring vocabulary (animals, clothing, nature) and started learning the song "L'arbre dans ses feuilles". To go along with this song we reviewed the sound "on/om" (Phonétique animée Gaston Cochon) and began exploring the sound "ille" (Guillaume Gorille).
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March 26-29th:
This week we began preparing for Easter in our class. Students completed a creative writing activity using spring vocabulary "Dans mon panier de Pâques il y a... We continued to explore vocabulary for "le printemps" (Spring) et "Pâques" (Easter) by building and weaving our own easter baskets. Students were given eggs and asked to hide mystery tems and describe them (en français) to help their classmates discover what was inside.
To support your child's seasonal vocabulary acquisition, please view some of our songs about printemps below!
In class, we have also established our reading groups (red, yellow, green, blue) and began reviewing the reading strategy of using pictures to help us guess and check new or unfamiliar words based on the context of the story.
This week we began preparing for Easter in our class. Students completed a creative writing activity using spring vocabulary "Dans mon panier de Pâques il y a... We continued to explore vocabulary for "le printemps" (Spring) et "Pâques" (Easter) by building and weaving our own easter baskets. Students were given eggs and asked to hide mystery tems and describe them (en français) to help their classmates discover what was inside.
To support your child's seasonal vocabulary acquisition, please view some of our songs about printemps below!
In class, we have also established our reading groups (red, yellow, green, blue) and began reviewing the reading strategy of using pictures to help us guess and check new or unfamiliar words based on the context of the story.
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Week 26: March 19-23
This week we continued to focus on expanding our vocabulary of body parts in French. Through exploration of the "an/am/en/em" sound and the story of "André le géant" we were able to use and apply our knowledge to illustrate the story.
Week 24: March 5-9
This week we focused on primarily expanding our vocabulary of body parts, and their senses/functions/ailments in French. Ie: My lungs help me breathe, when I am sick, my lungs feel full and it is harder to breathe.
Week 23 & 24: Feb 20-March 2nd:
This week we continued to explore the French sound "OU" with the story: "Couche-toi Loulou". Students were exposed to French cultural traditions at our school wide Winter Carnival (though it felt more like spring!).
Week 22: Feb 12-16th
This week we developed vocabulary surrounding various themes: Valentine's Day, 100s Day and Carnival. We used the sounds we have been practicing (é/er/ez "eh", è/es/ai/est "e", in/im/ain, eau/au, "on/om" and "o", oi/oî "wa") to read these unrehearsed terms, increasing our confidence with the French language. We also explored the French book "Veux-tu être mon Valentin?" and practiced completing the activities we will be using at the end of the month as part of our new homework "Home Reading" program.
Week 21: Feb 5-9th
This week we completed a variety of activities to learn French vocabulary surrounding groundhog day (Le jour de la marmotte), and Valentine's day (La Saint Valentin) and the Olympics (Les Olympiques)... We explored le son "oi" (oiseau, roi, fois, noix) and reviewed all of the French songs and sounds we have covered so far (a, e, i, o, u, é (er), è, au (eau), in, and oi. We also fine-tuned our knowledge of the words: qui, quand, quoi, comment, pourquoi, où by completing activities following a read aloud Valentine's Stories.
Week 20: Jan 29-Feb 2nd
This week we invited parents into our classroom to watch the "Three Little Pigs Play" we have been working so hard on. In addition we used this play to help us with our word study of "question words": qui, quand, comment, pourquoi, and où.
Qui (who?): The play is about the 3 Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf
Quoi (what?) The story tells us about a wolf who wants to go into the pigs' houses
Où (where): The play takes place outside the three little pigs' houses
Quand (when): The play takes place during the daytime, pictures could help us see it may be taking place in summer or spring
Pourquoi (why?): The big bad wolf wants to knock down their houses and eat the pigs!
Comment (How?): The wolf blows their houses down with his strong breath. The brick house doesn't fall so he comes down the chimney and falls into a pot of soup!
We continued to focus on expanding our oral and written French vocabulary through these question words. We focused on various ways to pose questions and began using the question words: to complete a read and respond to the book "Caillou cherche son chat".
Week 19: 22-26th
This week we continued to explore the "ch" sound and worked on the French rules which are applied to adjectives and féminin/masculin or pluriel words with the story "Tes chausettes sentent la moufette" (Munsch's Sarah's Stinky Socks). With this story, any adjective that is used to describe her "chausettes" (a feminin and plural version of "socks") gets an e and an s on the end. For example if you had blue socks these would be referred to as "des chausettes bleues".
Week 18: Jan 15-18
This week we began exploring the French consonant sound blend: "ch". The pronunciation of this digraph is very similar to that of "sh" in English, and students should be able to feel the sound behind their bottom teeth when they say it orally. We explored the sound through choral reading of funny animal stories (e.g. Un chat qui mange du chocolate. Un chien sur le chemin) and through continued study and practice of our play "Les trots petits cochons".
Week 17: Jan 8-12
This week we focused on getting our minds back into the habit of speaking French. We began practice the actions for our AIM play (Les trois petits cochons), orally described our Christmas vacations, and wrote out our class dream board of New Year's Resolutions for ideas such as: Je veux lire (I want to read), je veux essayer (I want to try), je veux aller (I want to go), je veux apprendre (I want to learn). Students were encouraged to think of areas where they can improve and set realistic goals that they can control and work towards. We continued to reinforce our growth mindsets and the power of the word "yet".
Week 15 & 16: Dec 11-22
For the last two weeks of school, we continued to develop our vocabulary for the Christmas season by studying the singular and plural forms of various words: sapin(s), traîneau(x), lutin(s), cadeau(x). Each of these words drew on the knowledge we have already developped with our our French sound exploration (such as "eau" and "in"). We used our word study words to write a Christmas/Nativity journal entries which turned out just beautifully! We also continued to develop our oral French vocabulary with continued exploration of the AIM play "Les trois petits cochons".
Week 14: Dec 4-8
This week students continued to develop their French oral and reading skills through continued exploration of the AIM play: Les trois petits cochons. Students explored a new French digraph in the "in" sound and explored vocabulary relating to Christmas.
Week 13: Nov 27-Dec 1st
This week students began working on on the AIM method (Accelerated Integrative Method) for French Language Acquisition. This method pairs actions with the most common French words to help students acquire confidence and flexibility with their use of a second language. Students began working on the play "Les trots petits cochons" and will be learning this play as part of our drama unit. As part of our sound study, we focused on developing our vocabulary for the upcoming winter months and Christmas Season. We explored les son "eau" and "ch" (much like the English sh) through various words such as manteau (coat), chapeau (hat) and eau (water). We also read the story "L'habit de neige" (Robert Munsch's 'Thomas' Snowsuit') to further enhance our reading comprehension and French vocabulary.
Week 12: Nov 20-24
This week students applied their understanding of sight words: "regarde, maman, papa, voici, le, grand, petit, dit, a" to various sentences through study in class and at home. As you may have noticed, we have paired these words with actions in class to help us gain confidence with the French language and to serve as another means of recall (as per the AIM method). We have continued to work on our growth mindsets and learning about how our brains work (e.g.: if I learn something by writing it, reading it, and acting it out I can make more connections in my brain which will help me remember it better!). In addition, we also focused on developing our reading and oral comprehension skills. We read the story "Clifford soirée pyjama" and discussed the story by exploring what happens at the beginning, middle and end (au début, au milieu, à la fin). To aid in developing our French vocabulary we used our reading strategies to help us understand the story. By looking at the pictures, searching for familiar words (or English words which sound similar) and using our French letter sounds we were able to act out and respond to the story.
Week 11: Nov 13-16
This week students began working on the French "o" sound as made by "eau" and "au". Students developed vocabulary for common words and were asked to sort the words according to where they hear the "o" sound. For example: bateau has "eau" at the end, while cochon has the "o" sound at the beginning. This allowed students to enhance their understanding of beginning, middle and end sounds (début, milieu, fin), begin breaking words into syllables and work on their sound parsing skills.
Students also moved onto coloured word lists for homework. This week we worked on developing actions for "la lists rouge" (red list). It is recommended that you continue to practice orally reading these words with your child each night as they will gradually increase your child's French reading proficiency and confidence.
Week 10: Nov 6-10th:
To celebrate Le jour du souvenir, we developed vocabulary related to a mini unit on peace and Remembrance day and read the story "Un coquelicot pour souvenir" which provides a French version of the poem "Flander's Fields".
For French songs related to Remembrance day please visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiinCxpJxSU (Je suis un enfant de paix)
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbULvjtJ_Xk (Beau coquelicot).
For a child friendly representation of War and Remembrance Day, I would highly recommend visiting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04p4zsl
To continue our study of the French colours we began designing "Crazy Pets" which come in all sorts of colours.
Week 9: October 30th-Nov 2nd
This week we expanded our knowledge of "les couleurs", focusing on "bleu, rouge, jaune, vert". We finished exploring the sound made by é, er, and ez ("eh") and moved on to the "è" sound which is quite similar to the English short e sound. We used this knowledge for a journal entry of "Ma couleur préférée est ________.
Week 8: October 23-26th:
This week we continued our exploration of French Halloween vocabulary with story writing and songs. We worked on the prepositions "sur (on), dans (in), sous (under) and ici (here) to enhance our French vocabulary and used these words in our journal entry.
We also learned the following song to the tune of London Bridge:
Sur, Sous, Dans
Devant, Derrière
Devant, Derrière
Devant, Derrière
Sur, Sous, Dans
Devant, Derrière
À côté de
Week 7: October 16-20th:
This week we continued our exploration of vowel sounds and began studying the "eh" sound in French which is typically made with an " é ", " er " or " ez " in French. Other letter combinations like ai, et, ée can also make the "eh" sound in French. Students worked on their sound recognition through various centers and with new Fall and Halloween vocab.
Week 6: October 10-14th
This week we finished our exploration of vowel letter sounds with the sound "U" using the song "Lucie Tortue" and our boîte à mots. To celebrate finishing our vowels we learned the song below and began studying non-sense syllables which help students combine consonants with vowel sense: for instance the "l" sound in French can be practiced through: la, le, li, lo, lu, the "r" sound through: ra, re, ri, ro, ru.
Chanson: l'air: Yankee Doodle
"Maman, Papa écoutez
Je connais mes voyelles.
A E I O U
a e i o u
A E I O U
Je connais mes voyelles."
We used our étude de mots words for the journal entry "C'est l'Halloween. Le chat est noir."
Week 5: October 2nd-6th:
This week we continued exploring our french phonemes with the sound "O". Students continued to practice the letter sounds A, E, I and O using their boîte à mots. We also began exploring the terms beginning, middle and end (au début, au milieu, à la fin) with respect to stories (retell what happened in sequence) and sounds (where do you hear the "O" sound in fromage (in the middle).
Week 4: September 25-28th:
This week we continued our French letter sounds by exploring the sounds "i" and "e".
This can be particularly confusing for french language learners as the letter i in French is pronounced and sounds like "ee". Please follow along with the song Isabelle Iguane to help your child distinguish their E and I sounds in French.
Week 3: Sept 18th-22nd
This week we have continued our exploration of French vowel sounds with the "e" sound. We continued to develop of French vocabulary for numbers and school supplies by making our own reader: "Je vois..." (I see).
Week 2: Sept 11th-15th:
We have a lot of really AMAZING singers in our class and we have been singing songs to get to know each other and our class. To help with our understanding of “basic needs” questions, we have created a song to the tune of “London Bridge”.
Est-ce que je peux…
Aller aux toilettes (go to the washroom)
Aller aux toilettes
Aller aux toilettes
Est-ce que je peux aller aux toilettes…
OUI, OUI, OUI tu peux!
Est-ce que je peux…
tailler mon crayon (sharpen my pencil)
tailler mon crayon
tailler mon crayon
Est-ce que je peux tailler mon crayon…
OUI, OUI, OUI tu peux!
Est-ce que je peux…
Chercher ma bouteille (go grab my water bottle)
Chercher ma bouteille
Chercher ma bouteille
Est-ce que je peux chercher ma bouteille
OUI, OUI, OUI tu peux!
Est-ce que je peux…
Prendre un mouchoir (take a Kleenex/tissue)
Prendre un mouchoir
Prendre un mouchoir
Est-ce que je peux prendre un mouchoir
OUI, OUI, OUI tu peux!
Est-ce que je peux…
Remplir ma bouteille (fill my water bottle)
Remplir ma bouteille
Remplir ma bouteille
Est-ce que je peux remplir ma bouteille
OUI, OUI, OUI tu peux!
Est-ce que….
Tu peux m’aider (can you help me)
Tu peux m’aider
Tu peux m’aider
Est-ce que tu peux m’aider
OUI, OUI, OUI je peux!
We have also been working on our understanding of French ABCs, colours, and sounds beginning with the "a" sound. In class, we studied the song "Aline Abeille" which can be found on my website under "resources and phonétique animée". Our homework program will begin with students printing "la, ma, sa, ta and va" each night. At the end of the week we will formatively asses these words in a small étude de mots quiz. No need to worry about the quizzes- it just gets the kids used to pencil paper assessments for the year :) For further help with French consonant sounds studied in SK and the "a" sound we are working on, students should also practice reading the first list of 9 words "la, ma, sa, ta, mal, lama, date, dada, lac".
Welcome to Grade 1 French Immersion!
Our French blocks will typically take place each morning after first recess between 10:30-12:00pm.
Our first few weeks of school are spent getting to know each other and establishing classroom routines and expectations. We will also be working our our Growth Mindsets, getting our brains back into French mode and getting ready to take risks participating in a second language program. A major emphasis in our class is that effort is more important than ability in achieving success. It is important to persevere and display a “can do” attitude when faced with a challenging task, particularly when doing so in a second (or third!) language. We will celebrate our mistakes and follow a growth mindset to emphasize that making mistakes is a great way to learn!
Our French blocks will typically take place each morning after first recess between 10:30-12:00pm.
Our first few weeks of school are spent getting to know each other and establishing classroom routines and expectations. We will also be working our our Growth Mindsets, getting our brains back into French mode and getting ready to take risks participating in a second language program. A major emphasis in our class is that effort is more important than ability in achieving success. It is important to persevere and display a “can do” attitude when faced with a challenging task, particularly when doing so in a second (or third!) language. We will celebrate our mistakes and follow a growth mindset to emphasize that making mistakes is a great way to learn!