In my last three posts, I shared my plans from my first week of teaching elementary French once a week after school to 3rd through 5th graders. Click here to read my previous FLES-related posts. In this post I’ll share my plans from the fourth week of the six week program.
This week the topic was weather and seasons. I also took this week to introduce students to where French is spoken in the world and show them some photos. First, I introduced some weather terms with emojis. Then we looked at a map of the French-speaking world. If you read this blog regularly, you’ve probably seen this map. It’s also hanging up as a poster in my classroom. I explained to students that French is spoken all over the world, not just in France, and students identified some of the areas where French is spoken.
Next, I showed students photos of various locations the French-speaking world and described the weather in various seasons there. I used a combination of my own personal photos and photos I found on Photos for Class, a really cool resource my friend Swaz Piron (current President-Elect of NYSAFLT) shared with me that find free photos online and cites them for you. I haven’t used this resource with my students yet because I only recently found out about it, but I definitely will be in the near future. A few photos also came from WikiMedia Commons, which also provides a link to how to cite them properly.
Next students colored in their books. This week they drew and wrote what kind of weather they like and what kind of weather they dislike. Some students wanted to name a season, so they had to cross out the “quand” (when). Click here to access the whole book.
I gave all the students a vocabulary list with emojis to help them with the various activities. Click here to access the vocab. list.
Next, we played charades. Students enjoyed taking turns coming up to the front of the room and acting out weather terms. Below is a PowerPoint that I used in my lesson. Email subscribers, click here to access the PowerPoint. There is a flyswatter activity (Tapez) at the end that we didn’t get to, where two students at a time come up and you say a term, and the first person to touch the corresponding image wins a prize.
FInally, we finished with the old standard, LOTO. I used weather terms but also incorporated previous vocabulary, such as body parts. Click here to access the bingo set (which you can print out or play virtually!)
The one thing I will change about this next year is shortening the terms to just nouns (e.g. “le chaud”), instead of full sentences, such as “Il fait chaud” to make it easier for students to say and remember, and also make it simpler when they go to fill in their book (no need for the word “quand”). My 7th graders use full sentences when talking about the weather, but with the limited amount of time I have with the younger kids, shorter terms just makes more sense. I will also cut out a few terms, since there aren’t as many cognates.
As always, leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments!
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