Over the past couple of years, I have become a big fan of matching activities for reading. In my last post, I cited balancing high tech with low tech and getting students out of their seats as focuses of 2025. These matching activities are always done on paper, and several of them get students up and walking around the room.
1. In this first activity, students, in groups, are given a sheet of paper with a table on it. On the right side of the table are various emojis. They are given strips of paper with sentences. Their task is to put the sentences next to the emoji or emojis they go with. The one shown below was done after students learned about La Toussaint. You could make this a game but I prefer not to.
2. In this second activity, sometimes called “Organized Chaos,” students get a sheet of paper like the one below. On the floor, crumpled up into balls, are the questions and answers that fill in the blanks (multiple copies of each one, and they are lettered). Students, working in groups, grab a crumpled-up ball off the floor, read it, and determine which blank it fills in and mark it on the sheet. Then they crumple it back up, throw it on the floor, and repeat. I like this activity because it’s different from what we usually do, and of course, it gets the kids out of their seats and moving around!
3. Students get out of their seats for this activity, too. There are pictures of francophone people displayed around the room, accompanied by maps that show where they live (because I am all about reinforcing geography). These are authentic photos that I found on Flickr. Students are given the sheet “Qui est qui ?” with a description of each person. They have to figure out who is being described. I also include a photo of a non-binary person from Canada, but due to copyright restrictions, I cannot display it on the blog. Click here to access the article where I got the photo. I included this activity in my NYSAFLT presentation about Creating a Diverse and Inclusive Classroom Environment and Curriculum. Also of interest here is my 2013 post Using Google Maps and Flickr to Reinforce Francophone Geography. Although a bit dated at this point, it still has some relevance. Flickr still remains a great way to find legal photos to use, and, in some cases, you can see exactly where they were taken, adding to the authenticity.
4. This is the classic match up activity that I’m sure we’ve all done at some point. Give students strips of paper, some with questions, some with answers, and they have to find their match. I also do this with time and dates. I use card stock and put magnets on the back so students can put their matches on the chalkboard. This is another great way to get students out of their seats.
5. In 2024, I blogged about The Joys of Tarsia, a puzzle making program. Tarsia puzzles are great for matching up numbers (or times or dates) with words, or matching questions with answers. These can be tougher than they look, so I have students work on these in groups. Below is one I did with common question words and answers.
6. I don’t do a lot of translation activities, but when my students encounter an authentic text, I think it can be a useful way to negotiate meaning. After watching this video about Martin Luther King in French, students matched up quotes from the video with their English translations. I recently blogged about this in my post Resources for Black History Month. I also do this activity with lyrics to songs that we listen to in class. Students are reading the French carefully to get the main idea, because there will be words they don’t know. I encourage them to also focus on cognates.
Do you have any favorite matching activities?
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