Incognito.... and a snow sculpture update

The name of our unit in Grade 7 and 8, "Incognito" comes from the Italian language and means to be disguised. In this unit, we have explored masks from various cultures and discussed the materials they are made from, their purposes, designs and meanings.  Then we created our own masks, wrote about them and presented them this week.  Students then had an opportunity to ask and answer questions about each other's masks, exposition style. Our masks were our conversation pieces!

Having a fun moment posing with our masks!

Grade 6 students have been speaking about animals that they are afraid of (or not) and explaining why.  We enjoyed a short video about exotic animals that perhaps may have changed some of our views on lizards, snakes and arachnids.

Grades 3-5 students learned and practiced the prepositions "sur, sous, dans, devant, derrière et à côté de" in a fun song.  We practiced using these prepositions to describe objects that were out of place in an illustration of a very interesting and bizarre classroom!

The beginning of our version of "Noah's Ark"

This week students from Grades 3-8 will begin taking turns working on our snow sculpture during recesses and I will post updates. We are looking  forward to our Festival du Voyageur week (next week).  Thank you to all the parents for driving, chaperoning and volunteering their time and energies to make this event possible.

À la prochaine!

Mme Christensen

Blueprints for a snow sculpture and la tartine à la confiture

Grades 3-8 will be carving Noah's Ark this year, and we will try our best to follow these blueprints!  We'll post them on the French bulletin board as well.

Our scale is 1 square=15 cm or 6"

Here is our snow block, which is perhaps a little smaller than 12' x 4' x 7', due to some melting since last weekend.  Please stay posted for progress on our snow sculpture!

In our community this afternoon, on the corner of Marion and St. Mary's Road, two very experienced sculptors were happy to get their picture taken while they were busy at work on their snow sculpture.  They will also be working on the sculpture on Broadway and Main Street, which will be 14' high!  They also start their work using blueprints and gridlines on their snow block. 

On another note, in Grade Six, four different groups of students  placed animals in three different categories, agressifs (aggressive), sales (dirty) and dangereux (dangerous): 

Quite the interesting debate ensued, especially when cats and dogs were classified as dirty animals!  Students were expected to justify their statements en français.

Grade 6  celebrated their speaking in French for the month of January, earning nearly 700 points for each sentence spoken in French!  The Grade 7/8 class earned close to 900 points!  Bravo!  Both classes enjoyed some tartine à la confiture and a French video.

The Grade 3-5 classes continued their individual guided tours of our school.  Each day, a different student gives the tour while we make our way to the French classroom.

We've also been helping 'Nina' the mouse find her way through a maze using similar vocabulary for our school guided tours.  We had a test on parts of the school and on following the directions right, left and straight ahead.

Bonne fin de semaine!

Mme Christensen

Crêpes, take two!

Students in Gr. 7 and 8 had a second session of crêpe-making in French club, this time with a couple different garnishes/fillings.

We're keeping tally of how often we speak in French during French club, listening to recipe directions and talking about what we're doing using the vocabulary we have learned.

A blur of action!

What presentation! Bravo, Grade 7 and 8 students!

This week, Gr. 7 and 8 students will be working on "les mots interrogatifs" to help prepare questions for our upcoming mask exposition. Grade 6's will be learning how to defend their opinions of certain animals.  Grades 3-5 will be continuing to practice vocabulary describing directions (right, left, forward, behind) as they give guided tours of our school and learn a bit of hip hop dance in class!

Bonne semaine!

Mme Christensen

After School in French

We are very pleased to be able to have the SportMania: After School in French program here at our school.  Students had so much fun learning soccer skills and French at the same time! Our hip hop class learned their "cool moves" en français as well!

This link will take you to the "After School in French" website:

After School in French

Next week in Grades 3-5 we will practice our "visite guidée", touring our school in French. We will also continue our reading evaluations.  Grade 6 will be continuing their reading evaluations using the graphic text, "La Grande Course".  The Grade 7/8's are working on the good copy of the description of their masks.  We will then work on questions for our mask "expo"!

À bientôt,

Mme Christensen

J'aime l'hiver!

There are so many different ways to enjoy winter.  It's a long season, so let's enjoy it!  This week we have been talking about our favorite winter activities and using these sentences to play some charades. 

"J'aime faire un bonhomme de neige!"

"J'aime lancer des boules de neige!" (Of course, these are the only "boules de neige" we can throw at school!)

 We  have also been drawing and writing about our favorite winter activities:

We made a snow fort on the bulletin board with our drawings from all French classes in Grades 3-8.

We will find out next week what the most popular activities were and represent our findings in a graph.

This Monday we welcome the "SportMania: After School in French" program to our school for the next ten weeks!  We are privileged to have hip hop classes in French as well as a combination of ball hockey, dodgeball and soccer in French!  Stay tuned!  Here is a link to the "After School in French" website:

After School in French

À bientôt,

Mme Christensen

Joyeux Noël, Bonne Année et Bonnes Vacances!

All our advent candles are 'lit'  this week; Christmas is near!  We look forward to celebrating the birth of our Saviour, Jesus.

We hope you enjoyed the short skit in French performed by three of our Grade Five students in our school's Christmas concert this past week.  

We have been busy! Our Gr. 7 and 8 French club helped to decorate a bûche de Noël, which is a very traditional French Christmas dessert similar to a jelly roll.  It is shaped and decorated to look like a Yule Log. ( 'Bûche' means 'log'.)

Due to the short amount of time that we have during the noon hour, the cake portion had to be prepared in advance. The link to the recipe is at the end of this post.

Prepping the whipped cream!

We melted semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave and let them cool to the perfect temperature for making yummy chocolate curls.

Raspberries were washed and ready, perfect to pair with chocolate!

The chocolate roll was filled with whipped cream...

and garnished with whipped cream as well!

The results were spectacular!

 Here is a link to the recipe from our Dec. 2013 posting:

Recipe: Bûche de Noël

Grade Six students also savored some of this traditional French Christmas dessert.

Grades Three to Five made a craft this week to hang on their Christmas trees at home.

C'est le renne Rodolphe!

Be sure to check out the French Christmas links on the right  side of this blog.  I wish all families a warm and memorable Christmas holiday.  Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

À 2015!

Mme Christensen