French club: Pâte à choux

We ended our last week before Spring Break on a light and refreshing note!  Gr. 7 and 8 students assembled (and savoured) pâte à choux with crème anglaise, a custard filling.  The recipe is below.

Pâte à choux recipe:

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs, beaten
Cream filling (below) (Whipped cream can also be used.)
Powdered sugar 

Heat oven to 400. Heat water and butter to al rolling boil in heavy saucepan.  Stir in flour and reduce heat.  Stir vigorously until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat.  Beat in eggs, all at once.  Continue beating until smooth.  Drop dough by heaping teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 35-40 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.  Cool.  Cut off top of each puff and fill with cream filling.  Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Crème anglaise

1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp corn starch
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups milk
2 egg yolks, beaten
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla

Mix sugar, corn starch and salt in heavy saucepan.  Gradually stir in milk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil and stir one minute.  Gradually stir at least half of the boiled mixture into the egg yolks.  Stir egg yolk mixture into saucepan. Boil and stir one minute; remove from heat.  Stir in margarine and vanilla; cool.  Use to fill pâte à choux.

This past week was Country Week and students enjoyed an introduction to the Twi language, one of the main languages of Ghana.  Our learning of a bit of Twi led us to explore the following:

• What kinds of basic words or phrases should we be familiar with if we are travelling to a country whose language we do not know?
• What strategies will help us learn those phrases as efficiently as possible?

Perhaps this Spring Break will take you to some new places to explore!  I wish you a happy, safe and fun vacation.

Bonnes vacances et à bienôt,

Mme Christensen

Fun with "les diseurs"

Each class has been reviewing the questions and answers learned this term using 

"les diseurs".

We practiced in preparation for our student-led conferences held this past week.  Thank you to all the parents who came to celebrate their child's learning!

This week, all classes will be studying the country of Ghana as part of our "Country Week" celebrations. "Another way to validate the experience of second language learning is to expose students to other languages, and to encourage them to learn a third language." (Florence Girouard and Sandra Drzysteck, Bureau de l'éducation française).  Some of the same strategies that we have used to learn French will be put to use as we learn a bit of the Ghanaian language this week!

You can read more of the article written by Florence Girouard and Sandra Drzysteck at this link  The Added Value of Learning Another Language .

À bientôt!

Mme Christensen

Haiku en français

This past week we have been creating haiku poetry using what we have learned this term.  Students wrote poems on a variety of subjects, such as winter, family members, Festival du Voyageur and pets.

We will continue to review as we prepare for student-led conferences this week!

À bientôt!

Mme Christensen

"Mini-professeur"

Part of our daily routine at the beginning of each class is the "mini-professeur". Each students has a turn being the "mini-professeur", questioning the class on the date, weather and season.

The "mini-professeur" asks the class:

• Quelle est la date aujourd'hui?
• Quel temps fait-il aujourd'hui?
• Quelle est la saison?

This past week we discussed what we have learned about French culture.  Each class filled a "sac culturel" with observations of French culture, with many ideas originating from our Christmas and Festival du Voyageur units.

This week we will continue to review our previous "Questions of the Week".  We will also be getting creative with some poetry.  Stay posted!

À bientôt!

Mme Christensen