Merry Christmas...the French way!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année 2018!

Here is a most delightful Christmas video from the eyes of two French children. Please enjoy...

Christmas en famille à la française

May every Christmas light you see remind you of the light of Christ that dispels all darkness in every area of life.

Have a most blessed and memorable Christmas! See you in 2018,

Mme Christensen

Fashion and Trashion

Our Grade 7 and 8 class has started a clothing unit; we had a test this past week on basic vocabulary. We have also have been asking each other clothing and fashion-related questions, starting with a basic question such as:

Qu'est-ce que tu portes aujourd'hui?  (What are you wearing today?)

Here is a link to some free on-line activities to help us practice our vocabulary more:

Clothing vocabulary games

We've also been delving deeper into our opinions and convictions about what we wear and the impact of our clothing choices upon ourselves, others and our world.  We considered: 

Dans ton opinion, est-ce que la mode est importante? Pourquoi ou pourquoi pas? (In your opinion, is fashion important? Why or why not?) With our basic French vocabulary, we explored ideas about fashion and clothing that perhaps we have not considered in the past, such as the impact that fashion has had on our history as a country and the impact fashion has on our environment and economy.

Grade 7 and 8 students have been given a letter to take home to parents regarding their fashion project which is due Monday, January 15. Students will be creating a useful wearable item or accessory from repurposed materials. This item will be a springboard for conversation and will be featured in a class fashion show and expo.  Here are some photos of students' work from two years ago for inspiration!

In our Grade 5/6 class, we finished playing a classroom board game, "Est-ce que tu aimes ça?", which comes from our text, below, and is based on vocabulary about our sports and hobbies. Huge congratulations for their great use of French vocabulary and expressions to play the game! We had a test on this vocabulary this past Friday.  

Our Grade 3/4 class has many birthdays at the end of December so we are busy getting classroom birthday cards done for these students.

\Bonne semaine,

Mme Christensen

Apprendre en faisant

This past week our Grade 8 students had the privilege of attending a workshop called Apprendre en faisant which allowed them to experience fun, hands-on activities while being immersed in French.  This event was attended by Grade 8 students from Winnipeg and around Manitoba.  Here's what a few students had to say about it:

"My favorite workshop was chocolate-making because it was fun. I ate food and made hilarious new friends. I even worked as being a translator for him. It took me a while to melt my chocolate because it kept clumping and (we) painted our flower-shaped molds. It was a great experience, and I really extended my vocabulary."

"My favorite workshop was chocolate making, because I had fun and I made friends! The chocolate was delicious. First, we picked what colours we wanted and put them in cups and put (the cups) in boiling water and mixed it until it melted.  (We) painted the molds and poured (the chocolate) into the moulds."

"Chocolate making was my favorite. The vocabulary was fairly easy to understand for us...We had to paint the molds with coloured, melted chocolate. We painted trees and flowers on the molds and then filled them with chocolate. They were delicious."

"My favorite workshop was karate!"

All students agreed that drama was a lot of fun as well.

The drumming workshop was run by a very talented drummer who had some very interesting instruments from other countries. We even drummed while speaking French phrases like  "J'aime bien manger la crème glacée."

The magic tricks that we learned were amazing. 

Mmm...making chocolate chip Belgian waffles with a luscious raspberry sauce and powedered sugar was a great hit!

This was a spoon-playing workshop unlike any other. We learned how to play along with traditional French tunes from around the world plus a couple modern favorites such as "What does the fox say?" and "Happy" ! It was a riot!

Yes, and there was even more food...a variety of pizzas for lunch plus salad, fruit, granola bars, juice, water and pop.  Needless to say, our Grade 8's highly recommend Apprendre en français for our Grade 8's next year! Merci beaucoup to Mme Boutet and her team of amazing instructors and volunteers who put on a day for Grade 8 students that did not disappoint!

Bonne semaine,

Mme Christensen

Student-Led conferences

It was a great pleasure this week to have students share their French projects with their parents in our student-led conferences! Here are a few pictures of students preparing by presenting their projects to one another:

Bonne semaine!

Mme Christensen

Tootles!

We have been working at implementing PAX strategies in our French classroom. "Tootles" are a way of celebrating students' leadership behaviours in class; these certificates have gained lots of attention in our class these days!

A "tootle" is the opposite of a tattle. These certificates celebrate students' achievement in many ways in the classroom.

"Tootles" are on display in the French classroom.

"Tootles" are one of a number of strategies taught in PAX, the 'good behaviour game' which aims to create more peace, productivity, health and happiness in our classes.

On another note...

Last week, the Grade Five and Six classes identified and used strategies to assist in reading comprehension:

• mots-amis (words that look alike and are similar in meaning in French and in English)
• mots familiers (familiar words from previous learning in French)
• les images (pictures that support the text)
• context clues

We read through this unfamiliar text and learned a lot about a hockey hero, Henri Richard!

Students in Grade Three and Four have been doing some review and will be starting a unit on the family which will take us to Christmas. Students in Grade Seven and Eight are starting a fashion unit.

All students will be busy practicing for student-led conferences this week. I look forward to seeing students with their families!

Bonne semaine,

Mme Christensen

Mini-prof

Our Grade Three and Four students have been enjoying taking turns being the "mini-prof" which involves leading our calendar activity: 

Our mini-prof asks the class questions from this poster, below: 

Our Grade Three and Four class has been learning more ways to answer the question, Comment ça va? with phrases from this song we enjoy:

Comment ça va? by Julie Powers

Finally, we have been enjoying "Spin the Wheel"; the link is on the left on this page. How many questions can you answer?

Bonne fin de semaine!

Mme Christensen

Ne les oubliez pas. Remember them.

We stop to honour those who fought and sacrificed all on our behalf so that we could live the blessed lives we have today.

Veterans Affairs Canada has a website in French and in English that is an excellent source of information that helps us honour the sacrifices our veterans have made:

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/get-involved/remembrance-day/learning-resources

Bonne fin de semaine,

Mme Christensen

Adorable!!!

The Grade 7/8 finished their "Mémo-photos" projects this week and the results are...well, simply adorables!  Here are some exerpts from our projects:

Part of our task in describing our photos was to keep in mind the 5W's and give information on who, what, where, when, why and how, as much as possible; in French of course that would be qui, que, où, quand, pourquoi and comment.  We also discussed how to use -er verbs in our sentences in addition to verbs we already knew such as avoir and être.

We hope you enjoyed our memories!

This week we will be continuing some reading and speaking evaluations for our upcoming report cards before we begin new units of work.

À bientôt,
Mme Christensen

After School...

We've been working hard on our projects in all classes! Here are some samples of projects that the Grade 5 and 6 class have been working on. In these projects we have been discussing our after school activities, including details that involve the 5W's: who, what, where, when, why as well as how, en français: 

This week will be a busy one with all the Hallowe'en excitement. October 31 also marks the 500th year anniversary of the Reformation!

Bonne semaine!

Mme Christensen

Identity cubes

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The Grade 3 and 4 class have been doing a wonderful job taking sentences from their journals last week and placing them on cubes. We "roll and read" our cubes!

Grade 5/6 and 7/8 students are continuing this week to work on their projects and we should have some work to post soon.

Bonne semaine!
Mme Christensen

French Friday

"French Fridays" have become a bit of a tradition.  "O Canada" is in French, followed a few minutes later by the Lord's Prayer recited in French as well as a weather report in French. Could this be the beginning of a few careers in radio???

Another tradition is our class birthday cards; each one of us creates a birthday card in French for our birthday person. This is a great opportunity for authentic written communication in French. In our cards, we wish the birthday person a happy birthday and state in a full sentence his or her age, a short description and give a pretend gift with a drawing.

This week we have been working on projects from Grades 3-6. Here are some samples from the 3/4 classroom:

The Grade 7/8 students have been working on using -er verbs in sentences which will help them in their projects this coming week.

Bonne semaine!

Mme Christensen