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