Souffler - a breath of fresh air

Easter Balloons

Here is an idea that worked well with my Primary Language classes.

You will need to buy some coloured balloons - I used a uniform shape, the normal round balloon. You will also need packs of chocolate mini-eggs, preferably ones with a foil coating.

The idea is to fill the balloons with as many eggs per balloon as you have members of a team and use them as prizes for team games. I used them as follows:

We have been learning colours and simple facial descriptions, hair, eye colour, big, small etc. Each team is given a balloon containing the chocolate eggs plus felt-tip pens. They have to follow a simple set of instructions to draw in and colour a face, hair, eyes, nose mouth and ears. When they have correctly completed their drawing, take a picture of their work for display, then they pop the balloons with a cocktail stick to get their Easter rewards.

To get the eggs into the balloons, use a small piece of hollow tubing, (I now have a rather shorter yard broom!), feed the end of the empty balloon over the tubing, drop an egg down the tube and 'blow' the egg into the balloon using a short burst of air. Don't try and blow the balloon up as you do this. If it suddenly deflates, it will propel the egg back into your mouth at very high speed, not nice! Your aim is just to get the egg inside the deflated balloon.

'Elf 'n Safety note: This is why I recommend using foil covered eggs as blowing into the balloon might spread bugs.

Once you have put as many eggs in as are members of the team, then blow the balloon up and tie off.

Variations 

You can use the balloons as prizes for any other team activity. You could also insert pieces of paper when inserting the eggs as 'clues' in an Easter Egg hunt, or word slips for revising topics. Let me know if you think up any others.

Joyeuse Pâques!

Using Macros to create Language puzzles - starters and plenaries

After posting the drag and drop macro for powerpoint, I have been experimenting with macros to try and make instant changes to text and shapes in MS Office suite programs. I came across this brilliant site, Teacher's Pet.

Teacher's Pet Software - Turns any text into fun classroom resources, including crosswords, word search puzzles, bingo cards, flashcards and more.

From here you can download a free program that will enable you to play around with a host of ideas to manipulate chunks of text. I think this was developed with TESL colleagues in mind so some of the functions may not be appropriate for other languages, but I recommend that you have a look. Some features such as the flashcard, bingo and crossword generators have to be purchased but many others are free. This image file shows you the possibilities once the Teacher's pet toolbar has been installed on your version of MS Word.

Here is a video demonstrating how it works for one piece of text where I wanted to remove all of the vowels.

Update

Here is a link to a Word document which explains in detail all that you can do with this. Much of it is free but If you want to use the premium features of the software, use this code ‘ed7up’ to get a 10% discount at Teacher's Pet Software

Download TP Macro Exercises

Teaching colours - Red nose day

This is just a brief set of resourcs and ideas prepared for primary school children. I have taught colours for one lesson and wanted to introduce the printed word and the placement of the adjective after the noun without getting into adjectival agreements. So I am using the Comic Relief Red Nose day in the UK to exploit this. Hopefully they will all produce a coloured nose of their own for the day.

These are Word and Smartboard notebook resources but the you can adapt them for your own needs. If you feel able to, replacing my pic with one of your own might avoid uneccessary trauma in young minds!

Download Nez-rouge Notebook file. Click in the centre of the photo on the first page and you zoom in on my nose - not for the fainthearted... You need Notebook 10 to view the animations for this file.

Download Test sheet Word file - they fold it in two to test each other

Download Nez pdf file - I used this to print off flashcards and play flashcard games.

To make their own noses, I am cutting a small square of card. In the middle there is a hole big enough to feed a coloured ballon through. Blow up the balloon so that it protrudes on one side of the card and can be tied off on the other. Place elastic bands on either side of the card to loop over ears et voilà!

Feel free to share ideas!

Update

I tried this today and it was a big success, if a little tricky to make the noses. Here is a template you can print off to make the cards which you use to mount the balloons.

Download Balloon nose squares

Thanks too to Jan Lewandowski as she pointed me towards these three links for materials on a french nursery rhyme "J'ai un gros nez rouge".

1    2    3

Powerpoint Spotlight tool and the drag and drop macro

I combined the two ideas from previous posts on this site to create a tool that helped to revise a text on holidays for a year 9 group. 

> 

You can download the powerpoint here

Download HOLIDAY TEXT SPOTLIGHT

You can download the video explanation here

Download Drag and drop spotlight tool

Flash games

There are sites online with free flash games. A lot of these carry advertising so you need to be judicious in their use but some could be used as a 'carrot' to complete an activity.

This one carries adverts for acne treatment and the game and sound effects are a bit 'graphic' as it involves popping zits! It's a flash file in swf format. These can be dragged straight onto a Smartboard notebook page. Alternatively you can use a flash player such as SWF opener.

You obviously would not play this if there were any children in the class with a significant problem! I will leave you to be the professional judges of what is appropriate! That said, I have used this with quite a difficult yr 9 group revising for a test and it was a real motivation for them to get as many answers correct on the work to 'earn' the right to have a go at this challenge.

Download ZIT SPLATTER

Drama sketches

Does anyone else write drama sketches for language teaching? I have written quite a few over the years because I never seemed to find anything anywhere like this.

I've uploaded a short sketch I have written for yr 7 pupils based around the French Big Brother house. We have been learning rooms in the house, basic -er verbs, and telling the time. I tried to incorporate all 3 elements. It's pretty short. We are practising and performing it next week and will report on how it goes. Please share your own ideas and experiences of this as I feel it is an area that is untapped apart from the basic transactional style role-plays we are so familiar with.

Download Sketch 'Dans le loft'

I have just been sent this link with some idea and resources

Teaching colours

I am teaching colours at Primary schools and found this karaoke video. The song is really annoying but it mentions a few colours in the lyrics and it was a good clip to play to see if the kids could spot the colours as they appear on the screen. There is a link to download the flash video of it and a link to download the smartboard notebook page with the file embedded.

Download Colour-song

Download Ilona Mitrecey - « Un monde parfait » + sous-titres

Dare Dare Motus or Danger Mouse!

Please leave a comment if you download and use files from this site. Feedback on how visitors might or do use anything here will help greatly in filtering what is of use and planning future updates

If you do a search on Youtube for 'générique' you should find French song intros to a lot of cartoon series. I've already posted one for Inspecteur Gadget. Here is the intro for Dare Dare Motus.

You can download the video here

Download Dare Dare Motus (Danger Mouse) - French

Download Dare dare motus lyrics  

Vêtu d'un bandeau sur un oeil
Peut-être pour tromper l'ennemi
Un agent secret se lève du fauteuil
Bon sang mais c'est une souris !

Ses deux grandes oreilles sont toutes roses
Deux lettres sur son ventre supposent
Que c'est la super hyper super souris

Dare Dare Motus
Souris aérodynamique
Dare Dare Motus
Souris bâton de dynamite
Dare Dare Motus
La souris de l'ère atomique
C'est la meilleure de toutes les souris

Dare Dare Motus
Souris aérodynamique
Dare Dare Motus
Souris bâton de dynamite
Dare Dare Motus
La souris de l'ère atomique
C'est la meilleure de toutes les souris

Dans la sauterelle spatiale
Avec son ami Panikar
Elle fend l'Univers combattant Dosvert
Qui veut conquérir la Terre
Ses aventures sont un défi
Lancé au péril de sa vie
Mais c'est la super hyper super souris

Dare Dare Motus
Souris aérodynamique
Dare Dare Motus
Souris bâton de dynamite
Dare Dare Motus
La souris de l'ère atomique
C'est la meilleure de toutes les souris

Dare Dare Motus
Souris aérodynamique
Dare Dare Motus
Souris bâton de dynamite
Dare Dare Motus
La souris de l'ère atomique
C'est la meilleure de toutes les souris

*** Break musical ***

Dare Dare Motus
Souris aérodynamique
Dare Dare Motus
Souris bâton de dynamite
Dare Dare Motus
La souris de l'ère atomique
Super souris...

Inspecteur Gadget intro song

Please leave a comment if you download and use files from this site. Feedback on how visitors might or do use anything here will help greatly in filtering what is of use and planning future updates

I though this would be a bit of fun. Let me now if you use it. I haven't had a chance to put subtitles onto the video yet but here are the lyrics. You can preview the video below the lyrics and you can download it here.

Download Inspecteur Gadget intro

Eh la qui va là
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Eh la ça va pas
(Ouh ouh)
Oh la je suis là
(Inspecteur Gadget)

C'est moi que voilà
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Ca va être la joie
(Ouh ouh)
Au nom de la loi
(Moi je vous arrête)
Je vous arrête là

(Go go)
Gadget à main
(Flash)
Gadget au chapeau
(Hey ho)
Gadget au poing
(Oh la)
Elastico-Gadget

Les bandits sont là
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Ils n'échapperont pas
(Ouh ouh)
Si l'inspecteur fait gaffe
(Fait gaffe aux gadgets)
Qui marchent ou marchent pas

(Go go)
Gadget à main
(là-haut)
Gadget au chapeau
(Go go)
Gadget au poing
(Oui c'est)
Elastico-Gadget

Et puis patatrac
(Inspecteur Gadget)
V'la le chef qu'est là
(Ouh ouh)
Salut chef c'est moi
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Ca n'en finit pas

Eh la qui va là
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Eh la ça va pas
(Ouh ouh)
Oh la je suis là
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Oh la oh la loi

(Go go)
Gadget à main
(là-haut)
Gadget au chapeau
(Go go)
Gadget au poing
(Oui c'est)
Elastico-Gadget

Et puis patatrac
(Inspecteur Gadget)
V'la le chef qu'est là
(Ouh ouh)
Salut chef c'est moi
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Ca n'en finit pas

(Go go)
Gadget à main
(là-haut)
Gadget au chapeau
(Go go)
Gadget au poing
(Oui c'est)
Elastico-Gadget

Eh la qui va là
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Eh la ça va pas
(Ouh ouh)
Oh la je suis là
(Inspecteur Gadget)
Oh la oh la loi

Pudding à l'arsenic

Please leave a comment if you download and use files from this site. Feedback on how visitors might or do use anything here will help greatly in filtering what is of use and planning future updates

I think that this song from Asterix et Cléopâtre is great comic song - good for a twist on the topic of food - you can encourage pupils to compose their own 'poisonous recipes'. It makes a change from chocolate truffles or pancakes!

Here are the lyrics

Download Pudding a l'arsenic lyrics

Download Pudding a l'arsenic wmv video

If you need another format other than windows media, let me know - the videos are easily convertible to flash flv, quicktime mov, avi or mpg

Here is another video produced by a Youtube user to help pupils understand the lyrics. Thanks to nagillen for this.

Here is the video to download.

Download Pouding a l'arsenic asterix et cleopatre