I like this site jigsawplanet. You can take any picture and turn it into a jigsaw. You can control the level of difficulty and it offers a way of taking any topic and providing a bit of a fun.
I can see a potential for using this as a 'team' directed game where each team has to direct the teacher to move the pieces to recreate the picture: one puzzle piece is selected either by the team or the teacher: the team has to instruct the teacher in the target language to move the piece to the correct place on the board. eg:
à gauche à droite plus haut plus bas
au bord à droite / à gauche etc.
For example I searched for an image of the Nativity for Christmas, found this:
and changed it into this puzzle:
Try the puzzle here. Click on the image to try
You can do exactly the same thing with text. Here is a very simple text:
You can embed the whole puzzle into your own websites.
As the puzzle software can only cope with jpg images, I had to 'capture' the text as an image. With a Mac you can do this with the 'Grab' utility provided in the Applications/Utilities folder. With windows you can use a program such as MWSnap. a free program. Once uploaded to the site you can 'chop' up the text and make a puzzle. Here is a version using the above text. Click on the image to try.
I have uploaded a free Smartboard file of French poems on the theme of Autumn for subscribers to my other site at www.souffler.co.uk.
Thanks to http://lafarandoledesassmat.free.fr/ for the graphics and text. I have simply put them onto a format that is easier to see in the classroom. There are a lot of other materials on this site suitable for Primary children or lower KS3.
For anyone without Notebook software, there is a pdf version available.
This is an idea that you might find useful and a bit of fun. You can download everything by visiting my new site at souffler.co.uk.
You will also find news there of one or two other projects in the pipeline that you may find useful.
The materials I am offering free for download are the following.
1) A Smart notebook file containing the text and some questions about a recent news item, the poor English lad who happens to be called Harry Potter (apparently complete with forehead scar). The exercise is designed to show even fairly young learners that, with some common sense 'language detective' skills, they can get the gist of even quite complicated language. This is great for literacy work and can even be used at primary level.
Here is a screen shot of some of the text
2) a pdf of the same in case you don't have Smartboard software
3) a powerpoint of the text with 'exploding' bits of text. This is simply cloze texting but with bells and whistles. Pupils see the whole text but suddenly as you press the mouse key, one word 'explodes' and disappears. The trick in teams is to spot what word went missing.
4) a video explaining how the 'exploding text' was created if you want to create your own examples.
Have fun!
These are a series of files that I used to follow up work on colours, parts of the body and moving onto teaching clothes and colours. The French version of the song invites the children to sing "Oui Oui" repeatedly and loudly with predictable giggling so you have to feel confident using these! The tune however is very catchy.
1) The Karaoke version of the clip from Youtube
Download Oui Oui - Karaoké Dessin Animé.flv (2405.2K)
It's in flash video format which I use because you can drop it onto any page of Smartboard notebook. If you don't have a flash video player you can use the free one from here
2) A worksheet with the lyrics plus a follow up colouring in exercise
Download Oui Oui lyrics and colouring worksheet
3) Because the song is sung quite fast I have recorded it as an mp3 file and slowed it down. This is the reduced speed version.
Download OUI OUI SLOW.mp3 (1065.5K)
4) I began using this song as a way to get the pupils to identify how many times they could count the French 'i' sound in each line which would also include the French 'y' sound. You can use the mp3 above to do this but if anyone has the Sanako Media Assistant software, I have produced these files. They are in a zip file which you will have to extract to a folder of your choice. You will need file compression software such as Winzip to do this. I use 7z as it is free.
5) I was playing team games with boys against girls for the last exercise and created 2 Smartboard notebook files to do this using the picture of Noddy. You begin with a blank screen but as you click on various parts of the screen the picture is revealed. As each question is answered correctly another part is revealed. Winners are the team to have revealed the whole picture.
6) Finally here is a Smartboard notebook file which I used for teams to come to the board in turn and use the board pens to colour in the correct item indicated on the board. Download Oui oui couleurs
Update There is a French online site to colour in Noddy here The name of the colours they choose is displayed below the picture.
Hopefully a lot of what I post on here can help to give a creative edge to colleagues' lessons.Yet we all know that, however many hoops we jump through to make lessons more meaningful and interesting, sometimes you have to wield that stick!
I made this Excel sheet for anyone who can use it. I have used French but you can change the column headings as you wish.
It's a basic traffic light system for classroom management. You copy/paste your list of pupils in the first column, and by default everyone begins the lesson on green. I have included a couple of macros (keyboard shortcuts) to enable you to quickly change the colour of the boxes in the second column to amber, warning. (ctrl a) and in the third column to red, trouble (!) (ctrl r). You can delete any colour assigned to a box by using ctrl e (effacer)
You will have to allow the macros when you first open the sheet.
If you want to copy this sheet to add other classes press ctrl and j. You should see another identical sheet added onto the tabs at the bottom. Rename these by right clicking the tab and selecting 'Rename'.
Download PUPIL CHECK CHART Excel
I have also created a similar idea in a smart notebook file
Type in the pupil names in the columns. The amber and red boxes at the top are on infinite cloner so that you can simply pull them down into the boxes to copy them when at the whiteboard. The numbers at the top are links to the other pages in the workbook.
Each of these pages has an arrow at the top left linked back to the pupil checklist on the front page.
Download Pupil Check Chart Notebook
Hope this helps!
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.
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".
35452
text2
Recent Comments