Daisy Chain Clauses and Conjunctions

This idea has been on my list to write for quite a while now! 
I have selected a daisy chain because it reminds me of Summer.It's now that we have the opportunity to assess what our moving on learners can  say and write.

They are going to write about their likes and dislikes with nouns and adjectives and use conjunctions to join their sentences together.

Take a handful of conjunctions in the target language:in French let's use "mais,et, car, pourtant,"

• First let's physically feel and make the sentences.
• Ask the children to make a list of favourite things - using nouns thye know for foods,clothes,animals or finding new nouns in the bilingual dictioanry 
• Now ask them to list adjectives ,two per nun thjat they would use to describe the nouns they have sleected.
• Ask them to think about the adjectival agreement with these nouns.Are the nouns masculine, feminine and in German neuter? 
• Do they need to use each of the nouns in the plural or singular?
• Ask then to check their adjectival agreement against the criteria above.

A physical daisy chain
Now it's palm of your hand time.
You make daisy chains with your hands so we are using our hands as the physical planner for the daisy chains we will make later.

• Ask the children to open up the palm of their left hand and wiggle their fingers.
• The index finger on the right hand is their pen with invisible ink!

• Each finger and the palm of  the left hand represents a key part of the sentence

Thumb- personal pronoun 

Index finger verb

Middle finger noun

Ring finger first adjective

Little finger second adjective

Palm of your hand conjunction

• Ask the children with the index finger on the right hand to touch each finger on the left hand as they say their physical sentence to themselves quietly.
• Now they need to add the conjunction in the centre of their sentence by drawing a circle in the plan of their left hand with their imaginary pen and the index finger of the right hand.
• Can they now add the next part of their setnece - using their fingers again as the prompts for the parts of the sentence?
• They may need to reorder their finger roles if they use in French adjectives that precede the noun.
• Once again they add their conjunction and move on to make their next physical clause in the long sentence.
• If they can they should make five  clauses using the four conunctions.

A visual daisy chain!
And now they can make their daisy chains.

The centre of the daisy is the picture of the item- the noun they like.

There will be 5 petals on each daisy .One for the each a part of the sentence and the green stem of each daisy is the conjunction leading to the next daisy .
Now you have your daisy chain!    

Making a statement to describe jobs and roles in the future with Year 6 leavers

As our KS2 Year 6 get ready to leave primary school, next half term could be a wonderful time to ask them to reflect on what they want to be in the future.

It is also a time to celebrate what they can now do in a foreign language. 

Last week in Spain I found this wonderful book and it gave me an idea about how we can could create similar books with our Y6 language learners in all languages! 

They can demonstrate  how they can now use a bilingual dictionary to access the language they want to use.They can show how they can manipulate simple sentence stucture , nouns and present tense verbs too!

The book is made up of pictures of different types of people.You can see four characters on the front of the book .
As a concept itself it's a brilliant book- just to read and have fun reading and muddling up the sentences with the children on Spanish 

However the concept translates really well in to language work on sentence structure in any language.On each double page spread there is a bright colourful caricature picture of a type of person (pirate/cook/clown etc) and on the left hand page of the double page spread, the page is divided in to three sections and each section can be turned over individually.

The top section is the statement about the character (present tense of the verb to be in first perspn singylar e.g I am / soy / je suis /ich bin ) plus the noun  for the character (e.g. pirate / cowboy etc)

The middle section is the verb in the first person singular present tense associated with the character's actions ( e.g. cowboy - I ride   / cook - I prepare etc) plus the noun that is linked to the action ( e.g cowboy- I ride - my horse  / coook - I prepare - the meal) .

The third section is about where the character's actions take place (e.g. cook- in the kitchen/ in the restaurant etc)

(Turn over one of the three sections and the sentence  is correct grammatically -but the meaning becomes slightly odd or bizarre.That is part of the beauty of the book!)

I think we can use the idea of the double page spread though to create our own entertaining end of our primary school career book .
Each child needs to generate their own three section statement to explain what they want to be when they grow up.It's a description of the job, the role and the objects/people /place involved in the role.

Section one - first person singular of the verb to be and the appropriate nooun for the role or job chosen
Section two - present tense first person singular verb associated with an action involved in the role or the job plus a noun representing an object or person connected to the actipon
Section three - the place the action takes place

e.g"  I am a doctor/ and I help the patients/ in the hospital " 

• All we need to do now is create a large card book with double page spreads for each child in the class. The children draw a caricature on paper of the role or job they have chosen.This is glued on to the right hand side of the double page spread.
• The children then write their messages in the three sections which have been ruled  off on the left hand side of the double page spread.
• Once the book is complete all you need to do is cut to the centre fold the three sections along the ruled lines .

Now we have our own book! 

We can read it as it should be read or see also what types of entertaining sentences we can make by turning individual sections and understanding the new information  we read!

Countryside comparisons :location detective lists and poster presentations

Having spent some time last week in Pays Basque, visiting France and Spain, I not only found an ideal way to compare seaside between France and Spain,using the target language Simple seaside comparison with verbs, conjunctions and sentence structure , but I also visited Ainhoa!
What another gift!I realised that with UKS2 we could create a simple unit of work comparing Grasmere in the Lake district and this French/Spanish border town.



So why do I think that we can make a comparison between Grasmere and Ainhoa and why am I so specific in my choice? 
We are going to be "location detectives" and eventually create our own poster presentations.(It would work well using Book Creator too with sound clips etc)

Ask the children to keep two lists of key comparisons between Ainhoa and Grasmere.
Each list has a heading phrase "Ainhoa" or "Grasmere".These lists are called the "location detective lists"

Now let's start our comparison investigations.....

Here is the first clue! Take a look at this!

The Gingerbread shop in Ainhoa is in a very old building and is just a small counter where you can buy the flat oat- like gingerbread.If you have ever visited theSarah Nelson's Gingerbread shop in Grasmere you will know that this is a very small old building with a counter and the gingerbread is the same consistency.

So bingo! Here we have our first comparisons......

Step One :A "Gingerbread" investigation 

• Share this video of the Ainhoa shop and making gingerbread wth the children- just to give them a sense of the produce
• Taste some simple gingerbread biscuits
• Can the children collect adjectives to describe the look of the gingerbread and the flavours in gingerbread?

• Take a look at the buildings where the shops are in Grasmere and Ainhoa

Here is the Sarah Nelson's  gingerbread shop in Grasmere

And here is the building in which you find the gingerbread shop in Ainhoa.

You could also discuss the fact that we share traditional tales and listen to the shared traditional tale about the Gingerbread Man in French




Step Two
Make a comparison record on our "location detectives lists"

• Can the children working individually or a small supprted group start their comparison lists.
• Can they use infinitives of verbs to describe:

What you can buy (On peut acheter....) 

Where you can find this (On peut trouver le magasin dans un vieux magasin)

What you can eat and what it tastes like (On peut manger...... C'est ......)_

You may like the children to look at recipe for both gingerbreads and compare ingredients using bilingual dictionaries. 

Step Three 
Both villages are beautiful and traditional and are visited every year by many tourists.They are both situated in the heartof the countryside. So here we can make our second comparisons!

• Share pictures of the two villages - you can google pictures of the two towns to find the schools, the churches, the rivers , the hillside and the village/town centres.

• Ask the children to note down the names in French for the buildings- both villages have a church , hotels , a cafe, a primary school,shops
• And the countryside features  they can see in both villages? Both villages are surrounded by hills and mountains and there is a river in each village.
• What colours can they see? Ainhoa is red and white and Grasmere is grey stone with black and white buildings.
• Are there any other adjectives they want to use to describe what they can see? Give the children time to find these in bilingual dictionaries.

Step Four
Make a comparison record on our "location detectives lists"

• Can the children,working individually or a small supprted group,continue their comparison lists
• Can they use the phrase "il y a...." and the correct use of the indefinite article to describe:

The buildings and use colours / additional descriptive adjectives

(Il y a...........C'est .....)

The countryside around the town and use colours / additional descriptive adjectives(Il y a .....C'est ......)

Step Five 

You can also describe the local sports! 

In Ainhoa you can play pelota and there is a court on the side of the church building with seating for spectators.

• Try the game with your class.
• You need a tennis ball (rather than  the traditional hard ball) and  bats- for the  players.Play the game against a wall.

• Watch some of this lonely planet video , which shares the game of "pelota".(You may want to watch the video first to check you are happy to share this with your class)

• And now take a look at the Grsmere Games ( the sports of tug of war, wrestling, tossing gthe caber, and fell runnig all come to mind!)
• On You Tube you can find examples of "fell running" during the Grasmere Games ro show the children.Share some of the video clips of the Fell run with the class

Step Six
Make a comparison record on our "location detectives lists"

• Can the children explain the sport of "Pelota" in Ainhoa- ask the children to write down a simple description with the verb "jouer" - Where do you play? How many people play? What do they play with?
• Can the children explain the sport of fell running using the verb "courir"- Where do they run?(Up a hill/over a stream/ in the mud/ across fields etc) How many people run at one time?

Now it's over to your location detectives to create a poster presentation, comparing a country village in French Pays basque with a country village in the English Lake District!

Simple seaside,geography comparison,verbs and sentence structure

It's great to actually visit the target language countries and cultures of the languages we try to share with our young language learners and last week I was lucky enough to be able to do just that!
I spent part of the week in Basque France and Basque Spain. This next half term with Year 5 our focus is the seaside .We have looked at the seaside before with our younger learners and so I am always looking for more sophisticated approaches to the theme of seaside.
Well here staring straight back at me was a                                                                             sophisticated seaside and geography focus!


It's so simple! 

• Take a look at the map. Last week I visited Biarritz and then later in the week San Sebastian! 
• Here we have an ideal describe,compare and contrast series of activities .
• These seaside resorts are so near to each other!
• The activities can be completed in French or Spanish and will engage our learners in sentence structrure, use of common verbs and the use of conjunctions to make comparisons......

Step One - the country,the resorts and language investigation!

1. Share  the map with the class.Ask them to look at the seaside and coast.Can the class identify the border between two countries? (You may want to explain too about the basque country and their own language- can the children think of similarities in the United Kingdom e.g English and Welsh/ the coast in NW England and North Wales etc)   
2. Can the children investigate the map and find the three resorts.
3. Can they work out how far away the resorts are from each other?
4. Can they decide which languages are spoken in the three seaside towns? Can they write a simple present tense sentence using the verb " to speak" to explain the target language they think they would hear in each town - e.g "A San Sebastian on parle espagnol" and "A Biarritz  on parle français
5. Can they now add a conjunction and create an extended sentence with the two sentences they have written? Give the children a choice of conjunctions - which do they prefer to use e.g et/ mais/pourtant ? 

Step Two - the weather report

1. Ask the children to investigate the weather with you in Biarritz and in San Sebastian during one specific week.All you need to do is google the weather for the two places and find the weather forecast for that week. Can they write a weather report for the two towns using conjunctions e.g "Le lundi  à Biarritz il fait beau mais à San Sebastian il pleut"?

Step Three - the resorts and the food 

1. Let's investigate the food.Can the children find out what food they would eat if they had "tapas" in San Sebastian or ordered cakes in a "salon de thé" in Biarritz?
2. Can the children help you to make a list of foods that they could eat in these two places...."On peut manger ............ à Biarritz, on peut manger ............à Saint Jean de Luz et on peut manger ........... à San Sebastian"
3. Can they now add their own preferences from the lists of food using the conjunction "pourtant"?

Step Four- the places and the activities

It's here that the children will see that the seaside resorts may have different foods, sometimes share or have different weather but that the resorts share similar geography and seaside activities! 

All we need to do is:

San Sebastian

Biarritz

• Give out two pictures of the beach- one of San Sebastian and one of Biarritz- to pairs of children (same pictures for each pair).
• Can the children make a list in the target language of the geographical features and the buildings they can see in the pictures?
• How similar are their lists for San Sebastian and Biarritz?
• Can the children investigate the pictures and make a list of verbs as infinitives to describe the activities they think they can see on the beach in each picture?
• Can they now make a list using "you can ..." e.g in French "on peut..." of the activities and explain that the same activities take place in Biarritz and in San Sebastian?

Step Five -Writing a description

Can the children now write a descriptive text comparing the seaside in San Sebastian and Biarritz?

What  have they found out?

What are the similarities and differences between the two resorts? 

Sandcastle Sentence Building

One of our focus themes this next term is "Seaside" and synonymous with the seaside must be building sandcastles! As teachers of young language learners we are endeavouring to develop children's understanding of basic grammar and sentence construction.

Seems to me that "building sandcastle sentences" could be  a great way to enable our moving on and advanced language learning KS2 children to reflect  upon and apply their  growing knowledge of how language works!  
As the class teacher you can decide on the appropriate context,content and the structures (nouns,personal pronouns,parts of verbs, adjectives, conjunctions etc).

We can build simple sentences, sentences made of two clauses, sentences requiring conjunctions to make their more complex and apply word order rules and build our own new sentences with words and structures we select and  want to use .Just like we will fond lots of sandcastle building competitions on war m teachers in target language countries such as France and Spain then we can hold our own sandcastle sentence building competitions and set challenges that match the level of our language learners!

The "Sandcastle Sentence Building Challenges below are based on: 

• context - describing what we eat at the seaside
• content- ice creams
• grammar focuses- identifying and constructing simple present tense sentences using the personal pronouns and the verb " to eat"

In developing the following activities with your class, you must consider the language and word order of target language sentences, consider the punctuation of the sentences as signposts to the construction of the more complex sentences and select a context and content base that fits with your own class' target language knowledge.

Sandcastle Sentence Building 

Share with the children the building blocks of an empty simple sentence.

Can the children discuss with you how many parts the think are going to be in your sandcastle sentence (five in this sandcastle).Set the scene- if we are describing eating an ice cream ,do they think with a partner they can discuss what might words and phrases  be in the sandcastle?(Encourage them to think of words like je / manger/ glace/ flavours of ice creams)

Explain that every good sandcastle needs a flag to mark the spot and to go on top of the sandcastle.

In our sentences explain that this is going to be a personal pronoun.

Share with them the blue flag shape with the personal pronoun you want to use,written on it.I have chosen "Je" in French in this case.

Can they tell you the meaning of the word and explain its function in the sentence?

Give them pair talking and thinking time to do this. 

Now share with the class the building blocks of the first "sandcastle sentence".Can they decide in which order the sandcastle, starting with the personal pronoun flag at the top, should be built?

Why do they think that the word "mange" is written on an orange piece of card? 

Discuss with the class what this word represents as a structure ( verb) and why is it important  in the construction of a good sandcastle SENTENCE? 

In their heads can they "virtually" build your sandcastle?

Who wants to come out and build the sandcastle? 

Does everyone agree with the construction? 

What is the the sandcastle message?   

Share with the children a second personal pronoun flag.What does this allow us to do as sandcastle sentence builders? (We can build a new sentence).On mini whiteboards can the children try to build a new sandcastle sentence about a different flavour of ice cream?

Remind them of the importance of the orange building block in the sandcastle to make certain that they are building a SENTENCE .

Listen, look and share as a class some of the sandcastle sentences they have constructed and drawn .

Now share your new building blocks for the sentence that you would like a volunteer to construct as your new  "two tower sandcastle" made up of two clauses, so this time it will have "two tower sandcastle".

How does the class know which personal prononun to start with (capital letter on "Je")

How does the class know which flavour goes with the first ice cream here ( comma after "au chocolat,") 

How does the class know which is the final word of the two tower sentence and why? (Well it is the correct word order but also it has a full stop "vanille.")

Invite a  volunteer up to build what is now the "two tower two clause sandcastle sentence"!  

Can they cut out and write in pairs a "two tower two clause sandcastle sentence" as a challenge for another pair?

Sandcastles often have bridges and become more elaborate.We can introduce the use of conjunctions in this way too to our "Sandcastle Sentence Building" challenges.

Here are two conjunction bridges in French below.

Discuss with the children what role these two red bridges play on the sentence and identify that they have target language conjunctions written in them. Make sure that the conjunctions are familiar words for the children.

Can they change and improve the  "two tower two clause sandcastle sentence"above with one of these conjunction bridges ?

Which conjunction would they like to use?

For my example  below , I selected the conjunction bridge "et" in French to join my two clauses.

Can the class design and build their own "two clause conjunction sandcastle tower sentences" to share with the rest of the class?Their designs must also be based on the content you have been practising.

With more advanced language learners set up a "Sandcastle building challenge".

Give each pair a set of sandcastle building blocks in random order as below, to construct a "three tower,two conjunction sandcastle complex sentence". 

Here the children need to select the correct part of the verb to match the personal pronouns and to identify which flavour can not be at the end of the sentence(because of the comma) but also to decide which of the other two flavours will be at the end and make sure that they remember to add that full stop!

They need to decide where and how they want to use the two conjunction bridges- maybe they want to use two new conjunctions.....

........and then they can construct their "three tower,two conjunction sandcastle complex sentence".

Now it is time for the class to get on their construction thinking hats and build new sandcastle tower challenges for the rest of the class!

The class can now hold their own "Grand Class Sandcastle Sentence Building Competition!"

Taking a closer look at nouns,adjectives and verbs .Intermediate French CPD.

Colourful French creativity

Just found this rhyme 

here on nounoud56.centerblog

You can listen to and sing along with the song

here

 on this page too! 

Thought this would be a great way to develop reading and dictionary skills with our LKS2 Y4 French learners during Spring term. It will enable is to extend their knowledge of colours and reinforce our knowledge of nouns ....and maybe look for verbs in the text.

I love the idea that the crayons play whilst the children are outside on their playtime break and I love the fact the poem starts with a question....just what do the crayons do when there are no children in the classroom?

Step One

Highlight or underline each sentence of the poem in the correct colour.

Spot the two sentences that contain no colours.

Step Two

Make the poem a picture in a picture frame .

• Children should use the words in the question of the first sentence as the header of the frame and the words in the final statement at the end of the poem as the footer of the frame.
• The sides of the frame are pencil calligrams:the colouring pencils mentioned written as word calligrams of the different colours.For example I might put red ,yellow and blue on one side and the black and grey on the other side.
• Now ask the children to investigate the sentences in the poem that explain what the different coloured pencils have drawn.Ask the children to circle the nouns in the sentences and check or find the meaning of the nouns in a bi-lingual dictionary.
• Have they spotted the unusual colours for the objects- let them share with you what they have found out! (e.g the mouse is red....or is it?)
• Can the look at the picture evidence around the outside the written text and spot the anomalies? For example the "green" crayon has drawn a yellow sunshine etc 
• Now all they have to do is create the drawing as described in the text!

Step Three

Make sense of the poem...

• Ask the children to explain the meaning of the word "dessine" - you may encourage them to think of English words that are similar (e.g design)
• Can they explain the role this word plays in the sentences in the text?
• Ask the children to create a more sensible set of sentences for the poem completing the sentences below: 

le rouge dessine .............

le vert dessine ...............

le bleu dessine ...............

le gris dessine ................

le noir dessine................

• Now they can become artists themselves and draw the objects they have decided are more sensible and match the colours and describe what is happening in French to a partner using the key sentences above.

And finally here is the You tube clip of the text above!

Exploring sentence structure in primary languages grammar.How are we getting on?

We have been considering ways to support all our colleagues to deliver appropriate primary target languages grammar as part of the language learning in school.This fourth  round up blog focuses on sentences structure: nouns ,adjectives and  commonly used verbs. 

We want our teachers to be confident enough to share with children clearly and successfully how to use some verbs in the target language.Remember we stage the learning of verbs across four years of KS2 ...so the activities below represent work with different stages of learner and year groups. 

Child's Voice. Stepping Stones to Grammar

Teacher's guide to the ways  to a step by step developmental understanding of nouns,verbs and adjectives from the perspective of a young child in primary school.

Mysterious world of grammar and the magical magnifying glass

We like to encourage the children to look at texts carefully and become independent language detectives!The magical magnifying glass allows us to ask children to find key language ... and the magnifying glass allows us to search a sentence for the clues we are looking for.

The washing machine grammar device

Here is a novel and useful language learning tool that can be used as a device over and over again to explore sentences- putting parts of sentences back together, categorising parts of sentences etc.It can be used with beginners,children who are moving on to the more advanced learners. The device could be an independent activity left in the quiet order for children to use or complete independent grammar tasks during the week etc.

Shape sentences

Creating simple descriptive sentences using a  noun, a verb and an adjective in this instance to create  jungle animals for our display back drop.

The activity is transferable to  other contexts and content.

Mind the gap and get writing

First steps to independent writing ,taking notice of punctuation in the target language.An activity that can then be developed to text based mind the gap writing for dialogues and more detailed text with moving on and advanced language learners.

Writing for purpose.Smoke signals

This is a simple activity that can be used on many different levels . You can work with the children with  key individual words,a series of nouns with adjectives, question , sentence , complex sentence or short text .

Sentence and suitcase caligrams for Summer holidays

A calligram activity to help us fill our suitcase with useful Summer holiday clothes sentences.

A creative writing  activity that can be transferred to other contexts and content and can be used with different expectations of sentence structure outcomes 

Writing, and a review of a half term's progress

a device to track the progress children are making in their ability to write descriptions about themselves and to ask questions- linked to a specific theme .In this case we are collecting leaves as it's based around an Autumn time theme.

The split personality of a sentence

This is a great activity using familiar language, drama and grammar for children who are “moving on” in their language learning. It reinforces the literacy work that schools are engaging their children with to understand the grammar of a sentence and the construction of a sentences  . It’s an activity that demands correct pronunciation and intonation of the target language and asks the children to not just decode but also understand the message they read and to demonstrate this through performance! It’s also great fun!

Physical sentence prompts and fireworks

This idea can be used across a wide range of language and contexts but it really made me think about how we can help children to improve their target language with physical prompts.
We were focusing upon nouns ( and definite articles) simple present tense common verbs ( in this instance "to be" ) and adjectives ( colours in this case) and how they need to agree with the nouns they describe in French and Spanish.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with a Twist of Grammar

Can the children identify the verb, the noun  and the adjective in a song or rhyme?Can they now add their own new nouns ,adjectives ans verbs applying the grammatical rules odf the target language?

Jewels in the crown and sentence writing

Writing sentences using bilingual dictionaries to create a sparkling description of a crown or an object(as activity is transferable to other contexts) Activity on three levels :beginners ,moving on. advanced 

Spies,reading and code

Ways to support children to develop their own independent reading  and writing skills at word and sentence level.

A sentence is a device for taking a thought for a walk

What a marvellous starting point to develop creative writing with young language learners, who have a developing understanding of the simple structure and rules of a target language sentence!

Nouns, the verb to be and adjectives

Why not create a class book shop window "display" of target language book covers - one book cover for each month of the year with learners who are moving on.Take a look at nouns, verbs , adjectival agreement and the superlative.Take learning walk along the sentence.Using our magical magnifying glasses, we can analyse the text on the book cover

A triarama with speaking and writing attitude

A creative way to read carefully and show understanding of words,phrases and write our own dialogues 

Simile silhouette sentences

We can work toward creating with our young advanced  language learners a drama and grammar sequence of activities using nouns, adjectives, adverbs and creating spoken, performed  and written similes!

At the end of the sequence of activities the challenge is to create a "spoken simile silhouette poem" based on a specific groups of adjectives or adverbs. 

If a picture paints a thousand words ...

Thinking of ways to explore descriptions of people, their hair, eyes, faces, emotions?
Well why not use this video clip that I was alerted to via Twitter @i100 this morning!
Watch how the portrait of a woman's face has changed over 800 years of painting

How do I think this could be used? Here are just a few simple ways ....

Name the portrait!

• Give children target language name cards- 3 per child. Practise and use the target language names of course and then  play the video and ask the children to raise the name cards when they see a face that they think suits the target language name. 
• Now ask the children to work in groups of four and create 12 faces -using facial expressions for the 12 name cards they hold between them. They must introduce themselves using a full target language sentence.
• Ask the children to find portraits of characters through the ages that they can label with their target language name phrases and then create their own short videos with portraits and names

Look closely and what do you see!

• Practising describing eye and and hair colour?Well then ask the children to write as many eye and hair colours phrases as they can  on a piece of paper. The children cut the phrases into phrase strips and one child goes first on the table or in the group to share their phrases with their classmates. 
• Ask the children to read out the phrase they hold (it could be an eye colour or a hair colour) and tell the group what they think the phrase is in English . Does the person who wrote the phrase agree?
• Now play the video and ask the children to watch for a portrait ,where they can see or identify the eye colour or hair colour phrase strip they are holding.They must raise the strip in the air to acknowledge this . Pause the video every so often and see what phrases the children are holding up. Are they all correct ? Do they match the  portrait?
• Increase the challenge by giving the children pre-prepared phrases which have an eye and a hair colour  - the portrait must match both descriptions for them to hold up their phrase strips.

Anticipation Emotions 

• The clip had the most evocative music and if you watch closely many of the portraits and the music are interlinked, sharing the facial expression and the emotion suggested in the music.
• Ask the children to watch  some of the video with you and when you pause the clip to suggest an emotion that the portrait is relating to its audience.Either asking children to recall key emotions language or using bi-lingual dictionaries create and English /target language checklist of emotions on the flip chart.
• The children can use this checklist as a point of reference for the second part of the activity. This time play part of the clip and conceal the screen from the children and ask them to listen to the music- can they anticipate the possible emotions on the screen when you pause the clip and reveal the portrait , just by listening to the music.What emotion does the music convey? They must tell you this in the target language!

Portrait gallery selfies!

• Using photos of themselves and music that they enjoy , can the children generate a portrait gallery of "selfies" with written and read aloud facial descriptions that can be share with the whole class on the IWB? 

The washing machine grammar device

It's almost time to go back to school - some people may already be there!
Twitter continues to throw up wonderful ideas and yesterday I found this brilliant young primary teacher's tweet,sharing his creation of a "prize box/super wish-wash miracle machine" Thanks Craig Birch for your great idea and look forward to following you on twitter  @TheMrBirch

So how do I think we can use this idea during the course of the year. 
Firstly I love it when there is a tool or device that can be used over and over again to explore a specific concept or to use a familiar tool or device to explore new ideas. Children love the familiarity too - it gives them something to hold on to!

Here is the "prize box/super wish-wash miracle machine" that Craig Birch shared......

It's a cardboard box that looks like a washing machine  and it's going to be a "super wish-wash word miracle machine" that can be used in lots of different ways to help UKS2 children  create sentences and texts in primary languages. 

It's a different device to practice age old sentence construction in a target language. The activities aren't ground breaking but the device adds a new dimension! 

Why do I want to try this? Well so often in my opinion children are fine at taking in and recalling words but when the "moving on and mixing up content elements" take place i.e.the construction of target language sentences or texts with an element of the unknown thrown in for good measure  then a lot of children (indeed adults!) panic.Perhaps that's why I like the idea of the washing machine - it's a different approach.It's entertaining and purposeful and it may perhaps help to stop some of those mental blocks..............

Here are my ideas:

1. Putting  the washing in...simply going on a washing hunt,where just like you only put in the "whites" or "woollens" when washing,we only want to put in the adjectives or the nouns we can find in a text.All the children need to do is read a text,locate the key component(s) as defined by the teacher e.g verbs,write them on pieces of paper fold them up and add them to the washing.
2. Taking the washing out - well then we can take out the washing and check if any "nouns etc" got in our "verbs" wash.
3. Sorting the washing- maybe the activity is based on a basket of cards with words written on them and the children have to sort the washing . Only put nouns and adjectives in the awash or only put in verbs and personal pronouns. when the washing is complete, can the children create pairs (just like pairs of socks) but this time it will be matching adjectives to nouns or personal pronouns to parts of verbs   
4. Sentence making - ask children to find and bring to you key parts of a sentence that you have pinned or blu-tacked around the room e.g. ask the children to find for you the nouns/ the adjectives/ the verbs/ the personal pronouns.Invite children to add the individual components to the "wish wash machine" and hang up your washing line- an item most primary classrooms already possesses! Count to ten and then one by one bring out the cards and ask the children to help you to create a sentence or sentences on your washing order so that it makes sense.
5. Programme the washing machine- why not have a menu of programmes (simply written on the front of the machine)- sentences/ verbs/ imperatives/adjectives and nouns/ tenses (present, near future)? You can bring the washing machine out and add words, select the programme cycle and then challenge groups of children to take out the "washing" and put the washing together so that it matches the selected programme.  
6. Miracle theme washing powder! Craig's name for his machine has an element of surprise to it I feel and so I think we can add miracle washing powder to our wash?!Whatever we have put in the machine when we hang out the washing to dry, the miracle washing powder gives us the confidence to be able to reconstruct a dialogue with punctuation pegs or put together a poem that rhymes- just using the word cards that we put into our washing machine!

So thanks to Craig and his brilliant tweet... I now have a new approach to reinforcing grammatical points, to sentence and text construction in the target language and a simple cardboard box that has become my re-usable and fun focus device the  "super wish-wash word miracle machine"!

A sentence is a device for taking a thought for a walk

Now here is a great thought!
I received this "thought"today via  a tweet from @MartinShovel many thanks too!It's actually a example of what the cartoon is trying to explain!

What a marvellous staring point to develop writing with young language learners.

this cartoon and the ideas behind the cartoon  link really well  with  early investigations of sentence structure.These blog posts help us in my opinion to get the young language learners to the point where they can  take their thoughts for a walk as well constructed sentences.

To construct a good sentence we need to develop free writing with accurate punctuation mind the gap and get writing .

We can also practise and consider how we convey,receive and write  messages via the activities based upon smoke signal messages writing for purpose smoke signals.

We can investigate the different levels upon which we build sentences through physical activities based upon the split personality of a sentence  

Let's take our thoughts for a walk then!

• Start with free writing of sentences based on a class focus e.g likes/ dislikes/questions we want to ask other people/statements about ourselves.Just ask you children on rough paper or mini-whiteboards to create their own sentences of a focused thought!
• Let's put these into a frame or structured sentence. Remind them of punctuation and grammatical structure .
• Let's move the thoughts jotted on  paper or mini-whiteboards that we have been working on and create  spoken utterances that convey the meaning of our thoughts .
• Let's look at the split personality of a sentence and with a group of classmates convey the physical performance of the punctuation, the structure , the pronunciation and the meaning of our sentences. 
•  Let's share our sentences with the class by performing them for the class and therefore taking our thoughts for a walk!
• Now let's capture our thoughts as correctly written sentences that can be passed on to a partner who can understand what we have written and create a cartoon or drawing of the meaning of our written sentence.