Tea bags full of adjectives and flavour!

Today,whilst training teachers,we explored creative ways to expand my blog post ideas on holding a cafe conversation based on a 

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

!

One of the ways we explored ,was based on the work we did earlier in the CPD session on adjectives and looking for adjectives in the bilingual dictionary and thinking about the agreement of adjectives.

There are two levels to this creative activity.....

• First of all each child needs a tea bag- made of paper, folded like a tea bag with an opening at the top- wide enough to pop a  small strip of card through
• The children also need access to bilingual dictionaries.

Level One

Each child has to create an original "fantastic" tasting tea!

In French and Spanish the noun is masculine - so this makes it ideal for  level one activities,as there is no agreement required.

All our children need to do is to think of persuasive and exciting adjectives in English e.g. refreshing, sizzling, tingling, sharp, spicy

They  need to look up these adjectives in the english section of the bilingual dictionary.

Cross reference the adjectives in the target language section of the dictionary to check meaning.

Write each adjective on a small strip of card - one per adjective ,making the written adjectives look the meaning of the word.

Now they have their words to describe their  fantastic tea! 

Adjective by adjective they need to squeeze out the tea bag ( take out each word and create a fantastical sentence about the tea in whichever target language you teach:

" the tea is sizzling, spicy and fruity"  

Now they can create their own drawing of their tea bag with symbols on the bag to explain each fantastical part of their drink of tea and the sentence written under the tea bag itself!

Level Two

In French and Spanish , a cup of tea has  a feminine noun! 

So now each child can follow the activity described in the stages for Level One ,collecting adjectives and writing them on cards and putting them in their paper tea bag containers.

The children then hand their tea bags and adjectives to  a second child in the class.

This child has a template of a cup of tea:

The second child empties the tea bag of its card strips and must write the adjectives on the tea cup with correct adjectival agreements to match a feminine noun in the target language!

Now can they use  the adjectives to create a complete sentence in the target language? e.g "the cup of tea is fruity,sparkling,warm and refreshing!"

They can now make a poster to advertise their cup of tea with a complete sentence.

And finally can they remember their sentence and act it out for the class to try and sell this fantastical cup of tea top the class?

The aliens have definitely landed! Year 4 Spring term observations.

We have an alien family in our JLN SOW.We introduce Year 4 to the family in Spring and then the children meet the aliens  to practise language across all four skills and grammar  at points later in Year 4,5 and 6. We love our aliens and they never fail to disappoint! Here is part of the family at carnival later in the school year! I say part of the family as our young learners keep on making us new members of the family.I have met the family several times in the last couple of weeks and what is remarkable is that each teacher adds their own style to the introduction and practise of the language around the aliens! 

Have a look at the difference in approaches between Ana's Spanish Year 4 lesson on the family.Janet W's Year 5 beginners French lesson on our alien family ,Emilie's Bonjour Madame blog post on her alien family lesson and the use of a Voice recording APP and now here below Joanne's Year 4 lesson in Spanish on the "familia alien" - full of drama and performance!

   

As you may know if you have been reading my blog posts on observations, I am currently undertaking a routine series of observations of the language assistants and teachers who work alongside me in our primary schools.They deliver primary language learning on a weekly basis.It is such a rewarding and pleasurable opportunity to see what is really taking place in schools.

This series of blogs is an additional support mechanism for these colleagues,as they can't be in each others classroom and as a team  we meet once per half term for a twilight CPD,So you can hopefully see that these blogs (with a cup of tea and a biscuit back at home) offer them an insight in to each others classrooms and schools. 

Joanne's "Familia alien" lesson

• A warm up greetings song packed with actions and  whole class singing , as they gathered on the carpet for the Spanish 
• Personal information questions and answers - using "the guest" (that was me) as a person to get to know.Praise for children - particularly those who don't always  speak Spanish confidently to new people in the classroom.
• Incidental language all in Spanish and reminders to " sentaos" to a couple of children not quite sat down or "escuchad" and "miradme" and then an instruction to discuss with their talking partners the language they had met for the first time last week "la familia alien" .....
• Looking for links (e.g papa/ mama or hermano and hermana) and praise for correct use of definite articles with reward " a star-cash" for someone who really thought hard before sharing a correct article! 
• Now the whole class was moving around and being the characters with the actions the children had chosen for the characters last week .As many actions as there are syllables in the nouns reminded Joanne. A wagging finger for mama, hands behind the head and a yawn for papa, football kick for hermano and disco dancing for hermana  and  tiny moving fists and feet for bebe! Stereo -typical (as Joanne pointed out) but chosen ,owned  and liked by the children and acted out with gusto!
• Now we started to use the question " Quien es?" and full sentence responses were expected " hola soy el bebe alien" etcetra...always in character , always with actions,accurate pronunciatrion expected and reinforced  and always performed well.
• The children were so engaged that they just listened ,joined in and responded to incidental instructions without even noticing that these were in the target language.
• Today  "abuelo" and "abuela" joined the family! This was a big moment  in this particular school,because when Year 6 were in Year 4 they designed the grandma and grandad to complete the alien family for us.It was their idea! They are precious to the school!
• Joanne introduced "abuelo" and asked the children to look at the slide from the familia alien ppt and work out how to say "abuelo" before she shared correct pronunciation ... and what we heard was excellent!
• Then she asked the children to be language detectives think about what they thought grandma might be in Spanish .... and with their talking partners we could hear them say "Well it's hermano  and hermana so perhaps the word ends in "a" (etc).Back came the response "abuela" and now Joanne could introduce Grandma.
• Of course the class needed actions for the characters and decided on an action that conveyed what one of the children described "Ooh me back" for abuelo and for grandma the class decided on a knitting action.
• "Can we play a dramatic Pedro dice?" asked one child. What a good idea was Joanne's response.Off they went to their standing spaces and how did the children own the game! Performance filled,volunteers as Pedro dice who had to say whole sentences for the rest of the class.One volunteer won a "starcash" reward for excellent pronunciation,intonation,speed of recall, use of complete phrases and correct use of "o" and "a" for our new characters - abuelo and abuela. How proud was that person!
• Time for performance in groups.On their home tables,the children had to create a performance introduction to the familia alien for the rest of the class.Each child had to be a character from the family , keep and enhance the actions and add their own alien voice.Joanne clarified that what she was looking for, was clear confident introductions to the  familia alien.
• As support she offered children the familia alien photo sacks (small card pictures of each character to help with recall of the nouns) but only if the children felt that they needed to use them .
• As additional challenge  the children were encouraged to add their own sentences - names, ages, feelings etc....maybe even questions for other family members.
• And off they went to spend 10 minutes creating their  entertaining Spanish familia alien performances for the rest of the class! 
• Thank you Joanne and Year 4.The aliens have definitely landed!

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. 

Jewels in the Crown .Adjectives and sentence writiing

With all our children across KS2 we are introducing them to and reinforcing their use of adjectives.
Making crowns for Epiphany is a great way to remind the children about adjectives and to ask them to use bi-lingual dictionaries to source new adjectives.

• Show the children a picture of the three Kings and look at the crowns they are wearing
• Give out crown templates to the children.
• Talk about the jewels in a crown and how they make the crown special and give the crown a character all of its own. 
• Ask the children to think about adjectives and how they make objects more interesting or give more detail to an object.
• Give each child a crown template
• Make sure there is access to bilingual dictionaries on the tables
• Ask the children to add "jewels" ( adjectives) to their simple crowns that are befitting of a King's crown - below I have explained how this can be an activity for beginners, moving on learners and advanced learners.

Beginners

We have taught our beginner learners some colours - so let's ask the to recall three colours they like the sound of in the target language and fill three big jewels with the letters of the colour word over and over again - written in the correct colour of course.

Ask the children to find three new colours  that they want to create three new jewels from and to make three new jewels on their crowns.

Can they create a written band of the colours at the bottom of their crowns - with the colours written clearly in the target language?

Moving On

With children who can now write simple sentences - noun  verb adjective, let's ask these children to think of their three favourite  colours and fill three big jewels with the letters of the colour word over and over again - written in the correct colour of course.

Ask the children to find three new colours  that they want to create three new jewels from and to make three new jewels on their crowns.

Can they create a written sentence description as their crown band at the bottom of their crown? 

Encourage the children to think about the spelling of the colour because of the gender of the noun - in French it's la couronne, so the children must write for example:

la couronne est bleue,jaune, verte ...........

Now we can have a crown parade - with the children showing their crowns and saying their own specially written descriptive crown colour sentences -in the voices perhaps of majestic Kings and Queens .

Advanced learners

1. Remind the children that adjectives describe objects and brainstorm with them the types of adjectives we may lie to use to describe a magnificent crown.
2. Ask the children to  list in English on their whiteboards 6 interesting descriptive adjectives they want to use for their own crown .
3. Ask them to look up these words in a bilingual dictionary and to practise reading aloud the adjectives.
4. Bring the class back together and ask children to share their adjectives with the class and their meaning.Write these on the flip chart.
5. Discuss with the children how you would say the words on the flip chart .Use our Look!Think!Link and read! prompt to help them
6. Discuss with the children how the endings of the adjectives will have to change because of the gender of the noun "crown " in the target language.In Spanish for example it's la corona 
7. ask the children to select three adjectives from your list on the whiteboard and become jewel designers
8. Ask the children to create jewels as caligrams in a shape and a colour they think depicts the adjectives they have chosen - on rough paper 
9. Talk about the position of adjectives in sentences using nouns
10. Now can they transfer these to their crown templates and as a band at the bottom of their crowns write a statement that says for example in Spanish or in French:

"Me gusteria una corona blanca,grande y .........."

"Je voudrais une grande couronne blanche et ......."

Now you have the perfect crown jewel display and even a class vote on the best crowns of the day!

 

Power of books and interesting sentences

Take look at this wonderful picture! There are so many ways in my head that I can interpret what I see here!

I want to use these pictures with our Stage 3 language learners to inspire them to use their language learning skills to explore language and extend their knowledge of adjectives!

So why and how am I going to do this?
Well each power of books picture inspires a different focus or theme.

• Red for an exciting day out! 
• Butterflies for a trip to a zoo
• Wires and cables for an imaginary visit to Space!
• Plants for a trip to the jungle and jungle animals
• Monster like tentacles to describe a monster
• Flames for a visit to a volcano 

Well our Stage 3 learners are our Year 5 and often Year 6 learners -and they are just beginning a new academic year of language learning and able to understand and generate simple sentences using nouns, verbs and adjectives- not necessarily placing adjectives after nouns or alway using accurate adjectival agreement but excited by the fact that they can now communicate in full sentences.It's time to help them to become more independent in their use of spoken and written language and to encourage them to see how creative they can be in their target language communication. 

Now we can give them the power!

........By becoming "word explorers" !

• We want them to explore bi-lingual dictionaries and also to read short texts to find interesting words which they can take from the texts they read and then use in their own simple sentence construction to add colour to their own descriptions and communication!
• We also want them to keep a record - a meaningful record of this new language so that they can re-use these words in other spoken or written texts

1. Give each group of table one of the pictures from the "power of books" pictures at the top of the page.You can select one or two pictures for the whole class or give different pictures to each of six tables or groups.I think I would opt for the first option - so that we can then feedback and share and build our banks of adjectives via each others' word explorations. 
2. Ask the children on the table to prepare to become "word explorers" and give the tables two tools to do this - a bilingual dictionary and a short written target language text with simple descriptive text based on their themed picture.Discuss with the children how as word explorers they will use the dictionaries and the texts. Set up word explorer rules.
3. Ask the children to look at their picture from the  "power of books" pictures and briefly discuss their themes in English.
4. Ask the children to write a list of key nouns that they  want to use and explore- can they identify these in their dictionaries.
5. Ask the children to read their short texts and identify any useful nouns and adjectives that they can add to their descriptions.
6. Ask the children to brainstorm on their tables additional interesting descriptive words that they would like to use and to search for these in their bi-lingual dictionaries.
7. Now ask each group to generate a sequence of interesting sentences on their specific "power of books" theme. Ask them to work together and to write these out in rough
8. Each group must now share their draft sentences with a second group and the second group must read the sentences and see if they can spot any changes that need to be made in sentence construction .The first group must explain the meaning of their sentences to the second group.

Now let's be creative and explore the "power of books" we can generate!

Create a power of books gallery of :

• paintings of the power of book pictures and written target language sentences
• a spoken presentation of the interesting sentences with the power pf books picture as a back drop
• use Yakit for Kids APP, have a look here and create a talking power of books sequence of photos add and each child on the table can record one of their sentences and create a gallery of  recorded interesting sentences !  

Mind the gap and get writing

Mind the gap : punctuation prompts

This activity is to encourage the children to write messages that they already know in the target language....

e.g a question , a statement , a command  or a spoken response

Before attempting the task the children need to be secure in their knowledge of spoken phrases.

You could try the activity at first with Y4 toward the end of the year of learning or Y5 and Y6 based on their knowledge of personal information questions and answers .

Children in the activity are being encouraged to show us what they can write rather than penalised for not knowing the correct phrase .

Just what can the children recall and attempt to write in the target language

At the start of the academic year in Y4 give children, working with a partner, strips of paper which just contain target language punctuation and an appropriate  gap for the missing words e.g.

• target language question marks
• exclamation marks
• target language speech marks
• a full stop
• a comma and a full stop

Here’s a Spanish example

¿........................................................................?

Increase the challenge 

Expect the children as they progress through Y4 and in to Y5 to work individually on an activity like this .

Give out two mind the gap challenges - so that children need to think of a question and an appropriate response

Increase this to four or five mind the gap strips and encourage the children to create a short written dialogue/ role play or conversation

You can differentiate the task by providing some children with a mind the gap text. 

An AfL Transition Opportunity 

This is an activity which could be used for simple AfL at the start of the Y7 academic year , especially if it's an activity the children have grow used to in UKS2 . Teachers can see what the children can recall , create and write.