Virtual Dice Activity

A teacher shared this at a conference I went to, so I knew I definitely had to pass along this gem to the rest of you.  Just a warning, this activity only works if you have a smart board.

This virtual dice activity is awesome.  You can set one or both dice to randomly choose something (maybe a subject pronoun on one and a tense on the other?) and then the random word chooser to choose a word (verbs work great here).  This is an awesome activity to use with white boards in class.  The kids also LOVE taking turns activating the dice and word chooser.

This one that I made (<--CLICK) was for practice with adjectives, possessive adjectives and family members.  The first dice said who was the owner (my, your, his/her, etc).  The second said what family member they owned.  Finally the random word chooser had adjectives that described people.  Some were adjectives that needed to go before the noun, all needed agreement.  It was a great way for students to practice all of them.

Feel free to use the one I linked.  It is easily editable to whatever you'd like to use.  Just be aware that the random word generator chooses the same order of boxes every time, so if you will be using it more than once with the same class, save your progress and pick up where you left off.

Enjoy!

Ditch the Flashcards Part 2: 9 Other Great Ways to Reinforce Verb Conjugations

A couple weeks back, I wrote about different ways to practice vocabulary other than using flashcards.  This got me thinking that it could also be useful to discuss verb conjugation tactics as well.

Conjugating verbs correctly, while annoying and nit-picky at times, is very important.  Students need to not only be able to conjugate based on who is doing the action, but they also need to be able to accurately express the tense of the action as well.  Unfortunately, the best way to do that is drill, drill drill, but these are some ways to practice that don't feel so repetitive.

1. Dice tic-tac-doe
This is a favorite with my students.  I generally pick the harder verbs of the verbs we are working on.  They love having six games of tic-tac-toe going at once and the intensity definitely rises when students are trying to roll the die to get to a certain board.

2. Avalanche
This is a team game with a lot of activity and excitement.  It requires teams to know the definition and the 6 different conjugations of any given verb.  It particularly helps with those difficult verbs.. when teams keep getting avalanched over and over again, you can always bet they will remember the real conjugation when it comes time for the test.

3. Songs
I often teach songs with especially difficult verbs.  It may not 100% teach the spellings, but it at least gives kids the right direction to think when it comes to the spelling.  It also really helps with pronunciation of the conjugations and helps them realize that often, the je, tu, il/elle/on and ils/elles forms all sound the same.

4. Anagrams
Giving students only a specific set of letters and making a game/challenge out of them coming up with conjugations always helps to reinforce the spellings of different conjugations.

5. Whiteboard practice
Just throw together subjects and verbs on slides and voila... you have an activity for students to practice verb conjugation.  I always set my slide up so it shows the subject and verb first, then on the click shows them the right answer.  It's a great way to give them immediate feedback, which is important.

6. Spoons
This game is great for getting students to either group conjugations of the same verb or different verbs of the same form (for example, all of the "tu" forms).  When teaching multiple tenses, you can even put different tenses in there and have them group by subject or infinitive.

7. Category sorting
Like spoons, it helps students to group conjugations together.  I will often put 20-30 conjugations in a list on a sheet. First, students must sort each conjugation into the correct infinitive.  Then they must sort conjugations into the correct form (je/tu/etc).  Sorting into the correct form helps students to see patterns of any given subject (for example: tu conjugations almost always have "s" or "x" for the ending).

8. Foldables
While these work great for vocabulary, they can also work well for verbs too.  It requires students to keep re-doing any of the problem areas but not anything they already have figured out.

9. Conjuguemos
I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love Conjuguemos. It's an awesome online tool for students to not only practice what they're learning (you can do just about anything: verbs, vocab, grammar, you name it), but to get immediate feedback.  If a student is struggling with a particular verb or two, they can set it to just put those verbs up when it quizzes them.

                                              (photo from: www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk)

Dice Tic-Tac-Toe

I came up with a fun new game for students to practice verb conjugations.
Basically, it's a variation of tic-tac-toe.  I made sheets of paper with six tic-tac-toe boards.  Each space has a different subject (which left me with one leftover space, so I just put definition in that last one).  Each board corresponds with a number and a verb.  For example, if you roll a 1, you have to go on board 1 and only conjugate the verb that goes with board 1.
Rules:
1. Split the class into groups of two (or if you want to make it even more interesting: three).
2. Make sure the students have the list of which number corresponds to which verb (either with them or on the board... in the future I might just put it on the sheet of paper they use for tic-tac-toe).
3. The first student rolls.  They then choose a subject off of the corresponding board.  They write down the conjugation on a sheet of scrap paper.  Their partner must check the answer.  If it is correct, you can put your X or O down.  If incorrect, you don't make a mark and that spot is still up for grabs.
4. The next student rolls.  They can choose an available subject off of the corresponding board and conjugate as well.  Play goes back and forth until each board has a tic-tac-toe on it.
5. If a player rolls the number of a board that already has a tic-tac-toe, then the turn is over.
6. The winner is the person with the most tic-tac-toes.  In the even of a tie, roll the die.  Whoever won the board that corresponds with that number is the winner.

The kids played it today actually and they seemed to like it a lot.  I am always trying to find new ways to review, and this way worked well.

CLICK HERE to download your very own reusable template.

Avalanche

When student teaching, I learned a really cool game called avalanche that helps students practice their verb tenses.

You split the class into teams of 6 or 8 kids (I try to stay away from 7 because each person ends up getting the same subject) and put them into rows, facing the board.

You call out a verb.  The job of person 1 is to run to the board and write the infinitive and the definition.  They take the marker and hand it off to person 2.  Person 2 then runs to the board and writes the je form and conjugates it (je = I).  Then they hand it off to person 3, who then goes to the board and writes the tu form.  This continues until all six forms have been written.

Example (typed..it would normally be on the board)

 

However...if at any point a student gets something wrong, you erase EVERYTHING (all while screaming "avalanche! avalanche!" that has been written.  Then, the student who was next in line (so not necessarily person 1) starts over.  This is even if they mess up the last form.  I usually count accents as well.   

Example that would warrant an "avalanche"

 

The winning team is the team that gets to the end correctly first.  This game works best when you have a whole list of verbs or when learning a specific tense.  I recommend writing out the verbs you are using first.  In the heat of the moment while judging 3-4 teams, it is easy to forget if they formed that form correctly.

A tweak that someone recommended to me was not avalanching them right away.  Instead of writing the next form on the board, the next person in line could fix a previous person's error instead, and then hand off the marker (so you are still wasting a turn to fix the error).  The only time you'd avalanche is if the person AFTER the person who wrote the 6th form says "yes it's all good!" and it's not good.