Sentence Builders

I've recently started an activity with some of my classes that involves sentence building.  I make a set of words (articles, nouns, verbs, verb endings, etc) that have all the pieces necessary to make sentences.  I give each group a set and have them spread the words out.  Next, I show them a sentence (in English) on the board that they must make in French using the pieces I gave them.  After a few minutes, I will show them the answer.  If they got it right, they get a point.  Most points at the end will win.

I really like this activity, especially with verb conjugation, because it forces them to see the structure of the sentences and specifically the conjugations. It's a bit of work to start, but once you make a set, you can keep re-using them with that unit in future years.  I also have my first group cut out each set to save myself some time.

The kids also enjoy it because it's very kinesthetic and helps them to process sentence structure.  And of course, a little competition never hurts either.

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!