Question Ball

I noticed as I clicked "new post" that this is my 100th post!  It's so awesome to see what this blog has not only done for me but for my readers as well.  It always makes me happy to see people posting in other places about using these resources/ideas and how they worked for them.

This is an idea I cannot take credit for, it's actually something my student teacher did.  Nonetheless, I just had to share.

I've definitely been pushing more for interpersonal proficiency in my room (something I really lacked in past years), so we have the students speaking quite often.  To mix it up a bit, my student teacher found a cheap $1 ball and wrote a bunch of relevant questions on it for our unit.

In the activity, the ball was thrown to a student.  Wherever their right thumb landed was the question they had to read out loud and respond to (en francais bien sur).  They really enjoyed it and it was fun with how random it was.

One way to even mix this up is to start by asking a student a question and THEN throwing it to them.  They must respond to the question first and then ask the question by their thumb to the next student and throw the ball.

Either way, it gets them speaking but is low pressure as it's just a simple question.  See the photo below for a photo of the ball.  Please excuse my chipping manicure ;)

Telephone Pictionary

So first of all, I'm embarrassed to say it's almost THREE months since I've posted.  I greatly apologize for this.  Things have been rather crazy lately including taking on a student teacher (he's awesome) and implementing new curriculum practices (including IPAs...but more on that later).

I came up with a super fun game today with my French 3s that they loved called Telephone Pictionary.  They are currently studying parts of the house along with chores.  It also included a review of location prepositions (next to, under, near, etc).  To practice a bit with the vocabulary, we played this game.

To start, I put the kids into rows of 4 (but any even number would work).  The first person in the row faced the front and the rest had to face the back so they couldn't see the board.  What I did was project a simple picture on the board (examples below) and the first person had to write a few sentences to describe it.  They then passed their sentences to the next person who had to draw what was written.  That person had to pass their drawing to the next person who had to write (and so on and so on).  The line should end at someone who is drawing.  I gave them about 2-3 minutes per round and the team who had their last drawing closest to my original drawing would get the point.  For some of them that are more complicated I gave maybe two or three points even.

The kids really enjoyed this game and got very competitive with it.  It helped them with sentence formation and putting lots of vocabulary in context.  It could definitely work with multiple types of vocabulary!

Tapette Vocabulary Game

So I will start with the disclaimer that I cannot take credit for this game.  A colleague introduced it to me, but it's so awesome, I have to share.  If you've ever played flyswatter game with your kids, it's actually quite similar.

To prepare, you take the current vocabulary you are working on and make a sheet with photos and English words if you need them.  This is my sheet for the clothing unit:  (Feel free to copy it and use it yourself!)

In class, you have the kids find a partner (groups of three work too, but I've found that partners work best) and give one sheet to each group.  Take your own copy of the sheet and project it on the board.  Then call out a vocabulary word (in the target language of course).  The students must touch the item with their finger faster than their partner.  Whoever gets it first gets to put their mark on it (usually have them choose Xs and Os).  If neither got it, just scribble it out.  Once you've called a certain item, you cross it off on your sheet too.

I played this with my French 2s yesterday and they were SO into it.  They were having a blast!  What's awesome about this is you can use it to practice just about any kind of vocabulary.  It's also something you can keep reusing if you have a random 5 or 10 minutes to kill at the end of a random class.  Another fun spin is to have students take turns doing the calling of vocabulary as well.

Kahoot Trivia Game

If you have never heard of Kahoot, I strongly encourage you to read this blog post.  Why?  Because Kahoot is AWESOME.

If you have ever played trivia in a bar, it is the same concept, except YOU get to write the questions and your students get to answer.

To start, you must go to getkahoot.com  and sign up for a free account.  Then you are ready to get started.  First you must create a quiz.  Then, you write questions which can be text, photos, or both (they also have a beta version going with videos, but I haven't tried it yet).  You then write the four different options of answers and indicate which is the right answer.  Keep clicking add question until you are finished, then click save and continue.

Once the quiz is done, you can launch it, projecting your computer image onto the screen.  Your students will go to kahoot.it and enter the 4-5 digit pin code for said game and then enter their names.  As they enter, you will see their names pop up at the front of the room.  Once everyone is in, you launch the game.

As the questions pop up, students must choose the correct answer from their own device.  The faster they answer (correctly), the more points they get.  If they answer wrong, then no points.  Between each question, you will see a leaderboard on the main screen.

My students LOVE Kahoot.  The fun thing about it, too, is that you can do the same one more than once because it only further reinforces their remembering of certain facts.  I know I'm a foreign language teacher, but really, any subject could do this.

Check it out! I promise your kids will be begging for more.

Using Your Smartboard as an "Entry Slip"

While many students need the full four or five minutes of passing time, many others do not.  Quite often, students will come into my class a solid two to three minutes before class and just sit there staring into space.

Rather than waste those extra few minutes I might have with some students, I will often project interactive games onto the smartboard.  My students know that when they see a game, they may play it.  

What is really fun about these games is that it creates a competitive edge among the students.  Can you beat the best score?  Can you improve on your last score?  

The games I project will always have something to do with what they are currently learning.  Vocabulary, grammar, verbs... you name it!

My two favorites are quizlet and classtools.

With quizlet, I create a set of flashcards.  Sometimes I will purposefully set them up to not just be translations, but sometimes of verb conjugations or even question/response type things.  I then set the quizlet set to the game of "scatter" and students can play it on the white board when they walk in.  This is also great because students can make their own sets on quizlet and play games even at home on their computers.

With classtools, you can create TONS of different interactive games.  My favorite is the dustbin game.  This game is great when you have categories of things.  Students must drag the terms into the correct "bin" (category).  This is also a timed race.

I noticed an exponential improvement on many topics when I put these games on the board at the beginning of the hour.  The competition drives students to remember the terms.  I also use this as something to do if there is a few minutes to kill at the end of an hour as well.

Check them out!

Quizlet Logo

Battleship for Letter and Number Practice

Regularly practicing numbers and letters is very important in any language.  Letters and numbers are everywhere, so students should be able to express them and understand them. Being able to spell words for students in French is also a great way to keep your classroom even more in the target language.

Making a board is super simple.  I just turned my document in MS Word so that it was landscape instead of portrait.  Then, I put in a table that was 21 boxes wide and 15 tall.  Down the first column on the left side, I put in letters and then I put numbers across the top row.  I also included the terms at the bottom for hit, miss and sunk.

Students each get two boards: one for putting their own boats in and the other to mark their guesses for their partner.  I actually laminated a classroom set and put them in manila folders so that when you open the folder at a 90 degree angle, it looks kind of like a battleship board.  By laminating them, students just use dry-erase markers to do their marking, then they can be reused over and over again.

The kids love this game! They especially love saying hit, miss and sunk in French while playing. It is nice because it can be conducted 100% in the target language.

CLICK HERE for a free download of the template!

Anagrams for Verb Practice

One thing that drives me bonkers is that, no matter how many times we go over the four main verbs in French (to be, to have, to go, to make/do) the kids STILL don't remember how to conjugate them.  Of any verbs in the French language, these are the ones to do.

Because of how often we work on these verbs, it's easy to run out of ideas of how to practice them.  I've done everything under the sun: dice tic-tac-toe, straight up conjugating worksheets, whiteboards, word scrambles, you name it.  I came up with an idea this week that kind of puts a spin on word scrambles: anagrams.

The activity has two parts and the difficulty depends on the level.  French one only did this activity in the present tense, while French 2 and 3 got to do it in present, futur simple, passe compose, imparfait and conditionnel.

I started off with a powerpoint with 20 slides.  Each slide prompted them to write a conjugation (I had them use whiteboards).   Then, they had to show me the answer upon me counting to three.  Then I clicked the mouse, which then revealed the answer.  Each one they got right, they got a point.

At the end of this activity, I had them grab random letters and accents (I just typed a bunch of letters into MS word and cut them with a paper cutter) that was equal to the number they got right during the powerpoint.

Then I handed out a worksheet that required them to fill in the letters at the top.  Using the letters they got, they had to come up with as many conjugations as possible.  For each conjugation, they had to indicate which of the four verbs it was as well as which subject (French 2 and 3 also had to indicate which tense).  For every three conjugations they got, I gave them a point of extra credit (I RARELY give extra credit, so this was a treat for them).

This activity worked really well because it incorporated them coming up with the conjugations upon me giving them a subject and verb, but then the roles switched and they had to come up with not only the conjugations, but the subject and verb as well.

One thing I would do differently next time would be to give them maybe one or two "free" letters.  Once they got started, they could pick a letter or two to add to their list.  Some kids got majorly screwed over and could only make one or two conjugations.

Overall, though, they enjoyed it.  They love anything that has a competitive edge to it.

After doing this activity I realized how many different places I could apply this activity.  It could be applied to ANY verbs, not just the four main ones in French.  It could even be applied to grammar and/or vocabulary. You could even get multiple topics into one with the activity if you were to do a grammar concept in the powerpoint and vocabulary and/or verbs with the anagrams.

Want a copy without having to do any of the work? Check it out in my TPT store.

Tout le Monde Avec

If the activity Tout le Monde Qui appealed to you, this one will appeal to you as well.

The setup and play is the same.  Put all of the students in a circle (preferably a circle of desks so they have something to place their items on).  Each desk should have either a sheet with pictures of items that correspond to vocabulary words OR even a ziploc bag with little figurines if you can find them.  The sheet or bag needs to stay at each desk/chair, so what each student hands will also change when they change seats.

Then play as normal.  The middle person says, "tout le monde avec _____" and anyone who has that item on their sheet or in their bag has to move.  With school supplies, you can maybe even have it be any student with that item with them in class.

It's a great way to apply the "Tout le Monde Qui" game to vocabulary that doesn't apply to students' specific descriptions, preferences or lives.

Photo from www.clipsahoy.com

Zut Alors Review Game

I came up with a really fun game that the kids absolutely love.

The game is called Zut Alors.  I bought two big black foam boards.  On each board I folded 26 4x6 note cards in half and taped them on by the sides with the open side up.  One board I labeled to be questions (and each note card labeled with a letter of the alphabet).  The other board is points (note cards are numbers).  I then cut 13 white note cards in half.  On the bottom half of one side of them, I wrote a point value.  The points could be +10, +20, +50, +100, Take 10, and Give 10.  A few cards also say either Zut! or Zut Alors!  If a team gets a Zut card, all of their points go into the "Zut-Pot" (basically a box I write on the board).  If they get a Zut Alors, they get all of the points that are in the Zut-Pot.  I then mixed them up and put one in each numbered spot. 

Then, I cut 13 more in half and wrote questions on them.  These were then placed in each of the lettered spots. 

Then we play!

The rules are as follows:

1. Split the class into teams.  Ideally teams should be no larger than 4 or 5.  I've played it with each student being their own team (when I have smaller classes).  I try not to have more than six teams, otherwise it takes forever.

2. Each team needs to be given a whiteboard, a marker, and an eraser.

3. Each team takes turns choosing a question.  I take the 1/2 of a note card out and project it on the screen for all to see.  Each team must answer the question on their boards, not just the team whose turn it is.  After 30-60 seconds, I have them hold up the boards.  If the team whose turn it is gets it right, they can pick a card from the points side.  If they get it wrong, each team that got it right gets 10 points and I also put 10 points into the Zut-Pot.


The nice thing about this game is once you make it, all you have to do is replace the question cards to fit your unit.  It's also really fun because it's not 100% about skill, there's also some luck to it.  I've had teams of students who aren't as strong still win.  It definitely mixes up the class.  Plus it's exciting, especially at the end, when you're waiting on that last draw to determine the outcome.

Tout le monde qui...

I love activities that get the kids moving around and active.  Students easily get bored if they are constantly in their seats only taking notes or doing worksheets.

One activity I love to do is called "tout le monde qui..."

You need to put chairs or desks in a circle so that it is completely enclosed.  There should be one less desk than people.  One person stands in the middle and depending on the theme of your game, they will say "tout le monde qui ______________".  Anyone who fits into this category (including the person in the middle) must get up and find a new desk.  They must choose a desk that is not their own, nor a neighboring desk.  There will always be one person who is seat-less, so that remaining person is the person in the middle.

Some themes I have done are colors (tout le monde qui porte _____), clothing (tout le monde qui porte _____ ), family (tout le monde qui a _______), and food (tout le monde qui aime _______).

This game is a great way for the kids to practice vocab.  At the beginning of a unit, I allow them to use their vocab sheets, but by the end, they are not allowed to.

Spoons

If I could pick one area of weakness with my kids, I would definitely say verbs.  There's only so many conjugating worksheets you can do, but games with verbs are hard to come by.

Then it hit me.  Spoons.

It is played like the game spoons. Here are the rules if you are unfamiliar with it.  However, using the printer in the office, I created my own decks of cards.  Each card has a verb on it...either the infinitive or a conjugation (je, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, ils/elles) but WITHOUT the subject.

I came up with two different ways kids could make a set of four.  They could get four different versions of the same verb (for example: portons, porte, porter, portes) OR get four different verbs in the same conjugation (for example: suis, ai, vais, fais [the first person singular of four different verbs]).  I found that both worked GREAT and they had so much fun with it.  It happened to be nice outside so we took the game outside.  If you don't have spoons, any objects will do.  I used markers and it worked just fine.

To help them get MORE practice, if they are "out", I require them to still play.  They just cannot grab a spoon.

I Spy

I am currently in a clothing unit for the French 1s.  One warmup the kids have really started to enjoy is I-Spy.  I give the kids a few minutes to study their vocab, and I write out four to five outfits of what people are wearing in the room.  I describe the people one at a time and the students need to guess who I am talking about.

This activity is great because the kids come to school in different outfits every day.  Sometimes I need to be specific because they will be wearing similar things.  Other times I can get away with "il porte un tshirt a manches longues" (he's wearing a long sleeved t-shirt) because only one student has this.

Both of my classes ask to play it almost daily.  I have seen a great improvement of their vocabulary because of it.

What am I?

I'm really in this mode lately trying to encourage vocabulary retention.  My 1s are currently learning about "faire les courses" or food shopping, so I did an activity that not only enhances their vocabulary, it also has them using the target language.  It's an activity called "qui suis-je?".

I made cards for each food vocabulary word and tied string to it.  Each student gets a food item behind them (like a backwards necklace) and they have to ask yes or no questions to their classmates to figure out what they are.  Because they are French 1, we wrote a list of questions we could ask on the board in order to keep them in the target language.  Questions like, "can you buy me at a boulangerie?", "am I red?", "am I a vegetable?", "do I say moo?"...things like that.  They have to go around the room asking their classmates yes/no questions trying to narrow down which food they are.  Once they figured out what they were, they turned the card to their front side.

I found that it worked really well.  They had to rack their brain for the possible vocab words they could be in order to narrow down their questions and then guess that they are.  One class did it perfectly without English, the other got into English a bit.  I tried to do it that if they heard someone speak English, they could take that person's card.  However, I didn't like that.  They ended up fighting and also it then made that English speaker even LESS likely to use French later.  I'm still trying to figure out a fix for that.

Do you have what I have?

I saw a post on another teacher blog about a game called "do you have what I have?" to help practice vocabulary.
Basically, you put all the kids in a circle and give them a whiteboard.  Each round, the students pick a random vocabulary word and write it on the board.  After everyone's done writing, they reveal what they had.  You get a point for every match you have.
I played it this way in my first French 1 class today and the kids loved it. But I noticed they were always choosing the easy ones like "une orange" or "une tomate" (the cognates).  Because of this, I decided to mix it up for the second French 1 class.  Instead of getting a point for a match, you get a point if NOBODY matches you.  It encouraged them to dig a little deeper into their vocabulary memory and use some of the oddball ones.
I liked it much better this second way and found that they got much more out of the activity.  They all seemed to love it! They asked if we could do it again sometime.
There are many different variations you can do depending on where they are in the chapter.  In the beginning, maybe they can be allowed to have their vocab sheets with them.  Next step would be no sheets, but maybe some pictures on the board and not so picky about spelling.  Next step would be no pictures, but also not so picky about spelling.  Last step (for the end of the chapter) would be no prompts of any kind and spelling needs to count.
I will definitely be playing this again!

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.

Puzzles

Some colleagues of mine showed me a great way to have the kids review.  They made puzzles that were four squares by four squares cut in half diagonally to make triangles.  On one side of each line is a clue, the other side is the answer.  I thought this was a great idea, but I couldn't shake the thought that there is no way for the kids to check their answers.  All the triangles fit together into the same final shape with a million different possibilities.

So, like with many things, I tweaked it.

I still used triangles, but I didn't make them form together into lines of squares.  The triangles were all oddly shaped and sized so that they would only fit together in one way.

I had the kids each make one.  I told them they could do vocabulary (English/French), verb conjugations (subjects/verbs), or clues (you smell out of this/le nez).  They handed them in so I could check to make sure they were accurate.  I then handed them back and had them cut them apart.  They traded with partners and put them together.  It worked out great!  It gave them a chance to review what we're learning.  I found that many kids did much more than just translations, which was great.  But even translations gave them a chance to practice vocab.

The cool thing about this is it can be used with just about anything.  Teaching match (problem on one side, answer on the other), teaching vocabulary, parts of speech, dates, historical figures...you name it!

Here is an example of a finished puzzle put back together:

Want an outline? Click HERE.

Circuit Review

Thanksgiving fell at a really weird time this year.  Normally it means it's almost December, but this year we had a full week of November left after Thanksgiving.

Based on the foreign language curriculum, I do a chapter per month with each level.  It times out really nicely and it gives the kids an idea of when there tests end up being.  This chapter test will be on Friday, so it's time to review, review, review!

I like to mix up review activities.  Yeah, Jeopardy is fun, but you can only play it so much.  Another teacher told me about this circuit activity that is great review for the kids and usually takes up an entire class period.

The first thing you do is figure out how many kids are in that class.  Then you take that many note cards, fold them in half, and put a "problem" on the outside each note card that can be solved in 30 seconds or less.  For example, my French 3s are learning about cooking, so one card might say il/ajouter.  Based on the "cp" in a circle I will put at the bottom, they will know they have to conjugate that verb in the present tense.  Then, on the inside is the answer so they can get immediate feedback and know if it's something they need to work on.  Each "round" lasts a total of 50 seconds.  The first 30 seconds students are solving the problem.  The last 20 seconds, they are checking their answer.  Then you have them each pass their card to the next person.  Eventually each person will have had each card once.

In order to hold accountability, I require them to fill out a worksheet.  I put three columns on it: card number, my answer, check answer.  I require them to write down the "check answer" even if their answer was correct.  I am thinking of adding another column saying "Didn't get it" so they can check it off and can go back to it or just know they need to study it.

One thing to keep in mind is you need to create a "circuit".  Basically there needs to be an imaginary line from the first person to the last person so that the passing can continue.  Here is an example of my circuit seating chart:

You can see that it's literally never ending so that there isn't a point where the cards stop.

The only annoying thing about this activity is you have to constantly watch the clock.   It gets repetitive saying "pass" and "check" every 20-30 seconds.  I'm hoping to find some sort of automatic online timer that would work.

In order to cut down on "instructions", I made a few categories (as discussed with the "CP" at the bottom).  I just write the category on the card and then I write all the categories on the board if they don't remember what they have to do with the card. 

I did this with my French 1s last month and they loved it.  It really gave them a feel for what they needed to review/study.  They really appreciated having immediate answers as well because they could instill the right answer in the moment.

You can also make a game out of it, seeing who has the most right answers.  The beauty of this activity is you can literally use it with any topic or subject.  Math, history, science, you name it.

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.