les guillemets en français

Aha! Comment ajouter les guillemets quand mon clavier est sur l'option «français». Voilà!

SHOULD READ "OU" - MY APOLOGIES.

j'aime lire - teaching reading in grade 1 French Immersion

What's your routine for teaching reading and specifically French sound blends in grade 1? Here's an overview of mine.

September to December we review the letter sounds from kindergarten using Jolly Phonics. Sound blends are introduced over 10 weeks beginning in January.

Guided reading routines begin in March.

1)  Introduce the letter sound and action (from Jolly Phonics). Each sound is a specific colour.

In school these cards did not have English explanations. Neither did the stories as posted below. I have changed those for tutoring purposes and for families who want to help but feel lost when they don't speak French.

LINK TO STORY DOWNLOAD HERE!

2)  Circle the sound with a coloured pencil in a our words of the week. Sound out the words of the week in isolation. We look for "les petits mots", the little words in the big words. Notice "les fantômes" or "les lettres muettes" (silent words).

3)  Circle the sound in our story of the week. This encourages students to look for what they know and recognize.

4)  Read the story together. There are spots to spell the words and images to help as we read.

In my classroom these simple stories were on 1 sheet of paper, no booklet, and we had 3 "levels" of difficulty for various student ability.

As I prepare the resources I will post the stories. I can't post Jolly Phonics resources but they are available from their site here.

5) Play a game with the words, either walking on footprints with the words, pulling sticks from a can, making the words with magnets. We also practice listening for the sound at the beginning, middle and end of the word.


































6)  Change some of the words in the story to write a new story using the simple sentence structure of the story of the week. This was not part of the grade 1 routine, I've added a writing component for tutoring.

7)  Use visual dictionaries to help choose new words for the new story. Usually writing your own story is for homework.

8)  Stamp the sound blends on our hand (mine too), it lasts for a couple days and is a reminder of the sound of the week.












8)  Practice re-reading the story, review the sound, read the word sticks, write your own story over the course of a week. Depending on where they're at practice spelling the words. In grade 1 students were to bring home their duotang, read the story and each page was stamped with a "please sign and return" note for parents.

9)  Each week I send something in the mail, a note, a cartoon using our words, a postcard in French.

10) The following week we review the last week's sound, reread the story, read your own story and move on to a new sound.  Periodically we review past sounds, words, stories to see if it's "sticking". We can also spend time reading home reading books from school together.  The first goal is reading, then spelling, then writing.

This is the progression I hope to work through.





11) I have a license to print levelled books from readinga-z.com and lend these out for students to read, practice, enjoy, and sometimes do some reading response work with. These are also the base for writing when we move on to that.










Here is the scope and sequence we used in grade 1. At the time we had a team of Francophone assistants who went to each class and worked with small groups of students. Each classroom had 4 French speaking adults for an hour block! The program can still work by teaching the mini lessons to the whole class and then working on differentiated levels of stories in small groups. 

We also had quick assessment check lists, each group leader did an assessment at the end of the week with each student. This gave a quick snapshot of who had mastered a sound and who needed some extra review. We had 4 grade 1 classes and kept the literacy block cohesive and structured. 

In January we began a guided reading routine. That's another post!

Rocky View Schools has generated a list of grade level words that students are expected to be able to read as sight words by the end of each grade. These word banks serve as part of our reading assessment. Many of the grade 1 district words are in the short stories teachers have created. I have added support materials that include the grade 2 and 3 words for the students I work with in those grades. Everything isn't posted yet but it is comin'!












SUPPORT MATERIALS (click on description to download document)
grade 1 word list by sound RVS

les jasettes word list by sound from stories

les jasettes word lists by sound for work with words during Daily 5

English pronunciation guide of French sounds (scroll down to page 16) click link here ---> La boîte à outils

les sons

I saw this on Mme Francoeur's student desks today and had to make one and post it.

Brilliant!

A quick reference for students K-4 when writing. The sound blends. Document prints several  on each 11x17 page.

Click here for download ----> les sons sur mon pupitre - the sounds reminder for on student desks

year long French calendar tally graphs

There comes a time in grade 1 when tallying and counting by 5s and 10s gets serious.  For that reason I print and laminate these posters 11x17 and line them up under the calendar.  We tally everything and practice counting using authentic data, our birthdays, our lost teeth, the days at school and so on.  Bring on the dry erase markers.

You need a wide format printer to print to 11x17, print to your school photocopier or submit online to Staples Print and Copy Centre.

I loved that font so yes, you have to add the accent grave on "fête" on this one.

L'espace - vocabulaire et projets d'écriture

My colleagues are working on a space unit with their kindergarten students.  You can find the post on our wiki here.

My students enjoyed the Toys in Space question; how would toys operate in zero gravity? Could you still play? How would the "game" have to be modified? There are a few different NASA videos using toys, my collection was slightly different (it was circa 2003!).


I have included further vocabulary support materials here.

 space unit vocabulary word strips

All of the following documents are here.

mini space vocabulary word strips for use at "work with words"

space vocabulary images for journal writing and sorting

1)  Je colle dans mon journal.
2)  J'écris les mots.
3)  J'écris des phrases.
4)  Je dessine mes propres images.

space vocabulary images for flip book

flip book

space vocabulary images for mini book

 mini book

1)  Je colles quelques images.
2)  J'écris les mots, des phrases si possible.
3)  J'utilise les autres mots que je connais, les couleurs, grand, petit, loin, près.

space bingo

les planètes, pancarte (tabloid, 11x17)
wide format printer is needed to print this to tabloid size (or submit Staples Print and Copy online for pick up)




Wordless HD animation of planet size and scale. (includes the moon (Mond), some dwarf planets and other suns)

All I need to know about teaching I learned from the hardware store

This was an inspiring week on twitter.  First was Derek Keenan's post about a pedagogical oath and what one might look like. Then came a post from DavidWees about 10 Teacher Commandments.  Finally, a post from Edudemic about the 10 Skills Modern Teachers Must Have.

Inspiring and overwhelming. Today I visited several local hardware stores to get the materials I needed for a home improvement project.

All I needed to know about teaching I learned from the hardware store.

French Literacy Resources for K-2

Here are my favourite French Immersion Language Arts Teacher Resources.  What are yours?

(in order of the photos left to right, top to bottom, all except the savoir lire are available in French and English)

Miriam Trehearne's books from Nelson

Le manuel phonique from Jolly Phonics (other resources in French are available)

Savoir Lire reproducibles from envolée and substitute teacher resources

The Daily Five and Café books (our K-4 language arts program begins here with this model) the authors' blog is here

Alberta Provincial Curriculum & Resources by subject K-4

this post is in progress - see my Pinterest boards for complete resource bank by subject

The University of Lethbridge has a comprehensive database of resources for teachers. It can be found and accessed here (see tab titled "resources").

Language Arts Alberta Program of Studies K-4

Be sure to see the Illustrative Examples by grade level.  They include unit and lesson ideas that demonstrate what students CAN do at this grade level, what does the outcome LOOK like.













Current Common Practices:

The Daily Five: a language arts model that easily allow for differentiation
Jolly Phonics: a model for teaching letter sounds, sound blends and beginning reading
Handwriting Without Tears: a model for teaching printing, needs to be adapted for various abilities, uses slates and manipulatives
Alberta Provincial Achievement tests in grade 3, 6, 9 in math and language arts
Nelson

Math Alberta Program of Studies K-4

Using your provincial recommended resource, Pearson Math Makes Sense, or Chenalière in French, is especially helpful when teaching math.  You get an idea of how long each concept should take, lessons are clear and assessment is included.  As you gain experience you will certainly want supplement this resource, I have found it to be a great place to start.

Pearson provides this suggested timing chart for the year in each resrouce binder for each year (look under the planning and assessment tab, unit planning), very helpful for long range planning.










I've never had a math textbook for students but the teacher's guide and PDFs have always been available.

Each edition has a CD, I suggest installing it onto your laptop and home computer so that you always have it for quick reference (same for the provincial Social Studies resource).

The Pearson (Chenalière in French) teacher guide also breaks down each unit as it relates to our specific provincial outcomes.

I always use the pre-unit checklist . . .

and complete the post-unit rubric, I send the completed rubric home stapled to assignment and quiz samples, it has some notes from me and parents are asked to sign it and return it.  I find these 2 documents make report cards much easier.  I keep these handy during student-led conferences.














This is a project example from the free portion of the site Alberta Assessment Consortium.  


The projects are culminating, summative assessment tasks based on high priority learner outcomes and provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do in an authentic, real-life context. New tasks are added on an ongoing basis.

The projects are engaging, they often integrate subjects and most importantly they provide first-rate assessment tools (printable, downloadable).

The projects (there are only 2-3 per grade) often include options for differentiation, SMART notebook files, supporting muli-media, and student exemplars.



I have seen this Alberta Assessment Consortium print resource in Rocky View Schools and I believe that district has a membership to the site.  Even the few that are posted are helpful for designing your own performance assessments.

Science Alberta Program of Studies K-4

Social Studies Alberta Program of Studies K-4

Health Alberta Program of Studies K-4

Power to Play kit and website

The workshop is free, plan to arrange for classroom or school funds to buy the kit(s).  Lessons, assessment ideas and templates are free and downloadable online from their website.  The kit is not available in French but the templates are in French online.

They do a good job of integrating some of the health and PE outcomes.  Good for those days when the gym isn't available because of a Christmas concert or special presentation, great for sub days.  I do at least one Power to Play project per term, and keep it prepped in my sub file. A pre-made, canned resource may not hit the inquiry and Project Based note but it's helpful when you're sick and can't plan.

Students and parents may complete a multiple intelligences assessment at the beginning of the year.  This link contains online assessments for children and adults as well as a printable version (pictured here).  By getting to know your students this way early in the year you; gain the trust and confidence of parents, are mindful of the varying strengths of your students, have already addressed some of the learning outcomes related to life learning choices in the Health (Life Skills) Program of Studies.



Your school may promote special programs like The 7 Habits Leader in Me or The Heart of the Matter Character Education and Citizenship or Bucket Fillers.  Wherever possible look for natural integration of school wide initiatives into your learning outcomes so that these initiatives aren't "extra" but are truly part of your program.

Physical Education

Premier Sports Program of British Columbia

I did this workshop 13 years ago and still love this resource.  It keeps you away from months of tag and dodgeball games and gives the non-athlete a very easy template to follow.

Best, best, best feature; at the end of the unit students choose their level of performance assessment.  It describes how to set up the assessment and students can self score whether or not they met their goal (ie: basketball, throw the ball with proper shooting technique 10 times and hit anywhere on the back board, record how many you achieve out of 10).  It's differentiated, self-directed, you can level-up, love it.

École Edwards Physical Education School-wide long range plan.







Although this school wide LRP is not very specific, having a school wide long range plan means that time is saved taking out and putting away equipment.  For gymnastics units the equipment stays out and is set up for the entire month.  This was an extremely efficient way to use our physical education time and to be sure we were meeting the goals of the Daily Physical Activity Initiative (DPA).

Art



















Information Technology

Drama

Music

French

French Immersion