Toronto Teacher Mom: Christmas

Counting Down to Christmas with Hallmark

Sunday, December 16, 2018
36 Comments

Petit livret de Noël à illustrer #aimlang

With only one week left of school, I wanted to do an activity with my students that they could take home for the holidays. I have been meaning to create a mini book that they can practice reading with their family and I finally finished one. It's certainly not my best writing. I had to keep it simple since I wanted to use words that my level 1 AIM students would be able to read, in particular my grade 1 students. Words that will be fairly new to them are pôle Nord, père Noël, renne Rudolph, et carotte but they are pretty straightforward in terms of meaning. We will just need to work on pronunciation. Ideally, they will work on this all week as I want them to take their time with the illustrations. I've added some images to help out and even erased parts of Santa's and Rudolph's faces so we can review the French words for nose, mouth, happy and sad, for example. Here is my fully illustrated sample:

Before we even begin folding it into a mini book, I plan on coaching the whole class through the illustrations one page at a time, practising additional vocabulary that is not in the text by directing them as follows: "On doit finir le dessin du père Noël. Tout le monde, dessine la tuque sur sa tête, le manteau et la mitaine." And then I will invite them to provide their input: "Qu'est-ce que le père Noël dit?" for example.

For the next two pages, I can already predict many of my younger students will complain that they cannot draw the same way that I did so I will model a much simpler version of Santa. What I will stress, though, is the importance of drawing the line of horizon (which I will simply call la ligne) on most of the illustrations since it helps to separate le ciel en haut and la terre en bas.

Once we have finished illustrating the pages using pencil, then they will be able to colour.

And then we learn how to fold and cut along the dotted line in the centre. This is where it gets tricky so I will likely come around and cut for the grade 1 students once they are done folding.

If you'd like to try this petit livret, click on the thumbnail below to download a copy.

UPDATE: I've created a slightly modified version in the hopes that each page will be better centred and not cutoff when folded, given that the proportions might be a bit off depending on how your printer adjusts for borderless printing. It also more clearly shows the dotted line where you are required to cut in the centre. Here is the modified version of Le père Noël mini book:

Le père Noël petit livre à illustrer #aimlang

Should you require a tutorial on how to fold the mini book, let me know in the comments below and I will post one on the blog.

Update: Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to fold the mini book.

Joyeux Noël!

Saturday, December 15, 2018
3 Comments

A Heartwarming Video From IKEA - The Other Letter

Christmas

Wednesday, December 02, 2015
8 Comments

Recalling Christmases Past

Christmas

Tuesday, December 23, 2014
39 Comments

Make Your Own Paper Star Christmas Decoration

Arts and Crafts

Tuesday, December 16, 2014
35 Comments

Cricut Paper Pups Handmade Christmas Cards

Arts and Crafts

Monday, December 01, 2014
48 Comments

O Christmas Tree

Christmas

Tuesday, December 10, 2013
55 Comments

Holiday Gift Guide: Posterjack.ca

Canvas Prints

Since the holidays are quickly approaching, I have enlisted the help of my brother, an avid photographer, to share his experience with Posterjack.ca. With a myriad of creative photo art ideas, holiday decorating and gift giving is easy thanks to Posterjack. Here is my brother's review of the entire ordering process using one of his beautiful photographs as can been seen on his ConceptsbyDT Flickr photostream.

Hello All,

My sister (yes, the Toronto Teacher Mom) was kind enough to put me into contact with Posterjack. The purpose of our little joint venture was to scratch an itch I've been having to print some of my photographs on a format larger than a 4"x6" print. At the same time, I am able to help Diana with her quest to provide a comprehensive list of Holiday Gift Ideas. You have to admit, there is no better gift than the gift of a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork.

Posterjack is an online photo printing website that allows you to turn your digital photographs into large format works of art. You can choose to print your photographs as posters, canvas prints, metal prints and much more! I have been a fan of canvas prints ever since my friend showed me a few of the canvas prints in his gallery. The medium adds a certain creative feel to the image.

I wanted to turn this photograph into something I could show off to my family and friends. The fact that I almost broke my ankle (and more importantly my camera and lens) getting this shot is a badge of honour. The following picture was taken at Albion Falls in Hamilton earlier this summer.

The first few steps in ordering from Posterjack involve selecting a print medium, uploading your file, and choosing the size of the print. The most common sizes are shown, but don't forget to check out the "more sizes" option at the bottom. As you can see from the picture below, I found a great size to suit my photograph.

Size options

After the image is uploaded (this may take a few moments), the image is automatically analyzed to determine if the photograph meets certain quality standards. This is to ensure that your image will look great in a larger format. Posterjack also checks to see if the dimensions of your photograph are compatible with the size of print selected. As you can see below, my photograph was not in perfect proportion to the size of print selected. With a bit of cropping, I was able to adjust to the desired size.

Original on left side. Cropped image on right.

With the image cropped to fit the size of the print, you are able to preview the image to ensure you didn't crop out any important details.

Image preview

Once I was happy with the cropping, Posterjack provided me with some other finishing options that included adding a frame, a colour border or custom effects.

Finishing touches.

I wanted to keep my canvas print as simple as possible, so I didn't choose any of the additional options available. This isn't to say that you won't find these features handy or helpful. While my photograph was already converted to black & white, you can convert your images to B&W using one of the available visual effects. This is very helpful if you don't have any editing software on your computer.