The cultural component of the Grade 6 Ontario curriculum focuses on intercultural awareness of French-speaking communities in eastern, western and northern Canada. As such, I have recently introduced my students to the Festival du Voyageur. I tried to find some online resources and came across the Language and Culture weebly, initially developed by a team of Core French elementary school teachers. It references several links of cultural relevance for grades 4 through 8 and includes a unit on the festival. After having shown a video on les voyageurs, some of my students showed an interest in the song "C'est l'aviron /  M'en revenant de la jolie Rochelle" which les voyageurs sung throughout the video. I thought this was a perfect time to break out les cuillères and teach them how to play the spoons. They slowly began to take an interest in the song lyrics and so I decided to create a cloze activity based on the lyrics. I showed them two videos (see below) I had found on YouTube that included a more traditional version of the song and one that was more modern. The latter is actually a video from Kids CBC and features Patty, Sid, and Saumon de Champlain (this video has been removed from YouTube since this post was first published). I was worried my grade 6 students would find it too childish but in fact, they found it more amusing because the characters re-enact the lyrics and it also includes captions in English. 

I created the cloze activity seen above and wanted to share it since my students really enjoyed it. To download a copy, just click on the thumbnail above to access it via Google Drive. (Hover your cursor over the YouTube player and click on the YouTube logo to watch it on YouTube.com where you can add it to your playlist.) Here is a video I found on YouTube, which you may want to add to your own personal playlist for ease of reference.

For our first paper plane, my son chose Ishani even though secretly I wanted him to pick Chupacabra. And it isn't just because I love saying the name Chupacabra, more-so that it seemed to require the least amount of ink since a large portion of the body of the plane is white. If you have the option, you might want to print using the borderless option. Otherwise, if you follow the lines the folds won't line up as neatly. I suppose you could always trim the excess first.

In our school board, we begin Core French studies in Grade 1. The program we use is called Dimoitou, which I had never heard of prior to moving to Toronto. There are so many things I like about the program, namely the variety of songs and poems that are based on the characters and themes of the month. For February, the themes focus on Valentine's Day but also illnesses. Thus, it introduces the students to expressions with avoir to indicate pain, such as "J'ai mal à la tête." (I have a headache.)

Using images from one of the worksheets, I decided to create a blackline master for a little booklet entitled, "On est malade." Not only do the students enjoy colouring in their favourite characters but they take pride in being able to read most of the words. They can easily read the characters' names since they spend a month becoming familiar with each character, and the sentences are fairly repetitive with the most challenging words being the parts of the body which are different on each page (dos, nez, oreille, tête, yeux, bouche).

The students are already familiar with most of the words since we have spent a number of classes learning the French version of Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Other songs I use to help teach the parts of the body in French include "Bonjour Monsieur" by Matt Maxwell. You can hear the song and follow along with the lyrics in this YouTube video by Sylvia Duckworth - Bonjour Monsieur, Matt Maxwell. One of my all-time favourite songs on this theme is "Dansez, Dansez" by an other popular Canadian children's artist Étienne. If you haven't heard about Étienne, you should. Even Justin Bieber knows his songs!

In my grade 4 class, we are at the point of compiling the final task in the unit "Souvenirs de ma famille." Students will create a family album which will include key elements such as a cover page, dedication, a diagramme of their extended family and a poem entitled, "J'aime ma famille." Most of the students have completed their poem with an illustration and are now working on the cover page. 

The teacher manual includes a one-page dedication but I wanted to cut back on photocopying and reduce paper consumption. The copywright date also begins with 19 which is a tad outdated. So I decided to make my own in a smaller size in order to fit two on a single letter-size page.

My son came home from kindergarten with the cutest thing. It's a called an Advent Mouse. The tail consists of 25 links of construction paper in the Advent colours pink and purple. Each link represents one day from December 1st until Christmas and each day, he can remove one link to count down to Jesus' birthday. On the other side of the mouse is a cute little poem.

My Writing Journeys is a "100-page writing-practice book that engages students through a wide variety of writing and art forms. Each activity has been designed to draw on the students’ personal experiences and connections."

This colourful book is a great way to start the day in the classroom and makes it easy for teachers to find engaging activities. My Writing Journeys supports Ontario curriculum and provides daily writing practice. Page features include graphic organizers, writing tips, art tips and adjective pages. There is no planning required and online resources will be made available in August 2012. It also provides students with a keepsake to take home at the end of the year.