Celebrate Diwali: The Festival of Light

The first time that I experienced a Diwali celebration I was surprised to see fireworks and lanterns in the streets of an urban city during the autumn season. It was exciting to learn about the tradition of lighting diya oil lamps and gathering with friends and family to celebrate this festival of light. Students will enjoy learning about this cultural festival too. There are many visual arts activities that you can do to honor Diwali, including creating colourful rangoli designs, mehndi patterns, as well as designs for diya lamps. There is a film about Diwali from the National Film Board of Canada in both English and French here: https://www.onf.ca/film/des_lumieres_pour_gita/ 

 Check out this Madame Giraffe resource about Diwali in both French and English.

Orange Shirt Day September 30th

A very useful resource for Orange Shirt Day in French is the Chaque Enfant Compte magazine produced by Histoire Canada. This resource is based on the seven teachings of love, truth, wisdom, humility, courage, respect, and honesty. There are suggested journalling topics as well, to help both you and your students along a journey of reconciliation. 

I recommend the story book "I Am Not a Number" by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer as well. This narrative tells the story of a young girl who attended residential school and whose father tried to hide her so that she did not have to return. It details the conditions of the residential schools and tells about how she missed her life back on the reserve. In French the story is called "Je ne suis pas un numéro". 

Check out my lesson plans in English and French for this important story. I've included a KWL chart (SVA in French), analysis questions and a teacher's guide.

                                  

Back to School: Setting Up Classroom Rules and Routines

As a Core French teacher, one of my goals for the first few days of school is to begin the daunting task of learning over 200 students' names. I travel from class to class to teach a 45-60 minute lesson to five classes each day. Name tags can be a big help in the first few days of school. I would have students fold a piece of paper twice to form a triangle as a name tag. They can decorate their name tag on the front and on the back they can write 3-5 goals that they have for French class this term. Some goals might be to learn five new words each week, to write a journal entry every day, to attain a certain average grade in the class or to improve their reading level.

The first few days of school are crucial for setting up classroom routines and rules which are followed throughout the rest of the school year. I find it useful to write a poster of classroom rules with the class. They will offer suggestions for rules and I will write them on chart paper or a poster. 

Check out these back to school resources! 

Keep in mind that classroom management is key to success. Here is a free video with classroom management strategies: 

La Tour Eiffel

 

Whenever possible, I try to incorporate French culture into my lessons. A fun way to do this is to focus on famous French monuments and cultural activities in France as part of daily language lessons. I have recently taught a mini-unit on the Eiffel Tower. I taught a grammar lesson on the past tense using scenarios related to the Eiffel Tower and traveling to France.  I also did an art lesson where students were shown a picture of the Eiffel Tower and then sketched their own version in 3D. We outlined them in black marker and added sparkles to represent how the Eiffel Tower is lit up at night. To complete the unit students completed a quiz about the passé composé. There are some great books out there that feature the Eiffel Tower as well, including Un Jour avec la Tour Eiffel by Victor Simiane, Rendez-vous à la Tour Eiffel by Elzbieta and Le Grand voyage by Jean-Olivier Heron.