Yummy!

I started teacher work days last week. . . it's been a whirlwind. . . we have another week of work days and I wanted to make a treat for the staff. . . what a better way to celebrate the end of summer than with S'mores!  I made these awesome S'mores cookies. . . they turned out so good and were really fun to make!  Find the recipe here!

Crayon Art!

I made this for a French colleague of mine!  

Redecorating. . .

I'm in the midst of making my spare room into a closet.  I decided to "frenchify" it a bit. . . 

Gift it!

I wanted to make little gifts for two of my teacher friends.  I found the frame idea on Pinterest and I found the to-do list here.  So easy to do! Loved how they turned out!

Le calendrier!

I really like these calendars. . . they are cheap enough to put in every classroom, with big font and bright! 

You can find them here!

Uh, huh!

Reminders for teachers to stay in TL!

I worked on this last night. . . It's adapted from "Languages and Children: Making the Match". . . I plan on posting it in my office to remind me before each class!

Google Doc!

On stage!

My dad is such a talented craftsman!  Take a look at the shadow puppet stages he made (one for me, one for a drama teaching friend of mine and another for my niece).  They just need painted!  I am so excited about using these! Thanks, dad!

Busy lesson. . . no problem!

I think this is such a great idea for those lessons that require that extra bit of help! Also good if you are working with small groups or helping students who need extra one-on-one time and you don't want to be interrupted by a million questions!  I am going to make one of these in French and use my "Pick Me" tins to pick a helpful student!

Classroom decor!

For each of my ten classrooms, I am doing something special this year.  I am making an "Eiffel Tower Word Wall".  My amazing, crafty dad made these awesome Eiffel Towers out of styrofoam for each of my classes.  I painted them and they look great.  Since they are so light, I can mount them on the wall with magnets.  I cut out glitter card stock in cool shapes to put my words on.  Each word wall will have the words of key phrases (merci, s'il vous plait, de rien, etc.) on the Eiffel Tower.  Then around the tower I cut out a sun and clouds.  The sun has "Est-ce que je peux. . . " and the clouds finish the sentence with "boire de l'eau, aller aux toilettes, tailler mon crayon?".  For the younger grades I may print out and put up these passwords because they have the accompanying pictures.  I also may include these posters for the younger grades for some further enforecement.  They are free and so cute!

Words do not do my word wall ideas justice so I will wait to post pictures until I have them up in the classrooms!  

A good language learner. . .

I really like this chart on what a good language learner is.  I feel like I am constantly stopping to tell my students that they "don't have to know every word in a text to understand it" or that they "must take advantage of talking in French as much as they can during our class times".  I think this year I am going to put this on a Smartboard slide and go over it at the beginning of the year. Maybe I'll even make copies of it so they can put it in the front of their cahiers to remember throughout the year!

Monster Mayhem!

I already have sets of "adjective" people made.  You know the "guess who" type charts with different people to describe.  This is a little spin on that.   I plan on making laminated sets of them and using them for a body vocabulary review! 

Qui est-ce? monsters!

Anything to make reading fun!

I love this to make reading vocabulary words and sentences more interesting.  I can't wait to use it!  I may even do it in conjunction with my hot potato!

Projector? Yes, please!

I bought a sketching projector at Pat Catans for around $25... Best decision I ever made! Now I can compete with the best of 'em when it comes time to make bulletin boards! I practiced this summer and made this poster for my Italian grandmother! 

I have a shadow puppet obsession . . .

My dad is making me a shadow puppet stage and I want these!  So cute for Paris unit with my 2nd graders!  The kids can also make their own shadow puppets!

Je me presente. . .

As I am sure is true with most of you, I do a unit at the beginning of the year that introduces Je me presente phrases.  Every year the phrases get harder/ more complex.  The students work on a poster about themselves using these phrases.  I found some great templates that differ from the one I usually use.  I am still deciding which ones to use with which grades.  

I also bought this stencil and my students could potentially make their own poster format and write in the phrases.  Maybe best for the upper grades to have some freedom.  

This one is great!

I like this one too!

This one is nice!

I like this one! There is a boy version, too!

This is more of a book. Very cute!

Rethinking homework. . .

I am really rethinking my homework this year.   Last year, I had trouble making it fun and exciting for the students.  I am considering doing something like this "real world" homework chart.  You can find it on TPT, here. What do you think of this?  How do you do homework in your FLES classrooms? 

Also, I want to create another way for my students to explore the language at home. I plan on making "Exploring French" bags for each class (just one for each class).  Inside each canvas bag, I will include books and other manipulatives for the student to explore the language with their parents.  Each bag will differ depending on the grade.  This bag will be on a rotating schedule so that each student will be able to take it home for at least a week.  This will require a bit of planning on my part but I think it is worth it! I am going to order the bags and start decorating them soon! 

Class Management Galore!

It is often hard for me to keep my class reward/management systems fresh and exciting for each class I teach.  I am so thankful I found these Pinterest ideas.  Here are the ideas I am absolutely using this year! Remember that I also have an amazing prize box to "up the ante"!  

1. I think this will be most appropriate for my Kinders or 1st graders after a test/harder activity.  Some lollipops will have a dot on the bottom for an extra prize!

2. I am using this awesome behavior chart for my 2nd graders.  The top levels will equal certain levels of prizes.  

3. Why haven't I thought of this before??!!  So easy. . . I am definitely doing this with my upper grades! Find the directions here.

4.  I think this would be a great add on for any class!

5. I already do this with almost every grade and it works well!  The group with the most points at the end of the week win prizes from my prize box!

6. I also thought of using these.  You can find them for free here!

Follow me on Pinterest!

I've found so many good ideas from this site!  I can't even begin to blog about all the things I've printed out and plan on using.  I also found the class management ideas awesome (very adaptable for a traveling teacher)!  

Find me here!

Great book for language educators!

I have also almost finished reading the book "Languages and Children: Making the Match" (Amazon link).  It is a bit expensive but TOTALLY worth it.  It was a recommendation from one of my fantastic French teaching colleagues.  It had so many great ideas that I decided to make a chart on my computer with page numbers of great games, notes, etc.  It's great for language teachers of younger grades!

Summer of Manipulatives!

This summer has been tremendously productive for me concerning both my personal and work life!  I've done so many great school projects that I never have time to do during the school year and I am so excited to put them to use!  I've posted some of my creations (some from my own imagination and others I've found thanks to Pinterest. . . my new obsession!).  Please take any ideas and make your own!  Also, keep in mind that I am a floating K-5 French teacher and thus I work from a cart. . . my ideas are geared toward making my life easier with maximum learning results.  

Bon courage!

1. J'ai fini. . . bucket filled with ideas for students to do when they are finished early (some of these ideas are mentioned below).   I used paint markers to do the writing.  I plan on having my students pick randomly so the tasks are printed on the back.  

2. J'ai fini. . . ideas. . . 

                           - I have a French Magnetic Poetry Set.   I took a cookie sheet, a permanent marker and voila!

                        - This task is a combination of ideas from Pinterest.  I took free paint samples and divided them into colors.  Each color represents a part of speech.  I wrote down many different words for each color and laminated them (this took a little while).  This is the resulting activity! 

                  

                   - French Word-of-the-Day study (mine is more kid friendly like the one below but I got it in France) and Allons-y Magazine (I have a bunch of these).  

3. Weather station (I love this!) and it is perfect for a traveling cart! I used graphics I found on TPT (here) and I spray painted a cookie sheet ( I am really loving the cookie sheet this summer).  I made the thermometer myself.

4. I spent some time at the printers this summer and got some posters made from some great graphics I found on Pinterest.  I made enough copies to put in each classroom.  This is where I found the graphics.  Here were the results: 

5. I am big on doing a great warm-up with all my classes.  I have songs and dances for the days of the week, months, Ca va expressions, etc.  I made a great looking warm-up container from tins and stickers I found at Michaels.  

6. From these same tins (multiple colors) I made a "Pick Me" for each class.  I decorated the tins (each class differently) and at the start of the year I will write every child's name on a Popsicle stick for fair and balanced name picking.  I will keep each tin in each classroom so it's easier for me to keep track of them.  

7.  I made these dry erase boards out of colored Popsicle sticks and plastic plates.  I also numbered each one so I can keep track of them easier. 

8.  I had fun taking my niece to Five Below and I found some fun school stuff.  
This hot potato game has been a favorite with ALL of my students for years.  I use it in different ways to elicit vocabulary words from students, as a sentence builder or even as a points game.  For $5 it will be the HIT of your school year.  

 I also found this cute shirt I want to wear the first week of school!

Finally, I got this combination of nail polish.  I want to paint my nails to look like a pencil top!  See the tutorial below!  

Pencil Nail Art

9. The Dollar Store has been a great resource for me this summer.  I bought these pre-cut sentence strips.  I decided I wanted to label the school in French so these were perfect for that!  I laminated them after.  

10.  I do a unit with my Kinders that goes over emotions, colors, and shapes.  Each "shape person" is a different color, shape and emotion.  This makes the vocabulary a lot easier to introduce.  I found these balls at the Dollar Store and decided to put my "shape people" onto each one.  Not really sure how I am going to use them yet but I love them.  The best part. . . they are scented! 

11. Going along with the ball theme, I also found this at the Dollar Store.  I decided to divide it up and put key questions in each section.  The students will catch the ball and answer the question that their right thumb is on.  Not quite done with it yet! 

12. I love these easy to identify commands so I made a sheet for each classroom and laminated it.  

13.  This is what I'm calling my "boite magique". . . I am not quite done with it yet but its turning out cute! I found the plain, wooden box at Michaels.  A bit expensive so wait for a coupon!

14. I printed and laminated this to hang in my office.  It's great to help remember the steps in vocabulary introduction.  

15. I made myself a planner this year.  I found the template on Pinterest and I made a copy for each week and had it bound at the printers.  I think it's the best planner I've seen in a long time!  It even includes home planning.  Here is the template .

16.  I took the spinner off of my old Life board game to use this year during games.  I thought it may be good in conjunction with this Roue du Vocabulaire .

17. I'm calling this my "Valise d'Art".  My mom found this cute little vintage-looking suitcase at a thrift store. I put cardboard cups in it and numbered them.  They will be perfect to put markers and pencils in (each table will have a number).  I'm even thinking about labeling my markers based on their cup number.  The suitcase is super easy to throw onto my cart when I need it!

18.  I made these cute little blocks (I found the blank blocks at Pat Catans).  I also used Mod Podge.  The link for the graphics is found here.