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!