Le cycle de l'eau

As you know in Spring 1 all year groups were learning about environment and sustainability.
The topic for year 6 was rivers, so in French we learnt about the water cycle.

We started the topic with an authentic clip. The children had to guess the learning objective of the lesson. The voice in the video has not been slowed down, but the images correspond to the water cycle and the key vocabulary is displayed.

Then, children learnt the scientific names of the states of matter in French and did a writing activity on the change of state.

We also read an animated text from a the Belgian website la récrée where each of the stages were explained. Children had to use their decoding skills to understand the text. Then, they had to show they understood the text by putting some cards together in order to create sentences for each stage of the water cycle. 

At the end of the unit, children made their own posters of the water cycle. They labelled the stages, the state of matter and explained the process writing sentences and using time connectives.

The pupils enjoyed the unit thoroughly and demonstrated enthusiasm and a lot of interest in learning a science topic in French. They even said that learning the water cycle in French helped them to understand it better in English :)

These are some of the activities that we have done in class:

L'eau dans tous les états

Stages of the water cycle

Le cycle de l'eau en séquences

Parcours de l'eau minérale

Léo et l'eau

5 aventures de Lola et Lolo

A case study on teaching about the water cycle through the medium of French, the resources of the full unit and a video lesson will be published by the University of Westminster. 

La pollution

In Spring 1 the school topic was Environment and all year groups were working on different aspects of environment and sustainability.
Year 4 were learning about pollution, so we have linked our French lessons to this topic. We have learned the names of different types of pollution and how the adjective is placed after the noun in French. Then, we looked at pollutant agents and children composed full sentences. Also, we listened to an authentic song by Mister Dji; the year 4 pupils understood the key words to fill in the gaps but some of them could even found the rhyming words! Finally we learnt the imperative form of verbs and created posters to encourage people to protect the environment.

Recycling - Le tri sélectif

Years 3 and 5 have learnt about recycling and le tri sélectif this term.
Year 3 have been looking at the names of recycling materials and containers.

​

 Year 5 have been looking at the names of the recyclable / non recyclable objects. In listening, they had to listen to a text and match each waste to the correct bin. They have also written some paragraphs about le tri selectif and where to throw each item. Finally, they have created some fantastic discs on card to inform people about recyclable and not recyclable waste.

We have used a lot of authentic resources like adverts, booklets and interactive games.

Songs and chants about environment and recycling

Jeu des 7 familles

Choose the correct bin

À trier / n'est pas triable

Compte et choissis les emballages

Recyclables / ordures ménagères

Le tri en formes

Cahier de l'élève: Moi, je trie!

Dossiers pédagogiques sur le recyclage

La vie en recyclé

Story: Voyage chez les tatoujetés

Mimi La Souris

Mimi La Souris is the French version of Maisy The Mouse and we use her stories to learn about

simple vocabulary in Year 1: days, seasons, numbers. The children love reading the lift-flap books and holding the doudou!
 

In the website minimat.net you will find amazing resources featuring Mimi: calendars, worksheets, school routine labels, comptines, etc.

You can also watch the videos of the cartoon in class. They are colourful, child-friendly and the language is simple.

Activities 

Comptines

Vie de la classe

Les émotions de Mimi 

Mimi la Souris et le panda (episode)

Mimi aime les animaux (episode)

Mimi la Souris et le train (episode)