Holiday Adventures in Acquisition

Bonjour! By now, if you've been reading my posts, you may start to see a theme...I really enjoy holidays! I have started writing stories, blogging and creating symbaloo webmixes based on holidays. First there ways Halloween. Then Thanksgiving. Now Noël!

I find many celebrations to be the perfect opportunity to make language acquisition fun and interactive! This time of year is especially magical for children and since I am a big kid at heart, I have made some extra time to create some fun and magic in the lives of my children and students.

First, there is a special visitor in our home. His name is "Louis le lutin" and he is an elf...a French-speaking elf. Louis is not like the other elves! First of all, he speaks French and secondly, you don't need to read a book for him to appear in your home. I hope to write more about this adventure in language acquisition soon, but for now, here's a sneak peak:

Then, the Père Noël sent a video en français to my children. Here's the one he sent my son. I'd like to say a special thank you to +Sylvia Duckworth for the link to this amazing resource that I found in her resources by theme. Here's the link to this amazing personalized French video-creation website from the Père Noël!

I spent some time updating my Noël Pinterest board, my C'est Noël YouTube playlist and added my French Noël story to my TpT store. I also created this Noël symbaloo webmix. Check it out!

My children have really enjoyed many of the links in this webmix. If I had to pick just one favorite, it would probably have to be +nathalie bonneau's advent. You can access it here. Honestly, It is the only advent calendar that I have found which provides children with language input. If you know of any others that do, please send them my way! What we love about this one is that you can play it year round, not just in December...and the langauge input is fun and interactive. Way to go, Nathalie! 

I'd have to say the most fun I've had so far this season is writing my third children's story for my TpT store. This is the third children's story for language acquisition I've written in as many months. I use simplified language and pleasant repetition to ensure children will understand....thank you AIM Language Learning! I owe the way I've started writing stories to the Accelerative Integrative Methodology that I've been learning and implementing. It has been a joy to collaborate with several Edmodo friends and with +nathalie bonneau once again! I owe a special thanks to all my helpers: Nathalie Bonneau, Rebecca Davis, Fabienne Lee, Christel Lake, and Isabelle Peduzy. Thank you for your extra set of eyes and for your ideas! I really enjoy the collaborative piece the most! :)

For now, the story is in powerpoint and pdf format. I am hoping to add audio soon! I have also created some SMARTboard games to help teach some of the high frequency phrases in the story. Here's the one that teaches expressions with "J'ai" and here's the one that teaches expressions with "Je suis".

Here's a little more about the story:
Meet Mimi the mouse! Mimi adores Christmas! She has a gift for everyone in her family and for all her friends, except one. She decides to ask her siblings for gift ideas for her friend...however, their ideas are not exactly what she was hoping for! Will Mimi find the perfect gift for her friend in time for Christmas? You will have to read the story to find out!

This adorable French story teaches the following (and more) in a rich, meaningful context:

• High frequency expressions with "être" and "avoir" (faim, froid, content, triste, en colère, malade, fatigué, excité) 
• Adjectives: déprimant, fatiguant, écœurant, pratique, bruyant
• Question words: Quel, qu'est-ce que
• Present tense of: penser, chercher, trouver, continuer, s'appeler, décider, faire, prendre, manger, pouvoir, aimer, adorer, rester, habiter
• L'imparfait: être (était), avoir (avait)
• Negative forms: ne...ni...ni, ne...plus, toujours pas, non plus, ne...rien
• Various other high-frequency words/expressions like encore, quelque chose à manger, sauf, déjà, etc.

Check back here for more resources and for a future audio track to this story!

Here's a sneak peek of the story:

If you're interested in Spanish resources for this season, stay tuned! Tomorrow I am working with my club on an update to a Spanish holiday song which comes with a story...a freebie! Stay tuned! :)

I hope you find something useful in these resources to use with your children and/or students so that you can have your own adventure in acquisition this week! Enjoy and Happy Holidays! Joyeuses Fêtes!!!

Dream Project is Now Reality!

As the advisor of the Peace through Language Club, I always have opportunities to work with students on creating language learning resources to support our Mission of spreading the love of languages. However, the French Alphabet project has been a project unlike no other.

Here is the Peace through Language Club's Mission statement:

The idea of a cross-collaborative song-writing project was born over a couple years ago. Although at the time we had no idea how to make it happen. We figured that people sell songs all the time on the Internet, so it must be possible for us, too. We had no idea how to make this happen, or how long it'd take or how many hurdles and challenges we'd face along the way. It's been a long road, but all the hard work has finally paid off and we couldn't be happier!

Here is the story of our song fundraiser: "L'alphabet des verbes." If you are curious about the animation for this song, you will have to be patient since it is not ready yet. Please consider buying the song in the meantime!

After years of work on this...it's hardly possible to believe that this is finally a reality! But it really is! Check out or song page here!

Please help the Peace through Language Club by buying our song and by sharing the link to this blog, to our website, and to our song website. We greatly appreciate your help! We will use the funds raised to obtain equipment that will increase our ability to create more free language learning resources for all in order to spread the long of languages! Thank you! Merci! ¡Gracias!

Our song: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/peacethroughlanguage

Our website: http://about.me/peacethroughlanguage

This blogpost: http://acquisitionabounds.blogspot.com/2013/12/dream-project-is-now-reality.html

We'd like to give a heart-felt thanks to all the wonderful educators on Twitter and Edmodo who have helped with this project along the way. Without your help, support and ideas, it's very possible that this day would have never come. We are forever grateful!!! 

We wish you peace and happy singing!