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!!!

J'adore Halloween & Me encanta el día de los muertos, también!

J'adore Halloween! I don't know why, but I adore this season. I love apple picking, the beautiful colors of the fall leaves, and pumpkin farms. I enjoy dressing up and decorating the house with handmade drawings my kids make. This year, we are hosting a family costume party for a few close friends. We have spent the past month putting up spider webs, garlands and dreaming up spooky treats for the event.

I also love the celebration of Day of the Dead. Although, I have never formally celebrated it, I always spend time around this time of the year thinking about loved-ones who have passed. I really enjoy teaching this holiday to my students. I absolutely adore teaching more French with AIM this year, however, I am sad that for the first time in over 15 years, I am not teaching Spanish right now and therefore won't have the pleasure of sharing my love for this holiday with my students. After learning about the holiday, I know they would have enjoyed making a picture with picmonkey! Here's one I made of me and my groom as a sample for my students last year. 

I also can never have enough pins on my DoD Pinterest board. I currently have 415 pins, and by tonight, I'm sure there'll be more. I love the colors of this special celebration. Here's the link to the pinterest and here's an image of some of the pins:

If you see one of your resources on my board, thank you! I love following others and collecting great pins from other educators from around the globe!

I also have a public Edmodo folder for El día de los muertos, where I've collected a few project ideas and posts from Twitter and Edmodo friends. You should not need an Edmodo account to open the folder. Just click on this link to open and then navigate through the resources on the left hand side of the screen. Click on a resource to view. Here's a peak:

Since I am not currently teaching Spanish, and therefore unable to share my love of this colorful holiday, that's perhaps why I was inclined to start creating something new in French for Halloween. Since I don't have the chance to celebrate Day of the Dead, then I must find something cultural for this time of year...after all, it's my favorite time holiday! France has recently begun celebrating Halloween, so there we have it...a great reason to learn about Halloween en français!

First, I created this symbaloo, which you can read more about here.

I also updated my French Halloween YouTube playlist and my Halloween pinterest.

Then I started teaching "C'est l'Halloween" to my children. We have the entire left hand side of the symbaloo above dedicated to this fun, catchy Halloween song. Both my children adore this fun Halloween song by Matt Maxwell. We have our friend +Sylvia Duckworth  to thank for this great video which helped us learn the song. Both children sing along to the song, but my eldest (6) has done especially well, learning the words even better than me! There was one section in this where I had forgotten (La lune, elle est pleine)...luckily she started it off because I didn't remember. Bravo! Hear us here:





Next, I started creating a SMARTboard file full of fun French Vocabulary, drawing from this fun interactive Halloween activity by the amazing Jeanne de la Lune (+nathalie bonneau).

Then I realized that the vocabulary I was teaching could use a story. So I wrote one! This is not the first children's story I've written, but it's the first one that I'm really excited about. I have already begun uploading the various story files and activities to my TpT store. Between now and Halloween 2013, everything related to this story is available for a discounted price! Here's a link to the PPT file. Here's a link to the SMARTboard file. Here is the digital story video file. Also read to the end for an opportunity to win these resources!

If you're not interested in spending a few dollars, then I'd love to give you a sneak peak, so here you go:

I especially enjoyed having the chance to collaborate with Nathalie (a.k.a. @JeannedelaLune) again. Her images and voice bring this story to life! She is somehow able to speak slow enough for beginner learners, yet with expression in her voice that provides compelling comprehensible input. With her combination of awesome visuals and expressive narration, learners of all ages and levels will enjoy this resource. 

I also enjoyed collaborating with new and old Edmodo friends; Fabienne, Adeline, Amanda and especially Rebecca who was an immense help! Rebecca and I even collaborated across the miles in real time using a google doc! Fun! :) I also owe a shout out to several facebook and twitter friends who have helped me with feedback and sound advise...you know who you are...Merci beaucoup, mes amies!

I have also created an English version and plan to create more resources to go along with both versions as I create them! I have put together price-saving bundles as well for those who'd like to use a variety of different resources for the same story (more to come). Everything is available with this link. I hope to create a Spanish as well, at some point. In the meantime, here's another sneak peak into this story:

This project was so much fun...and it has really only just begun. Now that I've written one solid story that packs a punch of language learning, I want to write more! I am looking to connect with people who are experienced in this field...I am searching for options for future digital publishing and to expand beyond TpT. 

I will also offer a free download of the resources by random choice from the names of people who comment to this blog post by 9PM EST, Monday October 28th.