I subscribed to the channel belonging to Imagiers a while ago.
Originally, I saw the traditional songs below -
Today I saw that there was new series - Les comptines de Gros nez. This is a series of 63 French rhymes / songs 'sung' by a cartoon blue man with a big red nose. For example -
Alternatively, you could use Les comptines de la souris -
Also on Imagiers are many vocabulary videos like the one below -
There are thousands of videos on the channel - some are more advanced grammar and so on, others are simpler vocabulary presentations. And some are not French at all - eg there are several clips about Helsinki!
At the ELL Local Support Group (LSG) last week, we were talking about short activities that needed minimal preparation and could be used for the 'little and often' model.
One of the activities discussed was I spy...
In Spanish there is a lovely little rhyme that goes with the game - check out the East Riding site for sound files, instructions and words. A good game for playing with kids who have a wider vocabulary, but also for discrete groups of words eg food, sports, colours. You could change it to 'tengo tengo' (I have..) and play with items in a bag even.
Veo veo I see, I see,
¿Qué ves? What do you see?
Una cosita. A thing
Y ¿qué cosita es? And what thing is it?
Empieza con la ……. It begins with ………
¿Qué será? ¿Qué será? ¿Qué será? What can it be? (x 3)
I also came across this catchy sung version of the rhyme - here I've chosen the kiddies version rather than the tropical island and bikinis! Lyrics below.
Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?
empieza con la "A", ¿qué será?, ¿qué será?, ¿qué será?, alefante
no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así
con la "A" se escribe amor, con la a se escribe adiós
la alegría del amigo y un montón de cosas más
Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?
empieza con la "E", ¿qué seré?, ¿qué seré?, ¿qué seré?, eyuntamiento
no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así
con la "E" de la emoción estudiamos la expresíon
y entonando esta canción encontramos la verdad
Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?
empieza con la "I", ¿qué serí?, ¿qué serí?, ¿qué serí? invidia
no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así
con la "I" nuestra ilusión va intentando imaginar
cuan insolita inquietud una infancia sin maldad
Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?
empieza con la "O", ¿qué seró?, ¿qué seró?, ¿qué seró? oscuela
no no no eso no no no eso no no no es así
no no no eso no no no eso no no no es la hora del final
Veo veo ¿qué ves? una cosita ¿y qué cosita es?
empieza con la "F", ¿qué seraf?, ¿qué seraf?, ¿qué seraf?, final
Here comes part three of my reflections on the units I'm currently using in KS2 Spanish. If you've read the other parts on Units 5 and 11, you'll recall that I've taught the units to half of the school and am now teaching the parallel classes until the summer break. So the current groups are probably getting a better deal as I refine and adapt from the first run, but may not finish the unit in its entirety as the end of term leads to much lesson disruption!
As with Units 5 and 11, Unit 14 has an opening stimulus from which the unit stems. In this case, a song. Based on the well known children's song, I am the Music Man, Yo soy músico has proved popular with Year 5. The QCA Unit which can be downloaded from here in PDF and RTF, gives the lyrics - you just have to sing it! Helen Myers has recorded a music only version - clever lady!- which can be found here, and if you want to hear how it sounds with a class in full voice, check out the WCPS Spanish podcast in the right hand column - although I'm sure you've all subscribed to it in iTunes ;o)
At the top of the post is the Powerpoint I made to go with the song. Note that it has two parts. The first half is in the first person singular - Yo soy músico, which is the version used in the first instance when the teacher (or volunteer class member!) is the Music Man. The second part is in the first person plural - Somos músicos - as the class join in with the whole song and we all become Music Men. I used animations having listened to Nick Mair talking in Oxford about boys learning best when there is action and movement in the graphics. There is an initial disadvantage as the class comment on the guitar playing pig etc mid-song, but after the first view, this stops and it really helps memorisation.
Looking at the medium term plan above, you can see that the objectives for the first lesson are to express simple opinions about music. This proved popular as we listened to some different types of music and decided if we liked them or not. In a previous unit on free time we had learned the phrase la música pop / rock / clásica and most recalled the phrase - and the accompanying action -
la música - hands on ears like you're listening to music then ..
...pop - makes your hands pop from fists to spread fingers whilst making your eyes wide
...rock - rock from side to side
...clásica - conduct an orchestra
...heavy - mosh!! (a clear favourite I must say!)
We added jazz (jazz hands) and folclórica (play a guitar) which took some explaining as few knew what it was! Several pupils commented on the use of cognates - and when one asked what tecno music would be, another piped up that 'it'd be la música tecno, silly'
I expressed an opinion in Spanish about the music using facial expression then encouraged the class to offer their own opinion in Spanish. Again, the phrase was not unfamiliar but, for some, had to be dragged from memory banks!
We then sang the song which soon involved the whole class. The first couple of times, everyone sang all the instruments to learn and fix the words - and of course we did actions for those who are kinaesthetic learners (and to keep everyone awake!). Having looked at pronunciation of the words we had a quick look at accents - why do música / saxofón / batería have accents - I explained it using people's names - when we see a name in English we know (usually!) how to say it as there are stress patterns - it's AlexANder not AlEXander and accents help show us how to say words. Pupils completed a simple sheet to finish the lesson - labelling and also trying to use their LLS to work out what six instruments were in English. Some of the words were obvious and others needed a bit of thought - but a few did work out los platillos are cymbals by thinking of plates!
Next lesson began with a recap of vocabulary and game of Simóm dice. Then we sang the song, firstly using Soy músico but with each table alloted the flashcard of a musical instrument to represent. This led to hilarity as the 'piano' table worked out that they had to stand up and sit down every verse - as you can guess I chose this table carefully!! We looked at the words of the opening to the song and used Sé tocar... and then Toco ..... to say which instruments we could and couldn't play - an 'on the ball' pupil suggested 'toco regular el piano' and 'no toco la guitarra muy bien' as answers - not bad eh? It's really encouraging when pupils 'play around' with language because they're trying to express themselves more accurately. We then looked at the second half - Somos músicos, venimos de Madrid etc' and discussed how this might differ in meaning from the first half.
We went on to recap our opinions about music genres and this time tried to add some simple reasons for the opinion - because it's slow, because it's boring, because it has rhythm etc. Pupils made up sentences in groups adding all the bits from the two lessons to see how long a sentence they could make using connectives such as 'y' and 'porque'.
At the start of the next lesson we recapped our opinions and started to present them in written form on graffiti wall posters - the word 'graffiti' made eyes sparkle although it was somewhat controlled graffiti! Whilst the class worked on this, I worked in the corner with my laptop and and microphone to record members of the class expressing their opinions about music - this was the start of WCPS Spanish podcast. The look of wonder on pupils' faces when they heard their voice comin gout of my laptop and then the IWB was great - one lad, Zach, commented 'But I sound really Spanish!'. (Pictures of posters to follow!)
Next we listened to some Spanish music and Latin American music, comparing and contrasting the instruments heard. I borrowed a CD from the library that had a vast array of South American music types on it, and I took in some of my own music - Tomatito, Heroes del Silencio, Joan Manuel Serrat, Los Nikis,Gloria Estefan,Alejandro Sanz,Operación Triunfo. We listened and decided which instruments we heard, and gave opinions on the singers / groups. Then I role played buying a CD - using a ActivPrimary flipchart (in Box of Goodies as can't upload to .DocStoc). In pairs with one as customer and one as assistant, the customer had to
say they wanted to buy a CD
express their opinion about a type of music and say which type they prefer
agree to buy an item., and we recorded some examples (see podcast!)
The roles were swapped so that everyone got to play each character. We recorded some examples for the WCPS Spanish podcast as well. This time I'm going to add discussing buying an MP3 file to this bit ;o) Having looked at accents and stress patterns as well as considering types of music, looking at the rhythm, especially the rhythm of words made perfect sense and we spent a good while clapping out phrases and trying to copy rhythms in the next session. At times it was rather haphazard, freestyle clapping but there were signs of promise from some who managed to copy accurately and understood the use of dynamics to mark stress. 'Guess the phrase from the rhythm' was a popular game - it's amazing how much concentration it takes to clap a simple phrase!
The last few sessions were given over to Year 5 producing their own rap/song in Spanish. I allowed them free rein over this with the proviso that it had to be in Spanish (obvious to me but you'd be surprised!) As a whole class we discussed how the task might be tackled and we came up with a start for those who couldn't think of a way in, then it was up to the groups to do their bit! There were several things to note from these lessons for next time.
Some groups needed more support than they were given - perhaps more time working together as a whole class before setting groups off on their own.
Groupings are key, and all the 'musical' kids ended up in two groups - they would've been better perhaps split up to help those whose rhythm was a bit off!
When recording pupils' final productions, don't put your iRiver anywhere near the drums! Sadly, a couple of good outcomes are drowned out by the percussion.
I'll upload those that will not damage eardrums to the podcast and/or Box of Goodies as soon as this post is finished ;o) There were a couple of groups that tried to sing their performances to tunes from The Sound of Music - good idea, I thought. Some stuck to opinions on music, others tried to work in vocabulary from other units such as Personal introduction vocabulary and sporting likes and dislikes.
The other Year 5 class are very different to the first group and I expect this half term to pan out differently to the previous one. I think this time we'll look at the pre-performance interview suggested in the QCA Unit and perhaps try to adapt a song rather than write rap. I'll keep you informed!
NOTE - if you'd like ideas on this Unit in french, check out Talkabout Primary MFL where Jo Rhys Jones has spookily just blogged about the same unit!
I love singing and enjoy using song in my lessons. I've written before about the values of using song, rhyme and rhythm to aid learning whilst having fun. Although I'm not averse to making up my own songs, I'm always on the lookout for more songs to add to my repertoire.
In the summer I purchased a CD from Early Learning Centre called Fun with Spanish. It has traditional songs from Spain (such as Tengo una muñeca) and England (such as Polly put the kettle on) sung in the original language but also translated into the other language. This is good as the tunes are familiar and the gist of the song already known to the pupils, meaning they have no hang ups about meaning.
The CD costs £5 - quite reasonable I think! And if you want to use it, here are the animated presentations I've made to go with the traditional English songs in Spanish plus the concluding rap.
Inspired by Jo Rhys-Jones post on Minibeasts, and her suggestion of some suitable Frenchvideos on Youtube to support it, I went in search of some Spanish equivalents - then got sidetracked!
Having followed Jo's links to Papillons, (complete with operatic French version of Anything I do, I do it for you), I decided to search for Spanish butterflies - mariposas. I came across a clip of 'Mariposas de Asturias' which is very similar (the music is more relaxing!)
Then my search took me off in a different direction when I came across a video clip called Mariposas Silenciosas. Not about butterflies, but a game that can be played in small groups to improve concentration, coordination, and also provide a bit of calm!
Then I investigated Luis Pescetti further and found more videos that I thought might be interesting. Keeping to the minibeasts theme, how about Cienpies about a centipede-
This is followed by an action rhyme with nonsense words - a bit like Gingangoolie (not sure if that's how you spell it as I've never tried writing it down!) - with simple actions that get faster and faster. Amazing how muddling it can be to do simple actions fast!And here's another -Aiepo - this time, the rhyme is said in different voices depending on the speed, starting as an elephant, very low, and finishes higher!
Another rhyme along a similar vein, but this time with 'proper' Spanish words - in this case a traditional Spanish rhyme - Palmas, higos y castañas.
Also on a minibeast theme, scroll down to the seventh song on this page forLa canción de la pulgaabout a flea that jumps on a dog, bites it and then has a full tummy!
In fact, having found lots of his videos on Youtube, I then went to his website http://www.luispescetti.com/ and discovered lots more too see and do. Words and (very usefully) mp3 files for songs as well as videos and jokes. Well worth investigating. From a quick look, I can see a Spanish version of London Bridge is falling down, as well as Un kilómetro a pie (referred to in a previous post on Active learning) and a lovely song called Mocos about bogies!!
And on that note, I'll leave you to explore for yourself!
What do the Kaiser Chiefs, The Bangles and the Pink Panther have in common?Not much you might think, but all provide the backing to French songs demonstrated today by Steph Hopkins at her conference Creating a compelling curriculum.
In a session entitled Phonics, music and rhythm – developing confident speaking, Steph talked ofthe enhancement of creativity, engagement, independence and communication skills achieved through the use of song and rhyme in the MFL classroom.Citing Heather Rendell and the work of Leigh McClelland andRachel Hawkes at Comberton Village College as her starting point, Steph quoted research pointing out that a child cannot read aloud effectively in another language if they cannot decode single words using phoneme –grapheme links.Starting from that point, Steph showed us some examples of synthetic phonics in French – complete with very amusing animations – which she has used in her classes.
Steph went on to talk about the rhythms of French, clapping phrases to enable the cadences of the language to be more apparent, and to enable good intonation as well as pronunciation.I’ve always found this effective in PLL as it is something with which pupils are familiar from literacy.I liked the use of ‘encore’ by the pupils to ‘boss around’ the teacher that Steph cited – shows that they have engaged with the task.
And then to the Kaiser Chiefs!With one of her groups in need of practice of the French alphabet, Steph put it to a karaoke track of Everyday I love you less and less by the boys from Leeds – and off we went!Next up, the verb etre to the theme tune of Pink Panther, followed by Eternal Flame by The Bangles for the verb avoir, complete with lines about brown rabbits and mischievous hamsters :o)Certainly works as I’m sitting blogging on the train humming Je suis, Tu es, Il est, elle est, on estetc – and we were also shown video evidence of a class singing – and dancing! You can download powerpoints of these songs from here on Steph's blog ( I know that Chris Fuller uses song in his Spanish classes – he blogged a lovely video of one of his classes singing the verb ir to Kumbya - and here's another group recording it on their mobiles!)
Pigloo then made an appearance with a couple of exercises to complete as we listened to the little penguin’s take on YMCAMoi j’aime skier – ordering a text, grouping words from the song and a gapped text with all –er verbs missed out.A comment was made that there was more interest in learning the dance than the lyrics, but, as Steph pointed out, if you’re watching it enough times to learn the dance, something must be going in of the lyrics!
Some great ideas that can easily be adapted for use in any classroom - I feel the need to raid my record collection for inspiration!
My current fascination with Youtube continues! There will be no doubt be more posts later in the week with more of my discoveries, but here is the first 'joya'.
The ideal for Primary Language Learning (PLL) is that the learning is embedded in the curriculum.
During my browsing, I discovered some lovely little videos of tables in Spanish. Some are chants and some are drills, ranging from 47 seconds to 1 minute 55, but all have captured the interest of my 6 year old - 'I don't know my tables' - as well as 9 year old who is a maths whizz.
They cover the 2 to 10 times tables, multiplying by up to 10.
See what you think! My particular favourite is 'tabla del 5' but I've embedded all the videos in a custom player (fancy eh?!)
It's taken me longer than I expected, but here's the rest of the input from the Birmingham ELL RSG on November 20th - Let's get active! - giving ideas on activities for the PLL classroom that get the kids actively involved in learning language.
I've already blogged about some games and a song - Jean Petit qui danse - that were suggested by Sara Vallis and also shared my input on using parachutes and also some action songs such as Le fermier dans son pré and El granjero (you'll find the files in my Box of Goodies on the right hand side of the blog.)
So, all that's left is to tell you what the 'experts' (i.e. the advisors!) said!
Paul Nutt - whose exact title currently eludes me and Google ;o) - started the session by reading us a passage in French about hobbies and pasttimes. It was in the form of a letter and was not a simple text, but the activities he suggested made it accessible to younger learners who had some understanding of French.
The first activity involved us being split into groups and each group being given the name of a pasttime. Our task was to listen for our activity (my group had 'le rugby')and stand up each time it was mentioned, with everyone standing up for 'les passetemps'.
The next time we listened we were given cards with the vocabulary items written on them. Our task was to hold up the appropriate word when we heard it. To make things a little more complicated, we rotated the person who held up the card so sometimes there were a number of hands grabbing for cards!
Following on from this, we were challenged to put the words into alphabetical order against the other teams.
By this time, we had heard the text and the vocabulary items a number of times, and our next task was to write as many of the hobbies and pasttimes in English as we could recall -the cards were taken away at this point so no cheating was allowed :o(
The final part of the activity involved different cards, this time with phrases as well as vocabulary items, from which we were challenged to make sentences. For example, J'AIME LE FOOT MAIS JE N'AIME PAS LE SHOPPING. From here, we discussed how the activity might go, with pupils being encouraged to substitute pasttimes and opinions, add qualifiers and connectives, give reasons for opinions etc.
This seemed a good idea and I actually tried it out the next day with Year 6 - I read a passage of personal identification information and I challenged them in mixed ability groups of 4 to put the text into the correct order whilst listening. I know that listening is the skill about which they have the most hang ups - even more than with speaking- so I was interested to see how they did. It proved a success and we took it on to the next stage when we discussed how we might use the activity to inform our own writing. The pupils suggested annotating the slips and substituting numbers, sports, names etc to personalise the passage. Here are some photos of their ideas. Rona Heald - Comenius West Midlands Regional Manager - shared some activities for the hall and playground. She began with a song about measuring -
Un kilomètre à pied, ça use, ça use. Un kilomètre à pied, ça use les souliers.
The song continues with 'deux kilomètre' etc . It's very easy to learn and is sung whilst marching around in a line. Rona suggested using it with instructions as to HOW the pupils should march and sing - marchez...lentement, sur place, accroupis, au galop, à quatre pattes, les mains en l'air, en faissent sauter une crêpe... et... changez de direction. This reminded me of a session I attended at the Primary Language Show last year about linking ELL with Physical development in Foundation Stage - suggested activities included jumping the rope where the leader holds up two coloured cards and calls a colour then the pupils jump to the correct side to indicate answer, and walking the line where the class walk around a line on the floor whilst singing a song - the above would be a good choice! Rona went on to present different ways of playing hopscotch from around the world. The names themselves were an education - La Marelle (France) El Muñeco (Spain) Tempelhuepfen(German) Hinkelbann (Netherlands - I think!) Rayuela (Argentina). We were also treated to a discussion of another variation called Escargot or La Marelle ronde' where the squares are in a spiral and players hop on one foot to the centre and back. Hopscotch has minimal language content so the suggestion was to perhaps put a picture in each square and to win it, you have to name the item, or put it into a sentence. Also players should count the squares as they hop, not necessarily starting at 1 but perhaps 8 or count in 2s etc., or even recite the alphabet.
Another activity which we tried was La llamada de los animales - the call of the animals. Four children are given a picture of a Mummy animal eg frog, elephant, cat, dog, and they go to stand in a corner of the room. The rest of the class are given a card with one of the animals on it - they are the babies and they need to find their Mummy. As they approach one of the Mummies, they emit the sound of the animal and if it's their Mummy, they reply. To extend the (very minimal unless you're teaching animal calls!) languaeg, you could give the pupils lines to use such as 'I'm a little .... and I'm looking for my Mummy..' or 'Come and sit down' or @sorry, I'm not your Mummy'.
There were many more ideas for games such as Lupo mangia fruta - the fruit eating wolf, and Alto ahí, a Spanish variation on Dodgeball. Many can be found on iEARN Children's Folk Games, 'a result of an international networking project run in I*earn Kidscan Conference during September 1998- April 1999.' There are lots of games, rhymes, songs, tonguetwisters and customs in a wide variety of languages - well worth a look!
The next RSG is on 22nd January and I'm really looking forward to it as Oscar Stringer is coming to tell us all about animation - I'm already sold on the educational possibilites so I can't wait for others to discover its potential too.
Today's ELL RSG in Birmingham is entitled Let's get active! and I'm presenting ideas for activities using Songs and Rhymes , and also Parachutes.
I've uploaded my presentations to My Box of Goodies (see right) along with some of the materials I'm using. I've done this so that people that were at the RSG can download them but also to give access to those that weren't there - I'm not averse to sharing! I'm also conscious that giving people handouts is lovely but they often get filed away and forgotten - hopefully by encouraging people to be proactive and download the materials they are more likely to use them. And if they don't want them, I've not caused the death of another small forest ;o)
A couple of links - the parachute stuff is heavily inspired by the work of Daryl Bailey and co at Hove Park School - have a look at their website You can download their parachute materials in Spanish, French and German from there! And the materials for Le fermier dans son pré are available from Maternelle de Moustache by clicking on F. There are lots of other materials there too for stories and songs as well as craft activities.
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