The Generation Game

Here are some websites that you might like to try for making resources:

SEN Teacher Maths Printables: Add coin worksheets:  Tell the generator which currency you want to use, how many of the coins you want to be included, which level of difficulty you require, and it'll give you a sheet showing piles of coins that need adding up.  Euros are one of the currencies available, so it's great for doing numbers in a different way and for some cultural input.

Classtools SMS Generator:   Use this generator to create authentic-looking SMS dialogues.  Something to make dialogues a bit more interesting!

Festisite is still one of my favourites, for making word spirals, hearts and waves.  I use the wave setting for word snakes.  Since I last wrote about the site, it's undergone some changes:

Type in the words that you want to be in the spiral, heart or wave, then select "Printable Document". This means that it will generate a PDF of your finished word shape.  I select 26pt font, and A3 size paper. This means that you'll get a large word shape which will be nice and clear when you paste it into your document.  Then click on "Download" and you'll get the PDF with your word shape in the middle.  You can then screen-capture it and paste it into your resource as required.

The Tools for Educators Board Game generator is mentioned frequently on social media.  There are various different kinds of games, and you can use images and text or just images.  Here's one with fruits and vegetables:

I also like the AtoZ teacher stuff Word Shape worksheets generator.  I like to use these word shapes as a step towards memorising spelling.  The only slight downfall is that it doesn't recognise accented characters:

Do you know of any other good resource generators?

FlipQuiz

A member of the LiPS (Languages in Primary Schools) Facebook group, Ana Woodward, shared her find of this website yesterday.

FlipQuiz can be used to make interactive, "Jeopardy" style quizzes for children to play in class in teams.  You need to sign up for an account, which is free, and then you can start to make your quizzes.  You enter pairs of questions and answers, or it could be English and target language / target language and English.  You can also add an image to each pair as well.  FlipQuiz then generates the game board for you, which you can also customise with different colours and images.

If you sign up for the free account, you have to keep the scores yourself.  The Pro account will keep score for you.

My first flip quiz is about opinions of fruits and vegetables, which I am doing with Year 3 Spanish at the moment:

I think this would be a good alternative to Blue Numbers for reviewing a topic.  It can be used for single items of vocabulary, for short phrases and for longer sentences.  It would also be useful practising translation in Key Stages 3 and 4.

Vocabulary Maps

If you've read my posts over the last few months, you'll know about my passion for Sketchnoting.  I was very interested to see pop into my Inbox last weekend an email about Vocabulary Maps.

Vocabulary Maps are the brainchild of Tom and Susi in the Czech Republic.  They are mind maps which show the links between nouns, adjectives, verbs, phrases and idioms within a certain topic.  The pictures are a very important part of each map, and they help to embed the vocabulary via the visual memory.

If we look at the Vocabulary Map for bird, for example, it links to nouns such as eye, tail and feather, and also phrases and idioms such as bird's eye view, the early bird catches the worm and to take somebody under your wing.  Egg links to nouns, verbs such as whisk, fry and scramble as well as sayings and idioms.

I have been in touch with Tom this week to find out more about the Vocabulary Maps.  He says:
"...vocabulary maps are suitable for VISUAL LEARNERS - learners of a second language, a teacher's aid, homeschooling parents, young native speakers, special education students or even just brushing up on vocabulary in a foreign language.. pretty much everyone, it just depends on how you choose to use the maps and that you like visual learning."

At the moment the maps are available in English, German, Czech and Spanish, with French in development.

Tom and Susi are crowd-funding via Kickstarter at the moment.  Why not back them and have a go at using the vocabulary maps.  I have!

Enriching English vocabulary

Our curriculum for Languages in Key Stage 2 says that through learning a new language, children should:

• broaden their vocabulary
• know how (key features and patterns) differ from English

I don't know about you, but I find it very difficult to teach new words in French or Spanish without (a) linking them to English cognates and (b) thinking of English words that are linked to the new words that aren't necessarily cognate.

For example, last week I was working on the -er sound with Year 5.  Our picture was a chevalier and so when we heard the -er sound, we held up our lance.  I asked the children if they knew an English word that sounded a bit like chevalier and described a knight perfectly.  I was alluding to 'chivalrous', and it wasn't a word they had come across.  We discussed the meaning, and I suggested they used it in their next piece of English writing when instead of 'courteous' or 'polite'.

I do this a lot.  We use the new words that we are learning to enrich our English vocabulary.  We are building bridges between the new language and English (all the time talking about why they are often similar) and using knowledge of one to help the other.  This is another weapon in our arsenal for those headteachers who do not value language learning in their primary schools.

I have started to make a list of the links like this that we can make with French and Spanish.
*These links are no longer available as they've been taken over by the Light Bulb Languages #LanguageLinks.

French - https://docs.google.com/document/d/12uJ4mM6Zw7C1lyCkxhUDZsGjU4Lw-9ORNmolX8c9eUM/edit?usp=sharing  LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Spanish - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hOUILNdEbbPTu-11S8dKh_YuzCooZJu_nKIm1ArC_Ak/edit?usp=sharing  LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE

These are open Google documents.  Please feel free to add any words that you mention to your classes!

French festivals and celebrations

Festivals and Celebrations are a part of the new GCSE syllabus, and we are always looking for cultural aspects to include in our French lessons in Key Stage 2.  Yesterday's post had a list of Spanish special days, so today here is the list for French.  Again, if I have missed any, please let me know in the comments.

You can download my French Festivals and Celebrations Tarsia and dominoes here.

le Jour de l'An	1st January	New Year's Day
la Fête des Rois	6th January	Epiphany
la Chandeleur	2nd February	Candlemas
Saint-Valentin	14th February	Valentine's Day
Carnaval	February, leading up to Lent	Carnival
Mardi Gras	Tuesday in February	Shrove Tuesday
la Fête du Citron	February/March	The Lemon Festival
Pâques	March/April	Easter
Lundi de Pâques	March/April	Easter Monday
Journée Internationale de la Francophonie	20th March	International Francophonie Day
Poisson d’avril	1st April	April Fool’s Day
la Fête du Travail	1st May	Labour Day
8 mai 1945	8th May	VE Day
Lundi de Pentecôte	May	Pentecost
Jeudi de l'Ascension	May	Ascension
la Fête des Mères	last Sunday in May	Mother’s Day
la Fête des Pères	3rd Sunday in June	Father’s Day
la Fête de la Musique	21st June	Music Day
le Tour de France	July	the Tour de France
la Fête Nationale	14th July	Bastille Day
l'Assomption	15th August	Assumption of Mary
la Rentrée	beginning of September	the return to school
la Toussaint	1st November	All Saints' Day
l’Armistice / le 11 novembre	11th November	the Armistice, Remembrance Day
la Veille de Noël	24th December	Christmas Eve
Noël	25th December	Christmas
la Saint-Sylvestre	31st December	New Year's Eve