 |
Sleepless in Maryland: Sleep Deprived Teacher Surfs Web for French Gold
The ACIE Newsletter, November
2003, Vol. 7, No. 1
by Angie Loomis, 1st Grade Teacher, Maryvale School,
Rockville, Maryland
FRENCH SITES FOR PRIMARY TEACHERS AND THEIR STUDENTS
There is gold on the web, but as teachers, we often do not have the
time to go down and mine for it. That's what I do at 2:00 a.m. when I wake up and just can't get back to
sleep. Here is some of the information I have accumulated, distilled for
your enjoyment. If you want the gold, though, you will have to log on.
Sites come and sites go. Don't get frustrated if a site you try to log
onto is no longer accessible. There are many other ones!
Site: www.momes.net
Recommended for: K-12 students, teachers, and parents
The ultimate site for elementary French immersion. This site
encourages students to submit pictures, definitions, poems, book reviews
and stories. This would be a great motivator to get students to publish a
"perfect" version. On momes.net
you will find a myriad of poems and songs (sorted by categories) under
the rubric Comptines. Where else would I have found Le petit
ver tout nu [The little naked worm] to support our study of
earthworms and review the sound /u/, to boot? Momes.net offers a monthly dossier
which provides information about holidays or current topics. The dossiers
(from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Chinese New Year) often have quizzes
and activities (e.g., read to perform a task) as side-bars. I like to
copy the text and images (highlight, copy, paste into a Word document),
then edit to suit my students' level, always remembering to reference the
site on all printed material.
The École-Education button will take you to a page from which
you can download worksheets or teaching ideas for all subjects (see the
buttons at the top of the page). Also, from the dossier and the École-Education
you can access school websites. The musique button brought me
through pour les petitsto all of the lyrics to Henri Dès' songs.
As I use him extensively in all subject areas, this was a valuable
time-saver. The livres books, but also carries reviews by children
and adults. This might be a good place to shop for titles. section
advertises The journaux section has a monthly survey, and results
of (good for averages, percentages, and comparing your school's results
to those of the site.) The previous surveys can be viewed tourisme
section of the journaux could post your students' write-ups about
their state or places they have visited. Momes.net sites.
Liens are mostly children's personal sites, but sites
partenaires allows you to also offers links to other go dig for gold
elsewhere. Momes.net targets children
from elementary through high school, with submissions by its audience, so
you may want to print out in advance from the site to screen what is
read.
Site: www.coindespetits.com
Topic: Multiple
Recommended for: Primary and some intermediate elemenary students,
teachers, parents
The author has recently introduced a page des
grands, and is happy to publish les résultats de tes recherches.
Holidays, stories, alphabetno worries about letting your students
navigate this site solo.
Site: www.marmiton.org
Topic: Multiple
Recommended for: Primary students
Need to search on the net to complement your curriculum? I could spend
my life on www.marmiton.org! If you
want a taste of France
for yourself or, let's not forget them, your students, you will find
recipes galore thematically sorted by season, type of food and cute
titles citadin pressé, étudiant fauché, etc. The convertisseur
only goes in the "wrong" direction (F to C), but new tables
de conversion will help you out. Great for math lessons, too (cl, g,
oz, degrees F and C). What better way to integrate math and reading? One
caution: the recipes, being French, sometimes include alcohol.
Sites: www.atlas-francophone.refer.org
Topic: Geography, geometry
Recommended for: Elementary teachers
You can find superb information in easy to read charts and formats at www.atlas-francophone.refer.org.
Download free maps from eloce.free.fr, a site currently developing toute
la géographie au primaire. Definitely worth checking into.
Site: ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thierry_Klein/sommaire.htm
Topic: Music
Recommended for: Elementary teachers
Need to add pizzazz to your curriculum? Always! Thierry Klein has
amassed an impressive array of songs and has music to help you sing the
tunes! From simple children's ditties to traditional songs, this site is
worth a gold medal! Only drawback: The list is alphabetical and you'll
need to dig to find what you want. It's worth it! You could get lost for
days enjoying the words and music on Klein's site.
Sites: www.ramdam.com
www.fnac.com
www.amazon.fr
Topic: Music
Recommended for: Elementary teachers
From www.ramdam.com, you can find
out all about contemporary French music, from Aznavour to Zut! A good way
to listen to artists to decide whether you want to buy their albums (if
they do not offer clips on-line) is to go to www.fnac.com
or www.amazon.fr and type in the
artists' names. You can often hear all the selections from a particular
CD. These sites also indicate which albums are no longer in print. I buy
from these two sites, though shipping is close to $25 no matter what you
buy (so buy in bulk). These sites are also great for finding books that
match our curricula, be they Eric Carle, Kevin Henkes, Rosemary Wells, or
books about rocks and minerals. Searching on these sites by author name,
I found out that Christian Merveille, a supreme poet and author, also
publishes CDs. Unfortunately, these sites allow you to order books and
CDs without telling you at the time of your order that certain titles are
out of print. That notification comes later along with the information
that you will receive (and pay for) only 85% of your order.
|
|
