7+ End of the Year or Graduation Poems

In teacher forums where I spend my free time, I am starting to see references to graduation decorations and other end of the year wrap-up stuff. So today I thought I'd share with you a few sources of potential Grad or "end of the school year" poems. Voici sept poèmes à contempler pour les cérémonies des finissants, aux niveaux variés.

There are three short ones shared here by teachers. They are apparently from a particular collection, which the teacher who named them indicated, which is helpful in case you're looking for something to purchase. L'école est fermée by Georges Jean, Le Temps des vacances  by Maurice Carème, and Route nationale 7 by Charles Trénet.

La catastrophe - Istvan CSUKAS (Poème russe / hongrois, traduit)

En sortant de l'école - Jacques Prévert.  Il y a beaucoup de versions musicales sur YouTube aussi, si vous avez envie de la partager avec vos jeunes en classe. There's even a version on TFO, under the name "Tour du monde surréaliste" but just a heads up - there's a blue, naked barbie-like woman in it. For that reason, it might not be your first choice for younger grades.)

Vacances -  Nadia Leichtnam (who may have been a student herself at the time of writing this poem) It is a very short one. Maybe not as inspirational, but not exactly negative towards learning and school either. 

Liberté - Maurice Carème Very nice, inspiring and positive. 

Incidentally, this Belgian poet has a lovely (if somewhat old) website exposing several different formats for poems, should you care to explore some of those with your students. Check the Introduction, Poésie Oeuvres and Liens pages. Those teaching grade 8 Core French might find this helpful in reaching some of the intercultural expectations in Ontario, for French in Europe.)

Also, there are some very short quotes that might be suitable as well, for which I made a Pinterest board. Maybe in the summer when I have some time, I'll come back & add the poems I linked to in this blog post there as well, but for now, there are no duplicates between the two. 

If by chance, you'd like to help build this collection, I'm totally open to making it a collaborative pinterest board. So please reach out & let me know, either in the comments below or somewhere else that you already know how to connect with me privately. Please note that you DO need to follow someone on Pinterest in order to be added as a contributor to a pin board.

Other great resources for teaching poetry include:

• Carrefour Education's Journée mondiale de la poésie
• Over 250 poems by Canadian Poets. It seems the filtering tool on this website won't allow me to share the direct link that I want. In the field for "pays" just select Canada from the pull down list.  You'll probably want to check them of course for both school appropriateness, as well as comprehensibility by your students, according to their age and level.  
• Les Voix de la poésie - an excellent program that High School French teachers in Canada should be familiar with, if not because your students might like to participate, but for the great resources that can be found there, including good video recitations of poems (which may just serve as wonderful exemplars or may be exploited further by the teacher to practice and evaluate listening skills with various voices), and templates for poetry creation assignments

I hope that's been helpful, as we get closer to the end of the school year! I'd love to hear about what worked for your particular students. 

Happy Easter, Passover, April Fools & Return to Blogging

Salut tout le monde!! This is my first post to my blog in ages. Almost an entire year! I won't bother making apologies and excuses, as I'm sure all the teachers out there know just how busy life can get!

My reason for returning today is that about a week ago, I presented at the Spring OMLTA Conference, and during a sidebar conversation in my workshop, I promised that I'd share a small lesson/resource I had prepared for my own class. We were discussing how hard it is to find materials on media awareness, and critical thinking that are en français, when compared to the wealth of materials that our English mainstream teaching colleagues have. I found a YouTube video that addressed an awareness of "fake news" and how to check if something you read online can be validated. It was something I used with my grade 6 French Immersion class, but could definitely be adapted to a variety of grades and purposes.

Unfortunately, I admit that my filing system sometimes leaves something to be desired, as I rush to finish things to move on to another life role I occupy. However I finally located the question sheet that I prepared for students to accompany a YouTube video on this topic.



It's all yours! I used the student handout to give them a takeaway, and to help centre the discussion, as well as to give them a couple of concrete things to look for when viewing and listening to the video. I feel like I skipped some parts of the video, but I did not keep great teacher notes on that, so please judge for yourself. I also can tell you that we slowed down the video (to .75 speed) and turned on subtitles - this might not have been necessary for all of my students, but some certainly got more out of the listening experience with that scaffolding.

Check out the other videos offered by the channel Hygiène Mentale. There have lots of great stuff. And if you come up with ways to use them, and resources to help ensure students access the information we desire, please share as well.

I've also recently found this 1jour1actu (1 jour une question) video about "les fake news." A tip: If you play the same video on Youtube, you have more control over the recording speed, and can slow it down. But please do check - soemtimes, what we find on YT can be just a snippet instead of the full item.

À bientôt, mes amis!

Présentement en avril

Je te remercie encore ce mois, Stéphanie, pour la chance de vous rejoindre dans le rallye-lien d'avril. J'ai vraiment de la misère à écrire assez souvent dans mon blogue cette année scolaire. Alors, au moins, un petit "cou cou" de mon coin!

J'anticipe...

Je viens d'envoyer la lettre chez mes élèves avec les dates pour les tests standardisés de notre province de l'Ontario. On l'appelle les tests EQAO en anglais. L'OQRE se passe vers la fin de mai. Il y a un test anglais et un autre pour les maths, et cette année sera ma première fois de les surveiller. Je suis un peu nerveuse, mais pas trop... j'espère que j'ai bien préparé mes élèves pendant leur année scolaire. Et sinon, ben..... on peut toujours profiter de n'importe quelle expérience, n'est-ce pas? Donc au moins je vais gagner quelques idées de comment je pourrais améliorer mes leçons ou aborder les stratégies de littératie différemment la prochaine fois.

Je pense ...

Aujourd'hui ma classe et moi, nous avons fait une promenade pour le lunch. C'était une  récompense pour leur travail et effort en communiquant seulement dans la langue cible pendant les cours. Et il faisait beau! J'avais eu peur ce matin car la météo a indiqué de la précipitation, mais tout restait beau et sec pour nous! Je crois que le printemps arrive!!

Je suis...

Je me sens un peu bordée car je continue à préparer du nouveau curriculum pour ma classe (les Sciences, les études Sociales, etc.) C'est la première fois que j'enseigne la 6e année. Mais je l'adore!! Mes élèves sont vraiment gentilles et adorables!

J'ai hâte ... 

La fin de semaine, je vais assister à une conférence avec quelques bons amis du monde TpT. J'ai vraiment hâte de revoir quelques femmes incroyables, et bien de rencontrer quelques unes pour la première fois. Et quelques hommes inspirants aussi, j'espère!

Youppi! 

Je ne veux pas mentir. J'ai vraiment besoin d'un peu de repose. Je serai très contente d'avoir l'occasion de passer une fin de semaine chez moi, avec mes proches. Et bien sûr, le fameux lapin me doit un peu du chocolat!







Le rallye-lien Présentement en avril

Secondary Smorgasbord Celebrates Kindness, Diversity, Critical Thinking on Jan 20th

This month, the Secondary Smorgasbord crew has organized a blog hop to coincide with an initiative proposed by Rachel Lynette of Minds in Bloom. She's truly genius at bringing the community of TpT authors together to collaboratively build fantastic things. Sorry I'm a day late due to chaperoning a school overnight trip!

So, here's the deal.  I have a freebie to offer French teachers that comes from my movie unit for Un Monstre à Paris. It's a listening activity and a cultural lesson with a France connection, a list of names one character calls another throughout the movie. There are two student handout versions included, the original that I use with my French Immersion classes and one with simpler instructions (still all in French) that contain a few images to help students with less French learning under their belt to understand what they need to do.

These would work fine as a sub lesson if you are away ill for a day or two, as the first part just involves watching the movie and identifying the names used from the list provided. As an extension, have students see if they can find any additional nicknames or not-so-nice names used in the movie. Then as a follow up, there are lots of opportunities for character-building conversations around inclusion, consent, intension vs perception and just being respectful and nice to one another.

Affiliate links follow

You can buy the movie Un Monstre à Paris from Amazon if you do not already have it or buy it along with another movie on the same DVD here also from Amazon (Jack et la mécanique du coeur). 

Thank you to Darlene at The ELA Buffet and Pamela of Desktop Learning Adventures once again for encouraging this collaboration in my middle and secondary teaching PLN!

Look for other forever freebies for middle and high school through the blog hop below. You can also search social media and TpT for the hashtags #kindnessnation or #WeHoldTheseTruths

An InLinkz Link-up

Présentement en janvier chez Mme Aiello

Bonne année, mes amis et amies!

I thought I'd start the new year with .... well, something new! This is the first time I'm joining in the monthly link up hosted and organized by Stéphanie, blogueuse québécoise @ Les Créations de Stéphanie. Normalement, mon blogue est en anglais mais parfois j'écris quelques phrases bilingues. Donc, voici une bonne chance pour moi de faire cela.

J'apprécie

Who doesn't love having time to spend with family? I'm glad I managed to get in a short visit with my sister & her kids, despite viruses running rampant in our house around Christmas. We also had our réveillon go off with out much of a hitch, so I'm very thankful for that. And I spent New Year's Day lunch hanging out with my in-laws, which was very nice as well.

Je pense

I've got a few things dangling over me in terms of my pressing "To Do" list. Soon, I'll be chaperoning my school's annual trip to la ville de Québec, but this year I'm not actually teaching grade 8, so that means I need to prepare and leave a full week's worth of lesson plans - for French, English, Science, Social Studies, Drama (these last three all in French as well) - for my own class. Pas une tâche facile à accomplir puisque la suppléante ne parle pas le français! Mais au moins elle est une figure bien connue par mes jeunes.

Je veux

Like many, I'm glad to see the negativity of 2016 come to an end. Let 2017 bring us all peace, love and progress!

Je suis

I haven't exactly made New Year's Resolutions. Not sure whether I will or not (since as far as I'm concerned, le temps du nouvel an étend jusqu'à notre retour à l'école!) Either way though, I'm definitely filled with good intentions and optimism for a fantastic year ahead. All that's left is to make concrete plans to make sure I accomplish my goals. Simple comme bonjour, non?  MDR

Youppi!

So excited that I still have 6 days left to get myself all set up, both at home and with school obligations. It'll all get done somehow, right? It always does!

Pour visiter les autres blogueuses qui participent dans ce rallye-lien, (à ce moment, c'est Mme Emilie et Les Idées de Mme Roxanne, plus Stéphanie et moi - mais le rallye-lien est encore ouvert) et cliquer le logo de Stéphanie ci-dessous.