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.

 

Creating a Positive Classroom Climate in French Class

School starts back next week, and I've been giving a lot of thought to how I'm going to create a positive classroom climate in my middle school French Immersion class. This year, I'm changing grades, so my practices and routines seemed to call for an especially thorough auditing.

Right from the first day of school, I plan to reward risk taking, model it, and to do whatever I can to keep the classroom a positive and safe space for my students. No put downs is a given, but especially important in a second language learning environment. Part of my beginning of the year speech will be about not making fun of people for trying, learning by doing, and the importance of practice. We will talk about the role of student talk time in the target language, and about how everyone needs to move forward from where they are according to their own goals and needs.

I've been intrigued by the idea of classroom meetings for some time now, but haven't really been sure how that would work in my grade 8 homeroom. Since I'm moving to grade 6 this year I think I'm ready to give it a go. The ideas in this document about Discussion Guidelines are great. Once a week (maybe even every second week, during those busy periods of the year) should be enough and I'm really looking forward to trying this out. I would love to hear from you if you have experiences to share from a similar grade, and especially with a French Immersion class.

Be sure to check out some of the other awesome blog posts below on setting our students up for learning through a positive classroom culture as well!  I especially love the one called "The Fridge" by a high school math teacher, since this past year my students wanted to know how to say that their work was "fridge-worthy" en français. (What do you think? I offer "Celui en vaut le frigo", "Digne d'afficher" or "Digne d'exhiber" as possible bulletin board titles and terms to share with families.)

An InLinkz Link-up

Shop for Resources & Your Money Goes to the Red Cross

All Canadians and even those beyond have been horrified by the devastation recently faced by residents of Fort McMurray in Alberta. Being the wonderful, sharing, collaborative community that it is, a number of Canadian TPT teacher-authors from coast to coast wanted to help.

Being so far flung, a financial contribution is the best way we could see to make a difference. Visit any of the stores shown in the link up below tomorrow (Monday May 16th) and all profits from your purchases will be donated to the Red Cross for the Fort McMurray wildfire relief fund. Many of these stores will be offering discounts as well, in the hopes of boosting sales and therefore making a bigger contribution.

An InLinkz Link-up