Morning Message

I am a huge huge believer in the power of having a morning message. I feel this shared writing and reading experience is a bridge between learning letter sounds and sound blends and being able able to read text. On day 1 of Kindergarten, I write "Bonjour" as my message and quickly we are writing/reading a couple of sentences every morning ("Bonjour les amis. Comment ça va?" "Bonjour mes amis. On a la bibliothèque aujourd'hui."). I will have students search for and circle letters in the message or sound blends later in the year. I've included a link to some other ideas for Morning message.

Morning message.pdf

Kindergarten Home Reading

I use a home reading program in Kindergarten that our school purchased. It contains 30 kits, each containing a book, a CD, a magnetic matching game and a parent translation sheet. The students and the parents really enjoy the program, especially as the CD does not require that the parents speak or understand French. Here's the link to the companies' website:

http://www.ouiouioui.ca

Kindergarten Songs

 Here is a file of songs that I use in my classroom and put into a duotang on our bookshelf. It is a very well-loved book! I am continuing to add to this book throughout the year. I also send these songs in a take-home book that also contains the Manuel Phonique letter pages in a reduced size. I have gotten a lot of really great feedback from parents and students about having a take-home book as the kids feel so grown up having "homework"!

Kindergarten songs.pdf

La première année

Sounds Magnifying Glass.pdf

Daily Five Signs.pdf

All visual dictionaries.pdf

The Daily Five

The Daily Five literacy program.  Magnifying glasses with sound blends are laminated and used by students to find the sounds they know during quiet reading or around the classroom.  Such a simple idea and yet students love to search through books with these to find the sounds they know.

Web link to songs: French songs with accompanying video, music, and lyrics on youtube.

http://comptine.free.fr/

Dr. Martine Pellerin, who has conducted several research projects at our school, insists that even at the kindergarten level the written language shoud be available and visible everywhere.  When singing songs, naming the days of the week, counting, take every opportunity to provide text and show the correspondence between what we say and the written word.  

This is a great little website with a collection of well known French songs.  Many songs also have the lyrics highlighted as they are sung, these songs are the most desirable.  Beware, on your school Safari link the you tube portion is not embedded so you will not see the video portion.  I suggest searching the songs that appeal to you at home and then making note of those you tube links to use at school.

Here is one of the videos as an example:

Home Reading Tracking Booklet

Home Reading Tracking Booklet.pdf 

By January in grade 1 I send home these home reading tracking booklets.  The inside leaf explains to parents how they are to be used and the cover is decorated by the student.  As both a parent and a teacher I know how busy the evening can get and how tough it is to remember to get that reading done every night.  I find this booklet, if nothing else, reminds parents and students to sit down and read a book en français.  My students also keep ziploc bags of 'finish me' books that we have made in class or books of songs we know (you will find these throughout the wiki by theme and on the Page titled 'Les petits livres'.  These are very simple and the students are pleased to show that they can read or sing in French.

The instructions for parents also includes a link to a text to speech website.  This is website where parents can type in a word and hear it read in French, a great way to help their child with their reading.

Text to Speech Website Link:  http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal