What I learned at school today

One of my biggest frustrations as we test iPads in my classroom has been finding appropriate FREE or nearly free apps that are in French.  I found a well made website that allows you to search only iPad apps that are available in French. It is called: Mon App Store http://monappstore.com/recherche By using the advanced search you can search by category, price, language and age group and more. It is a great resource when you know how to use it. I spent a frustrating afternoon last week downloading app after app from the website and discovering that none of them were in French. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. It wasn't until yesterday that I stumbled upon the answer. Many apps in the app store are available in multiple languages HOWEVER they will always show up on your device in the language of your device. In order to view apps in French I needed to change my  Ipads language to French. When you change your language setting your will find that s

Mme Hawtree's grade 1's have Ipads! We don't get to keep them, we are just the guinea pig class. I am extremely excited to be able to try out this technology with my students. Here is what we used them for this first week: 1) We used the Letters app for our daily 5 Word Work.  Letters App Letters App is a free app that acts like a magnetic board. Students can choose the color of their letters and place them on the board. They can also add pictures and other details. My favorite feature is that students can take a picture of their work . I had my students practice their words and then add their name. Then I had them take a picture of their work. I was then able to see quickly how the students did and who was able to complete the task. The one challenge was that we only have 10 Ipads and all my students wanted to be involved. I had some students Read to Self while the students were working on words then we switched. 2) We used two apps Math is Fun 4-

Another year has begun and a new crew of grade 1 students have entered through my classroom door.  One of my biggest struggles every September is how to communicate the big ideas of community and respect to my students without using English. While on Pinterest this summer I saw a pin from Shannon Wiebe for a silent short. I realized that if I could get students talking about this video I wouldn't have to explain the concepts in English and I could give them the vocabulary to express some of these big ideas in French. I discovered that there are many animated shorts on youtube that I could use with my students.  We have 3 big "rules" in our school and I use these with my students. Je me respecte - I respect myself. Je te respecte -I respect others. Je respecte l'environnement - I respect the environment. I used this video to spark a discussion on "Je te respecte" We also had a lot of fun watching "Le Lutin" and talking about how

This June I tried something new ... inspired by @happycampergirl I decided I would open a Twitter account for my class and try twitter with my students. What an amazing experience!  It was an eye opener for me and for my students. Every morning I would log on to Twitter before my students arrived at school to see what we would be reading today. Everyday I was surprised at the amazing learning that flowed out of those 140 character sentences. When my students came to carpet we would log on to Twitter and read the days tweets. Even my most reluctant readers were excited ... after all it was only a little sentence. What follows are a few of my favorite Twitter moments: One of my favorite twitter moments was when we were reading tweeter poems from @CE1_Fenez77. They were creating tweets with the format "Je ____, tu _____, il _________.Nous ____________. I laugh, you laugh, he laughs, we die of laughter. One of my bright stars said... "Mme did you notice that there is

As the school year progresses my grade 1 french immersion students are getting more and more adventurous in their writing and some days I am beginning to think they are playing a game of stump the teacher. Comment dit-on "wakeboard"  madame? Comment dit-on "platypus" madame?  Thank goodness we live in the digital age - a little search and Mme has all the answers. At least that is what I use to do, but no anymore. One of the biggest gifts we can give our students is the knowledge that they don't need to know EVERYTHING but that they can find out ANYTHING.  Instead of coming back with the answer I have started to have my students join me when I search for the answer. Often I do have the answer but I still look it up with students. It doesn't take any more time and it exposes students to one more resource for getting the information they need. So how do you say platypus in french?  My current favorite translation tools is Reverso however the website is full

I was lucky this year. I had the opportunity to participate in a Inquiry project sponsored by our union and the district. Teachers were invited to develop an inquiry question that applied to their practice and we were given release time to learn about what an inquiry project was and to work in collaboration with colleagues. I say I was lucky but I have to tell you I didn't feel that way through the whole process. After our first session I turned to my teaching partner and asked her what we had gotten ourselves into. The whole process seemed overwhelming and frighting to me. Asking questions, monitoring our thought processes, collecting DATA and most terrifyingly reporting about the whole process to others. The process proved to be a great experience for me. It gave me the opportunity to collaborated with colleagues, exchange ideas and struggles. It also help me focus my own practice, giving me a clear target to concentrate on and helped me look more closely at how I was teachin

I discovered Prezi about 2 years ago and have been using it when I put on workshops. What is it? It is a online presentation maker - a little like power-point but with more zoom. What I like about Prezi is that it allows me to easily and quickly create a portable presentation that includes embedded video, links, images, text and PDF documents. I can create, edit, store and view my Prezi online or I can download a program for my computer. It also allows me to insert pre-made PowerPoint presentations and edit them with Prezi. It has pre-made templates for me to use but it also allows me to have a blank canvas to work from so I can create the presentation I want, the way I want it. Oh and did I mention that it is FREE for educational use? Used Prezi before?  If you haven't visited Prezi lately it is worth having another look. They have made some great updates in the last few months that have made this  program more user friendly and accessible. One of my workshop Prezis:

I had a wonderful idea last week. Well I thought it was a wonderful idea. For a final unit assessment task the students and I were going to make a video. I could see it clearly, children excitedly story boarding, planning and shooting a video about living and non-living things. Me, showing them how to put it all together using Movie Maker. It was going to be great. I asked the school secretary if we had a digital video camera and was pleasantly surprise when I was handed a newish looking box. It was a JVC Everion - the thing even claimed to feature one touch YouTube downloads. I was pretty excited, everything seems to be in the box. Well almost everything. Whoever had used the camera last had forgotten to return the SD cards but no worry that was easy enough to fix. I went through my pre-tech project checklist before launching the video making assignment: Did I have all the cords, cables, dodads and programs needed to create a video? Did I know how to record a video with th

I made a fun discovery today.   Wordle is a fun way to make work choice posters for or with your students. It can be used to create a visual list of synonyms for students to use in their writing. Here is one I made this morning for the word  "grand" in French. Wordle allows you to create word clouds for many URL's and it also allows you to enter your own word lists. Wordle lets you to customize the size, font and color of the words. Steps for Making your Wordle Word Choice Posters:  1) Choose a word that students are over using in your classroom. 2) For French words visit:  http://www.synonyms-fr.com/  and enter it there to get a list of synonyms. Copy the words by highlighting them, and then typing Control+C.     In English you can visit:  http://www.synonym.com  to get a list of synonyms.  Copy the words by highlighting them, and then typing Control+C. 3) Go to www.wordle.net and select "Advanced" tab. 4) Paste the words into the first b

I love twitter. I always learn so much. Today I learned something from  @ LouisSulek via  @ sylviaduckworth.   Louis Sulek  was kind enough to post instructions on how to easily type accents. This is something I thought I had a handle on but  I just discovered that I have been doing things the hard way when it comes to typing accents in my french documents. I usually use alt keys or the French keyboard setting on my computer but I just learned that you can type both English and French texts using the same keyboard. It is called the United States- International keyboard. Sounds good? Well here is what I leaned. Here are instructions for doing it in Windows 7: So first you need to add the United States- International Keyboard to your computer. 1) Go to start. 2) Control Panel 3) Region and Language 4) Keyboard and Languages 5)Change keyboards.... 6) Add 7)Under the English (United States) section find: United States International and select the

It is spring break here which means I have some spare time to catch-up on some professional development and reading. I thought I would take a minute and blog about a few of my favorite places to find ideas, resources and inspiration. So today’s blog is called: Places I am learning from this Spring Break. Twitter: www.twitter.com Twitter offers quick bites of pro-d without too much stress. The trick is to find great educators and follow them, then read what they have to say. Join in on the conversation by following hashtags that apply to you.  I personally love #edchat #frimm #kinderchat  and #langchat.  When I find someone who interests me I then follow them. Some of my favorite education tweeps are: @2learn2   @web20classroom   @WeAreTeachers   @Fr_Immersion98 @sylviaduckworth @MmeVeilleux Check out  http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html for a great list of education hashtags. New to Twitter? Check this out:  http://edudemic.com/2010/06/the-ultimate-twi

In a French Immersion classroom I think reading aloud is vital to help students learn the flow, feel and rhythm of language. They also help students get beyond decoding and deciphering to feeling and hearing the stories. So for World Read-aloud Day (well the day after actually) I decided to look at ways I can get more read-alouds in my day. My favorite lesson of the day ended up being about reading with expression. The kids had fun and so did I .  I learned playing with reading is as much fun as reading sometimes.  I read them the story: Sortez de mon livre! by  Nick Bland.  When I started reading I read with no expression at all. The students looked at me strangely but Mme often does strange things so they waited. Then, I read the next few lines with expression. I asked students what the difference was between the two and which they liked best. They all agreed they liked the second way best. They had great ideas about how it was different.  My favorite was th