Chez Renée

It seems to me that it is just as important for a teacher to end well as it is to begin well.  Educators speak a lot about beginning well, but I almost never hear anything about ending well.  I want my students to know that I've genuinely valued the brief intersection of our lives, and I want them to have a memento of our time together that will be meaningful to them in the future.  I imagine that you feel the same way!  But how to come up with meaningful gifts that won't cost a fortune?  I found an interesting idea on Pinterest that I thought I would try this year.   You will need:  an old copy of Le Petit Prince  (or any piece of literature that you've studied together), a picture frame and a printer.   I chose a famous quote from the book, which we had read and studied together, and printed it on a page of the book in a different direction so that it would stand out.  I also chose to add a little art work.  I was very...

I imagine that many of you out there in the blogosphere enjoy reading Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry with your upper level French students like I do.  I've collected many ideas over the years for activities to use while teaching this wonderful book.  I think these ideas  were passed on to me by my friend Mary, and I believe she found them on the FL Teach ListServ .  I use these at the end of our study of the book after students understand the book well.  I usually give students the choice of one of the following:  Write, create and illustrate 4 postcards written by the Little Prince to his flower from some of the planets he visited in the book. Create a board game or a card game that uses questions based on Le Petit Prince.   Illustrate the game and write original questions and answers to be used in the game. Design and create a planet that the Little Prince might have visited, maintaini...

It's always exciting when students reach the point in their language study when they are able to read an original piece of literature in its original language.  For me, this happens in French III when students read Le Petit Prince.   To help them figure out the meaning of the book without resorting to English is also a challenge.  One thing I've tried is to create 3-D representations of things that happen in the book.  For example, I created the planet that the Little Prince lives on out of a Styrofoam ball, and I hung it from the ceiling. In the book, the Little Prince travels around the universe visiting various unusual planets.  I created those as well and hung them from the ceiling. Here's the planet of the drinker. And here's the planet of the lamplighter. And here's the planet Earth and the airplane of the pilot, one of the main characters in the book. Having these planets hanging from the ceiling...

My third year students have just finished reading the beloved book entitled Le Petit  Prince (the Little Prince)!  For those of you who aren't familiar with this book, it's full of philosophical quotes.  I asked my students to write their favorite quote from the book on a paper star which I provided for them (stars are discussed frequently in the book).  I hung the stars from the ceiling, where they now brighten up the room and remind us of the genius of Antoine de Saint-Exupery :).