Chez Renée

One of the best things I've ever added to my curriculum is something called Manie Musicale . It's designed specifically for French teachers! If you've never heard of it, it's a French song competition modeled after the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. Students across the world vote for their favorite songs from a bracket of 16 current songs selected from all over the French-speaking world. I started participating a few years ago and have found it to be 100% worth it! Manie Musicale is free, but you do need to register your school to participate.  Brackets must be filled out by March 1 each year.  Teachers create bulletin board materials, games and other activities to use with students and share them with all of the other teachers participating!  Here is my bulletin board from a few years ago. It was made with the shared materials available on the Manie Musicale website. Teachers decide how they will reward the students with the best brackets.  I chose to giv...

 Bonjour! Here is a fun, concrete activity to help students practice description and the use of adjectives.  First, gather random objects from around your classroom. They don't necessarily need to be items that your students can name. Use anything interesting or unusual! This gets them interested before your lesson even begins. Line the objects up on a table and use labels with letters on them to identify each object. I chose to use: A) a pumpkin decoration, B) a metal box with a block of post-it notes inside, C) a small container of yellow play dough, D) an empty Perrier bottle, E) a giant paper weight in the shape of a diamond, and F) a green feather. We were working on describing objects with a specific list of adjectives which describe the shape & texture, size, weight, consistency, general state of the object and the material the object is made of.    Next, ask students to number from 1-6 (adjust the number according to the number of objects you've chos...