Teacher Website & online vocab review links**

My teacher web page has turned into my favorite resource from our mili training.  I had a teacher web page prior to the training but it was not very "user friendly" for my students.  I am excited about having my webpage as a useful tool for my teaching.

I know have a link to online vocab review games, where I load new vocab games with every story set we do.  The students love the online games and they can play them once during a class period and then go home or continue to review using the online games when they stay after school.  The two sites that I have used for this and have found really teacher and student friendly are: quia.com and quizlet.com.   Check them out they are sites that teachers from every subject area could use and all you have to do is type in the list of vocab terms and their definition and the site creates tons of review activities and online quizzes for students to practice the terms.

I have also used the webpage as a place to post some class photos, post classwork, class stories, and project outlines.  I have posted the Directions for every time we have gone to the computer lab this year.  This is helpful for students who are absent and it has been a consistent thing so students all know how we start every class in the computer lab by going to my webpage and reading the Directions under "class assignments".   I finally have a webpage where I can upload work and I know that every student I have knows how to find my webpage from home and can get the info that I post.  Also, they can email me b/c they now all have Gmail accounts.  I feel pretty modern and techy due to my new online resource knowledge!!  Merci Karen and all the Mili instructors, you're awesome!!

IB Diploma program training & blogging

I am going to an IB DP training for Language B this Friday in Portland, OR.   This will be my 3rd IB training, my first in the area of DP, the other 2 trainings that I have had were for MYP.  I am looking forward to the training and hoping to find some time to catch up on my blogging.  

I am hoping that we will get some new resources for language b studies and that someone there will be able to help me find resources in French that are geared toward elementary level readers.

Even though I have not kept up with my blogging during the past 2 months, I have continued to work on the web 2000 skills that I have acquired during our Mili training.  I have continued to bring my students to the computer lab, however this qtr I have been going every 2 wks due to some traffic in the labs.  Also, we spent the last week in Feb celebrating Mardi Gras for 2 class days.  We have continued to write about our weekends in French on the google account and now that they can read and comment on each others writing, the task has a lot more "Real Life" meaning to them, as opposed to when they were just writing on pen and paper and handing it in to me and sharing it aloud once a month.

Preparing for our 4th Quarter Research Project

My students have been acting out, co-creating and reading stories about famous people this quarter.  Our end of the quarter, qtr 3, project is to write and present our Autobiographies in French to the class.  Students have been reading stories about famous people that I wrote in the first person to help them with this process.  This past week they began to brainstorm ideas for their autobiography and fill in an outline in French.  

I am trying to build up their vocabulary in order to make the jump from Autobiography to Biography easier.  We are reviewing some basic vocabulary and sentence structures for talking about our: families, schools, interests, jobs and careers for the future.  I now need to start searching for good reference material in French that is written at a more basic level, like an encyclopedia written for younger students.  I am not sure how to do my google searching for this and am hoping to create a list of great reference materials in French on French famous musicians/good sources for youth.  I want to avoid having students find information and just cut and paste it into a bad free online translator site.  

Google reader account a success

The google reader accounts have taken me forever to set up.  Now that the students are finally able to read each others blogs and comment on them, it is amazing!  The kids are so motivated to read the French blogs, written in French, and to learn how to comment on them, in French in the form of a question/comment, that it even surprises them how much fun it can be.  It has been great to see the students motivated this past month due to the reader accounts.  

My next challenge is beginning the real research process and doing so in both English and fRench and keeping it basic enough that students will be able to report back to the class orally on the majority/summary of their findings.