I love the image of planting in a garden with students. The tactile touch of muddy Earth is so grounding and “down to Earth.” Plus, the word “hands-on-learning” comes to mind. Foreign Language Fun has a blog post where she talks about teaching French through Kindergarten gardening vocabulary and her excitement about its effectiveness is contagious. It can parallel your classroom in some way I am sure, it certianly gives me a lot of ideas. Here is an excerpt, to read the whole article click on the flower pot:
“I am getting so many great content ideas for my French lessons by following my son’s kindergarten curriculum. Today, I taught a simple lesson about planting flowers. A grade level expectation is that children understand what plants need to grow: soil, water, and sunlight. I came in with all of my “stuff” . . . a flower pot, packet of seeds, watering can, and pictures of soil and the sun. After acting out and narrating planting, I placed all of my visuals and realia in the middle of the circle. The children and I played an adaptation of “The Farmer in the Dell.” Using the same tune, we held hands and walked around in a circle, singing:
Nous plantons une fleur, nous plantons une fleur, nous plantons une fleur. Où est le pot?
We’re planting a flower, we’re planting a flower, we’re planting a flower. Where is the pot?”
What ideas do you have for teaching a foreign language?
2 Comments
Merci :-)
@diane: You are so very welcome. I don’t speak much French so I will say in the Spanish I know and sometimes teach in:
Gracias para sus palabras ;)