What went well last week #3

Bonjour, 

These are a few activities that worked really well for me last week. 

This is for me to remember in my practice what games, songs, etc. work and also to share ideas with you. 

Most of the ideas below are really simple, they are tried and tested in various schools and they work!

Last week was all about Christmas, we played games and talked about Christmas traditions in France and also shared and compared Christmas traditions from France, England, Poland, Russia and Latvia - where some children are from.  

- Singing Noel Jazz

- Playing 'pass the parcel' : with KS2 we passed the parcel to 'Vive le vent' and with KS1 we sang a simple song 'Joyeux Noël, Bonne 

année

, to the tune of 'Frère Jacques' (Jo-yeux No-ël; Jo-yeux No-ël  Bonne année; Bonne année; Jo-yeux No-ël; Jo-yeux No-ël; Bonne année ; Bonne année).

In the parcel, there were words and questions taken from all the work we have been doing since the beginning of the year- this was great for revision. 

As a variation, in the bag I put words to do with winter/Christmas and on the board, I blue-tacked the matching pictures to do a matching up activity and set it up as a 'detective activity'. 

- Designing a 'Bûche de Noël' - as part of my presentation about Christmas in France I always talk about the food we eat and the 'Bûche de Noel' always get children excited (a chocolate cake for dessert!).

I put together a simple worksheet with a 'blank' bûche to decorate by cutting and sticking the decorations on the 'buche'. You can download it here. We started by googling pictures of 'bûche' to give the children some ideas of what it should look like. 

- Playing a beetle drive game with a 'Père Noël to re-build - great to revise body parts. Download the picture here all you need to do is to cut it out, get a big foam dice and number the body parts  (6 in total) 

What about you ? What worked well for you this week ?