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C'est l'hiver - It's Winter! Teach French Winter Vocabulary with these 3 Great children's Books!
Whether you are in the "I love winter" team - or "Is it over yet?", teaching French winter vocabulary is a must at this time of year!
This time of year is wonderful! Cold or not, there are so many new activities to take part in and teach in the classroom. But, that also means you have to teach relevant vocabulary. What is the best way to teach and reinforce theme based topics in your French Immersion classroom?
Reading in French is an exciting way to increase your students understanding of the language and teach vocabulary in a fun way that is visually appealing to all students.
Let's talk about Pre-Reading. Pre-reading is an important step when teaching French reading and new vocabulary. Scanning the text and looking at the images help the students begin to understand the content and context of what you are about to read.
Try this before you read a new text to your students...
1. Look at the pictures by doing a BOOK WALK!
This is an excellent way to examine the book - especially for second language learners. Book walks are shared reading activities that are done prior to reading new or unfamiliar texts. The teacher “walks” through the text along with students. This is a great opportunity to teach new vocabulary. Students will be more apt to remember a word if they associate it with an interesting picture.
2. Look at the TITLE.
3. Scan text for FAMILIAR WORDS.
Since you have already done a Book Walk, the students can now try to associate vocabulary they know with the text in the book.
4. BRAINSTORM words that relate to the topic.
These don’t need to be in the text. This can be done individually or as a class. If you do this as a class, use vocabulary cards with images to familiarize the students with what is being learned, in this case, new French winter vocabulary,
Use these word wall cards prior to reading to emphasize key words they will find as they read:
Here is an emergent reader you can read with your students to reinfoce new vocabulary:
Now, for the exciting part! Here are 3 great books to read with your students that are all about winter and have interesting pictures, ideal for early years students.
FIRST BOOK:
Title: Voici l'hiver
Author: Maryann Cocca-Leffler
Publisher: Éditions Scholastic
The pictures are interesting and the text is simple.
You can easily teach winter vocabulary and simple verbs.
The book is also available in English so you can encourage parents to read it at home!
SECOND BOOK:
Title: Au revoir l’automne. Bonjour l’hiver…
Author: Kenard Pak
Publisher: KIMANE
This book is written as a series, be sure to check out the books for the other seasons.
Pictures are engaging for young readers and text is fairly simple.
Again, this book is originally available in English, so parents can get it from the library and read with their child at home.
THIRD BOOK: (by far my favorite on the list)
Title: Snow Day!
Author: Patricia Lakin
Publisher: Scholastic
The pictures are hilarious. Period. Why this works even though it is written in English is that you can easily translate it yourself as you read it. OR, simply use it as a book walk and point out winter clothing, etc.
This book is hilarious (spoiler alert: surprise ending!). :-)
I always try to suggest books that you can easily find at your local library - so you don't break your budget. I hope you enjoy reading these books as much as I do!
Happy Reading!
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