Draw and Write with French Vocabulary
We’ve got part 2 today in our series of classroom doodle books, drawing, vocabulary building and writing in your Primary French Immersion classroom. As a follow up to classroom doodles, and usually for the month of October, we do some drawing and writing in our journals.
The Setup
Each morning I choose a drawing (see below for my fave resource). I love that the drawings are only 3 steps! I glance over at our vocab wall and choose a word or a few that would be fun, silly, accurate or imaginary (based on my mood usually). I project the step by step drawing along with the sentence for students to copy/write in their journals. I usually spend the same time as the students drawing because they often want to see each others.
Here’s a few examples:
When students are finished, they show me and then place it on the table for others to have a peek when they are done as well. Usually this is during the 20 mins as we arrive at our classroom.
These sentences start out as copying directly from me and students draw the meaning of the sentence. Then I start to leave out a colour or number or preposition. Then I’ll leave out a preposition, colour, number or adjective and make the sentences a little more detailed. And finally, I’ll create even more detailed sentences, multiple sentences or allow students to write their own entirely.
It can look something like this:
Week 1
Il y a une vache sur l’herbe.
Voici la tortue sous un chandail.
Je vois un avion dans le ciel.
Week 2
Il y a une vache __(couleur)_ dans le champs de maïs.
Le lapin __(couleur)__ mange deux pommes vertes avec une souris.
Voici un escargot ___(préposition – sur/sous/dans)__ les champignons ___(couleur)__.
Week 3
Le garçon tire son wagon __(couleur)_ avec le chat. C’est le matin. Le soleil brille.
Il y a ___(#)___ petits hiboux une citrouille. Ils mangent des glands __(couleur)_ .
Regarde le __(petit/gros)__ ours __(couleur)_ avec l’épouvantail.
Week 4
Le canard jaune joue avec ___(vocab)__ près de l’étang froid. Ils portent des chapeaux __(couleur)_ et __(couleur)_.
Oh non! Le robot est piégé dans une toile d’araignée. Eeek! Le renard court avec son ami ___(vocab)__ et __(vocab)_.
Il y a un dragon __(couleur)_ et __(couleur)_ qui vole sur un râteau dans le ciel __(couleur)_ . Elle voit un chat sur une tarte de citrouille.
The Comprehension Check
OH! And I always make sure the drawing matches the sentence. Like before the student is allowed to put in it the Boîte Fini.
This month-long drawing and writing is perfect to see how far and how fast your students can add details to drawings, improve their printing, explore their creativity in their own sentence writing and understand sentence structure and French vocabulary.
My faves
I use Evan-Moor Draw… Then Write product that you can find on their website or on TPT. It’s super easy to print out or use the digital version. I like the journals from Staples that have space for drawing as well as lines for students. If these are not available you can absolutely use any journals you currently have and any scrap papers. It’s nice to keep them together in a notebook but loose paper works just as great if that’s what you have! Lastly, I like to encourage my students to use pencil crayons or crayons because they can add so many more details to their drawings. My ‘rule’, loosely, is to draw with a pencil first then colour. Only because when students make a ‘mistake’, their opinion, it’s very hard to erase with colouring tools.
