First Week of Grade 2/3 French Immersion Activities
Figuring out what to do in the first week of school can be tough! These activities are ones I’ve done in the past to help get you started. While my examples may be in French, you can certainly do these activities in English. I have provided some English versions where possible.
These activities could easily be adapted to suit any grade from 1-4 so take the idea and run with it!
Expectations
Instead of just giving a list of rules, we talked about expectations that we have for a good student and a good teacher. Students raised their hand and told me their expectation, then chose a colour for the post it.
In this case, I wrote them in French but if you have stronger students or are doing this activity in their first language, you could have students write their own on sticky notes instead.
*English = a good student/a good teacher
“Presenting me” portrait
Portraits are always a common first project in elementary school as they allow us to get to know the students in our class. Drawing a self-portrait is really challenging so this multi-media twist is a great way to achieve the same effect without overwhelming them. I display them in the hall first, then they come back into the classroom to stay up all year.
*Example is in French, but could be done in English instead.
Teamwork STEM challenge - Saving Fred/Sauver Fred
This is such a fun challenge and my students thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a super popular activity so a quick Google search will give you plenty of hook presentations, plan sheets, set up pictures and more detailed instructions.
The quick notes: Teams are trying to rescue Fred the worm and get him into his lifejacket (a gummy lifesaver). The catch? They can only touch their paperclips to do this task.
For each team of 2-3, you will need: 1 clear plastic cup, one gummy worm, one gummy lifesaver (not the hard ones) and one paperclip for each student. They will wreck the paper clip so don’t give them fancy ones.
Teamwork STEM challenge - Longest paper chain
I divided students into teams of 2-3. Each team received 1 piece of paper, scissors and masking tape the length of my arm. They had 10 minutes to create the longest paper chain. Their techniques tend to be different, yielding different chain lengths which leads to great discussion about why a certain strategy worked better.
Teamwork challenge - 100 numbers to get students talking
This resource comes from Sara Vanderwerf. You will need students in groups of four and each student in the group needs a different colour marker. Teams need to work together to be the first to find all numbers from 1-100 in order. This is a great group work activity and can be a great introduction to discussions around communication and teamwork. You can get the free download on her website
Journals
We start writing right away! We will get into writing styles and will do writing projects down the line but to start I just want to see what their writing looks like. I made this anchor chart to use on our first day and subsequent days as a reminder of writing expectations.
Since we are an immersion classroom, I also teach them how to use the variety of lexiques that we have in class to support their vocabulary.
I talk more about writing and the lexiques in my grade 2/3 french literacy post. Check it out HERE.
*English = the date, capital letters (proper nouns and the beginning of each sentence), punctuation, letters inside/on the lines, details (who, what, where, when…), spaces)
Learning how to map words
In the past I’ve done a weekly dictée (learn more about how I run that program HERE) and our morning work revolves around practicing in different ways. This year I’m not doing a weekly test, but we will still be using those words every morning and I’m just calling it “les mots de la semaine” instead.
One of the morning tasks they have is to map their words. For most of them, this is a new thing so we spend several days practicing how to do it before we start our weekly words/morning work in week 2. On the first day, we do it as a group on the board, doing a bunch of examples. On the second day, we do it as a group again first, then I pass out my mapping sheets in dry erase pouches and give them one word at a time to map. After they have time to try it themselves, we do that word together. On the third day, we start right away with them trying it on their mapping sheet with words I give them.
There’s no rhyme or reason to these words. I usually just look around the room for them. I do like to throw in problems they may encounter when they will be doing it independently in the future such as double letters, silent letters etc.
Je suis capable - Growth Mindset activity
On my wall I have the words “nous sommes capables!”. Around it, I put student pictures of them holding a sign they decorate with the words “Je suis capable!”. After talking about mindset and doing our morning affirmation for the first time, we do this activity. For more detailed instructions, book suggestions and the download, please see the post HERE.
More than Peach & Class Heart - A diversity lesson
Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I originally saw this idea but I loved it so I wanted to do it this year with my students.
We read the story “More than Peach” by Bellen Woodard (also available in French as “Plus que la couleur pêche”). This story is about changing the language around the “skin coloured crayon” to be more inclusive. After reading the story we talked about the character in the book and how we could learn from what happened in her class to make it better.
I make a heart with enough spots for all of my students, and me and added our names. I did this in PowerPoint. It was a little bit cumbersome to make sure I had enough spots but I finally made it work.
When I showed my students the heart, they noticed that not all the sections were the same size. Some were bigger or smaller or skinnier or wider. One student noted how it was like us, we aren’t all the same size! While this wasn’t part of my original discussion plan, it was such a great addition and made everyone feel great about their space on the heart, no matter the position or size.
Using the Colours of the World crayons, each student got to choose one that most closely resembled their skin. Then, they coloured in their part of the heart.
Heart template available in the “files” tab at the top of my website.
SEL lesson - Mr. Peabody’s Apples & toothpaste activity
My Peabody’s Apples is a story that teaches us about the impact that our words have and how they’re hard to take back.
A visual lesson for this is to get a tube of toothpaste (a travel size one is fine) and squeeze out all the toothpaste as fast as you can. Now have students try to put the toothpaste back inside, just as quickly. The idea here is that it’s easy to let our words out but it’s hard to take them back.
SEL lesson - crumpled paper
This lesson requires no prep other than getting a piece of paper. It is similar to the toothpaste activity in that it’s about how we treat people.
Have students say hurtful things to the paper and crumple it each time. Now, have them say nice things and apologies to the paper. You can talk about how even though they’re apologizing now, the damage has been done and the paper won’t go back to the way it started.
Personalized bookmarks & portfolios
For the bookmarks I make a PowerPoint that has rectangles with names typed in block letters, it’s not fancy at all! I print them out on card stock (our school laminator has really thin film, but if you’re using your laminator, you could print on regular weight paper). Students can decorate them in any way they want. Once they’ve coloured them in, I laminate them and they can use them for their silent reading books that stay in the class.
The art portfolios are on large construction paper. I usually use the large size of card stock but we were out this year so I went with construction paper.
They have to write their name in a big way and then can decorate it anyway they want.
If I use card stock, I don’t laminate it but since the construction paper is thinner, I laminated because sometimes they take their portfolios home and I didn’t want them ripped in their backpacks.
Other activities include:
A math assessment - see the files tab at the top of the blog to be taken to the files folder. Then click “Math”
Terry Fox - Since our school participates in the Terry Fox Run every September, we usually start with some videos, books and activities to get us in the spirit for the run.
Terry’s story (read about Terry on terryfox.org)
Terry Fox, Anything’s Possible documentary (~14 min) - see below
French song: Je cours comme Terry - Gregg LeRock - see below