Sleepless in Maryland:  Sleep Deprived Teacher Surfs Web for French Gold

The ACIE Newsletter, November 2003, Vol. 7, No. 1

by Angie Loomis, 1st Grade Teacher, Maryvale School, Rockville, Maryland

FRENCH SITES FOR PRIMARY TEACHERS AND THEIR STUDENTS

There is gold on the web, but as teachers, we often do not have the time to go down and mine for it. That's what I do at 2:00 a.m. when I wake up and just can't get back to sleep. Here is some of the information I have accumulated, distilled for your enjoyment. If you want the gold, though, you will have to log on. Sites come and sites go. Don't get frustrated if a site you try to log onto is no longer accessible. There are many other ones!

École-Education page from www.momes.net

Site: www.momes.net
Recommended for: K-12 students, teachers, and parents

The ultimate site for elementary French immersion. This site encourages students to submit pictures, definitions, poems, book reviews and stories. This would be a great motivator to get students to publish a "perfect" version. On momes.net you will find a myriad of poems and songs (sorted by categories) under the rubric Comptines. Where else would I have found Le petit ver tout nu [The little naked worm] to support our study of earthworms and review the sound /u/, to boot? Momes.net offers a monthly dossier which provides information about holidays or current topics. The dossiers (from Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Chinese New Year) often have quizzes and activities (e.g., read to perform a task) as side-bars. I like to copy the text and images (highlight, copy, paste into a Word document), then edit to suit my students' level, always remembering to reference the site on all printed material.

The École-Education button will take you to a page from which you can download worksheets or teaching ideas for all subjects (see the buttons at the top of the page). Also, from the dossier and the École-Education you can access school websites. The musique button brought me through pour les petitsto all of the lyrics to Henri Dès' songs. As I use him extensively in all subject areas, this was a valuable time-saver. The livres books, but also carries reviews by children and adults. This might be a good place to shop for titles. section advertises The journaux section has a monthly survey, and results of (good for averages, percentages, and comparing your school's results to those of the site.) The previous surveys can be viewed tourisme section of the journaux could post your students' write-ups about their state or places they have visited. Momes.net sites. Liens are mostly children's personal sites, but sites partenaires allows you to also offers links to other go dig for gold elsewhere. Momes.net targets children from elementary through high school, with submissions by its audience, so you may want to print out in advance from the site to screen what is read.

Site: www.coindespetits.com
Topic: Multiple
Recommended for: Primary and some intermediate elemenary students, teachers, parents

The author has recently introduced a page des grands, and is happy to publish les résultats de tes recherches. Holidays, stories, alphabetno worries about letting your students navigate this site solo.

Site: www.marmiton.org
Topic: Multiple
Recommended for: Primary students

Need to search on the net to complement your curriculum? I could spend my life on www.marmiton.org! If you want a taste of France for yourself or, let's not forget them, your students, you will find recipes galore thematically sorted by season, type of food and cute titles citadin pressé, étudiant fauché, etc. The convertisseur only goes in the "wrong" direction (F to C), but new tables de conversion will help you out. Great for math lessons, too (cl, g, oz, degrees F and C). What better way to integrate math and reading? One caution: the recipes, being French, sometimes include alcohol.

Geometry page from eloce.free.fr

Sites: www.atlas-francophone.refer.org
Topic: Geography, geometry
Recommended for: Elementary teachers

You can find superb information in easy to read charts and formats at www.atlas-francophone.refer.org. Download free maps from eloce.free.fr, a site currently developing toute la géographie au primaire. Definitely worth checking into.

Site: ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thierry_Klein/sommaire.htm
Topic: Music
Recommended for: Elementary teachers

Need to add pizzazz to your curriculum? Always! Thierry Klein has amassed an impressive array of songs and has music to help you sing the tunes! From simple children's ditties to traditional songs, this site is worth a gold medal! Only drawback: The list is alphabetical and you'll need to dig to find what you want. It's worth it! You could get lost for days enjoying the words and music on Klein's site.

Sites: www.ramdam.com
www.fnac.com
www.amazon.fr
Topic: Music
Recommended for: Elementary teachers

From www.ramdam.com, you can find out all about contemporary French music, from Aznavour to Zut! A good way to listen to artists to decide whether you want to buy their albums (if they do not offer clips on-line) is to go to www.fnac.com or www.amazon.fr and type in the artists' names. You can often hear all the selections from a particular CD. These sites also indicate which albums are no longer in print. I buy from these two sites, though shipping is close to $25 no matter what you buy (so buy in bulk). These sites are also great for finding books that match our curricula, be they Eric Carle, Kevin Henkes, Rosemary Wells, or books about rocks and minerals. Searching on these sites by author name, I found out that Christian Merveille, a supreme poet and author, also publishes CDs. Unfortunately, these sites allow you to order books and CDs without telling you at the time of your order that certain titles are out of print. That notification comes later along with the information that you will receive (and pay for) only 85% of your order.