Playground games with our year 3 classes to celebrate what we have already learned !
Playground Games
Between now and Easter with our Year 3 classes we like tolook back at what we have already learned on our language learning journey –particularly with the children who started to learn the target language about 6months ago in September .
We revisit and practise familiar language – it’s all aboutinclusivity and bringing every child along on the new language learning journey.
We revisit greetings , numbers ,colours, days of the week and months of the year and personal information questionsand answers we have started to develop.
We find “Playground and PE games” an ideal way to add acreative and performance based element to this.
A simple game to practise our names in French
Why not try in French “j’ai un nom , un prénom...” and showthe children this clip of young French children performing the game with theirclass teacher.
Here is a sound clip demonstrating the song
Practising phonics using familar language
We like this simple game for the playground of the hall, to engage children in listening accurately to the sounds in words . Here’s an example of how to lay the game
Cats and Dogs-
· Split group into 2 lines, facing away from each other in the middle of the hall. Tell the children to stand in two lines facing away from each other.
· One line are cats, one line are dogs. We have chosen these two animals in French because they both begin with "ch" but children need to listen carefully to spot if its the cats or the dogs that need to move ·
Teacher will either shout ‘cats’ or ‘dogs’, the line that is called must make it to the wall they are facing without being tagged by the opposite line
· If tagged, students switch onto the other line
· The line with the most students, or a full line of student wins (time depending)
· Change language for call outs e.g. ‘Chien et Chat’
· Progress this by holding on to the first part of the word e.g. Chhhhhat
· Play again and change the words
· On Spanish we are going to play it first time through with pato and gato ...listeing for that initial sound!
Games to practise core language
We have used the game “Les poissons et les pêcheurs for several years in our KS1 classrooms and we think it works well in Year 3 too!
The original game is described below in French but we play it in all the target languages we teach !
We just adapt the rhyme .....Here is the rhyme in French.
We say with the children “petits poissons , venez, passez.....”
· Select two children to join hands and make an archway for the other children to walk through in single file.We often play it to practise numbers
· The class needs to chant “petits poissons , venez, passez.... and then the two children in the archway need to count from zero as the fish (the other children) walk under their archway .
· The fishermen ( the two children making the arch) have secretly agreed on a number. When the agreed number is met , the archway drops and the fishermen catch their first one or two fish .
· The children who have been caught join the fishermen and agree a new number , the game starts again and this time four children lift their arms to make four archways and that also form the net in which they will catch their fish
· Change the content and agree that it’s colours or days of the week or months of the year and play the game again.The fishermen must decide which colour etc is the signal to drop their net and catch fish!
Communication Skills and PE Games
We want to make sure the children develop their communication skills so here are a couple of games we are using this half term with Y3 to do just that:
Role Tag Game
· 2 players labelled as ‘the person’
· The ‘the person “’ players have a list of skills cards
· If a pupil gets tagged by the ‘it’ person they are provided with a task
· Tasks could be ask a question , tell me your name , count to 10 , greet me ,
· Pupil move to the side and complete the task
· Progress= Introduce the rule of the ‘examiner’, who stands at the side of the hall and approves/ disapproves whether the people completing the task have completed the task (great for AfL)
· You are going to need - Task Cards- as prompts for ideas of tasks etc.
Simple Easter Celebration Rhyme
Just before Easter have a go at this clapping rhyme inSpanish , based on the word for chocolate in Spanish ...funnily enough it’s“Chocolate “
Watch the two girls in this favourite You Tube clip show theclass how it’s done.
Chocolate
Choco-choco-la-la
Choco-choco-te-te
Choco-la
Choco-te
Choco-la-te
These are the hand clapping rules for the game .....!
Choco = palm-to-palm clap with partner,
La = back-of-hand to back-of-hand- clap
Te = end-of-clenched-fist to end-of-clenched-fist clap
This is also a really good game to play with the wholeclass in a circle, doing the hand actions out to the side as opposed tostraight in front of you, so that everyone joins in.
Can you play the game in French...? Well we took thefamous drink “café au lait” and applied the same hand clapping rules and rhythmetc and it worked a treat!
Why not ask the children if they can think of some newwords they know in the target languageto create their own clapping game !
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