Croquembouche! The Team Building Challenge

What do you do when your classroom is being used to administer the 10th grade PLAN and you have been told to relocate to the Foods classroom downstairs?  Create a Traditional French Wedding Cake (Croquembouche) tower build off!

Supplies:  Pre-made cream puffs purchased from the freezer section (I had students purchase them)
       Make a caramel sauce (I used 2.5 cups sugar with 2/3 cups of water, boil, then cool)

Rules:

1. Divide the class into two teams and give them the same amount of cream puffs.  For us this was one box of 33 puffs.
2. Give each team a bowl of hot caramel sauce.
3. Set the timer at 10 minutes.
4. The team with the tallest, hollow center, free-standing tower wins.

Additional Challenge:
   The whole class or team has to yell "Croquembouche" when

• anyone enters the room
• anything falls on the floor
• a cream puff falls from the tower
• when your team finishes the tower and you are done

At the end of the day, this was a fun, team building, problem solving activity to discuss what a Traditional French Wedding Cake looks like, taste like, and how its made!! Game On!

Go Fish - Reflexive Verbs In Future Tense

The importance of PLAY TESTING!!  This game started out as an idea...I wanted to adapt Go Fish to apply writing reflexive verbs in the near future (futur prôche).  So, I created a deck of cards where students had to match a "book" of four to complete a match "Je vais me browser."  Then, I "play tested"  and most importunity, asked the kids for feedback on how to make this better.  The end result after two full days of "play testing" was a version where students could not stalemate each  other, and I could keep track of who was winning for extra credit.  They love this game.  I then used the same deck of cards and created supplemental cards to alter the game for Passé Composé.

Allez À La Pêche - Rules

The goal is to create a phrase of 4 in agreement: Je vais me coucher.

The student with the most phrases wins.

For 2 players:  Deal 7 Cards

     3 players:  Deal 6 Cards

    4 players:   Deal 5 Cards  (Best arrangement)

     5 players:  Deal 4 Cards

All other cards go in the middle.

Similar to go fish, ask a player if they have a certain card that would complete a phrase.  If you have a 'Je' you could ask for a 'me.'  If that player has the card they give it away and you would go again.  If that player does not, they would say "Allez À La Pêche."  If you run out of cards because other people have taken them, you re-deal cards from the pile.  "Libre" cards are free to be whatever, similar to a wild card.  Once you get three of a "book" you can set those aside to protect them from being taken, but then you may not take them back later to use for another "book."  This prevents stalemating a player by exchanging the same card back and forth.  Record completed "books" of four on the team page.  The player who has the most correct phrases wins and the teacher can use that sheet as formative assessment or can use those points as extra credit. 

The red cards can be substituted to create a similar game for Passé Composé.

*I printed off six sets of these cards in different colors of card stock to create a classroom set that was easy to keep organized.  I also kept the Passé Composé cards separate also.

The entire file complete with playing cards, a formative check sheet while students are playing, color coded guided notes, and a final assessment for Reflexive Verbs in present, future, and past tense
is available on my store:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Game-Based-Learning-for-French-Reflexive-Verbs-Futur-Proche-and-Passe-Compose-2127786

Picture Talk - The Game

Picture Talk is another great use of Game Based Learning.  Rules to following when designing a "game lesson" :  Everyone is a participant, Learning happens by doing, It feels like play, Opportunities exist for students to fail and the teacher can reframe, Feedback is immediate, Challenge is constant, Everything is interconnected.

Picture Talk Rules:

1. One describer comes to the front of the room.
2. The describer looks at the pre-drawn image.  They instruct the class on how to draw the image without saying what exactly to draw.  For a shapes lesson the student could only use shapes, dimensions, and locations.  For identifying objects, student could only mention object and its location in the TL.
3. The copiers (students) are not allowed to speak.
4. When all copiers are finished the drawer reveals the image to see how many copiers (students) got it right.

On the left are the three images I used for French Three and their lesson on shapes and dimensions.  The right side is the images I used for French One in their lesson on objects and directions.

The modification I made was that the drawer could only use French!  Even at the novice low level, this was doable and assessed speaking skills and listening skills.

Alyssa leading the picture talk of the chair scene.

Lesson Roll Out:
1.  I modeled the first drawing.
2.  I asked for student volunteers to lead the next few drawings.
3.  Then I divided the class into two teams to compete against each other.  Each team had a poster and a pack of markers.  Taking turns, one member from each team draws the object on the poster in its correct color.  Points are awarded to the team/teams who correctly draw the item.  The team with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

To end the activity with a competition, the teams competed in drawing the objects in the correct color and in the location I mentioned : On the table, there is a blue cellphone.