Scavenger Hunt Story Review

I'm still literally giddy from all of the awesome ideas I got at the CSCTFL conference! Last week was an exhausting whirlwind of post-conference thinking, daylight-savings time adjustment, packing for another trip, and full-moon-rising craziness. In spite of it all, I tried a few new activities with my classes. I call this one "Scavenger Hunt Story Review", and this idea came from Nelly Hughes and Kelsy Wermer's session called Comprehensible Input The Easy Way. They credit Lynn Slone from BLHS. The students have to answer questions about the story; each question gives them a letter. When they have answered the questions correctly, they have discovered a secret phrase.

My French II students have been working on a movie talk using Simon's Cat: Snow Business. They've done all of the prep work for the video. I narrated it, we read the script, completed verbal retells, described screen shots, and did several other things to practice the past tenses (which was my whole goal--teach them several high-frequency past tense structures). I wanted them to reread sentences and questions in a novel way.

For this activity, I used 21 index cards because the secret phrase I was teaching them was "Vouloir, c'est pouvoir". Counting spaces, the comma, and the apostrophe, there are 21 characters.  First I drew a horizontal line across each card. Then, on the first card at the top, I wrote "Début", which means beginning in French.
Next, I wrote a question at the bottom of the first card. I wrote the answer to the question at the top of the second card. At the bottom of the second card, I wrote another question. I did this for all of the cards. At the last card, the top part held the final answer. The bottom part held the words "La Fin", which means end. The students would know when they got to that card, they were done. All questions were in French, and easily answerable by the kids.

WITH THE CARDS in order ( I taped them to the board while I did this), I wrote the letters of the secret phrase in order at the bottom corner of each card. I highlighted each letter. If there was a space, I highlighted an empty square. I told kids that a highlighted spot just meant there was a space in the phrase.
The last thing I did was to shuffle the cards and tape them randomly around the room. Students had to find the beginning (Début) and work their way around, writing letters in order. Some finished in about 10-15 minutes; others took a little longer.

OBSERVATIONS

1. This got the kids up and moving and READING. They were excited to try to find the secret phrase.
2. The barometer students were able to go at their own pace because it was pretty self-directed. There was no prize for finishing first, it was just for a different activity (and luckily this class does almost anything I ask with no questions).

CHANGES
1. Next time I do this, I will make 2 sets of the same questions, one on a white set of cards, and one on a different color set. Otherwise, there are 2 possible problems....
a. a mass of 21 students just following the "superstar" around the room and copying (this didn't happen today but definitely COULD)
b. some students, hoping to avoid the mass, started at a random card and tried to make that work. It didn't. So with 2 sets of cards randomly distributed, students could follow a "white" path  or a "green" path...if you use white and green cards.

I will definitely do this activity again!

Blogging Again!

So I see from my last post that it's been a year and a half since I've posted. YIKES! But...in my defense...I got married....finished my 2nd masters degree....finished my principal's certificate...and presented 3 more times with the great Cynthia Hitz. So...I've been a little busy!

I just attended CSCTFL in Columbus this weekend and once again I'm humbled and amazed by the TPRS/CI awesomeness around me. I MET Grant Boulanger, attended a session with Wendy Farabaugh and Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, ate dinner with Nelly Hughes, spoke in Latin with Justin Slocum Bailey, and USED Christy Miller's speakers for my presentation with Cindy. Of course this is in addition to seeing my usual friends and colleagues Carol Gaab, Kristi Placido, Teri Wiechart, and Michelle Kindt.  I'm so excited to be re-energized for the rest of the school year and hope to finally have time to post about some of the cool things I do in my classroom. It's only fair that I share, considering the large number of idea that I poach on a regular basis from my favorite bloggers!

Next up...my thoughts on a French IV-V reading activity! Stay tuned!