It seems so strange to be blogging after such a long absence! While I have been busy with professional obligations as an independent consultant, moderator of #langchat and #langbook and as the French Content Editor of FluentKey, I have not been lesson planning, leaving me with so little to share here. And while I am in absolute awe of the amazing way that all of you are addressing the challenges inherent in distance learning, I felt at a loss when it came to providing support for something with which I have little experience. However,  when a member of the French Teachers in the US Facebook page posted a question about Petit Nicolas books, I thought that maybe sharing some of the resources I’ve created might be helpful to some of you that were using these stories for the first (or twenty-first) time.

Please note that I have used these stories in a lot of different ways over the past thirty years.  My understandings about how languages are learned evolved immensely during that time, and I would not necessarily use some of these resources in the same way now as I did then.  You will be invited to make a copy of any document you wish and I encourage you to make any changes that you’d like to meet your needs and those of your students. 

I also wanted to provide a bit of information about the links to the videos I have shared.  These videos are adorable and I love using them with students. Unfortunately, the videos seem to disappear quite regularly from Youtube (often to reappear later from a different source) so the links will most likely not remain active for very long.  If you have problems with any of them, try a search with the title in Youtube and you might find a different copy.  I would also recommend checking Edpuzzle for listening activities.  I had created Edpuzzles for several of the videos, but my account is no longer active as it was associated with my school email.

I’ve also included a link to the text of each story for those of you that don’t have access to the books.  There are several sources for online texts, but unfortunately these often do not include the adorable pictures from the book. It would be so much nicer to be able to post a copy of the book pages for the students!

Here are the links to the resources I had in my files.  While some have been shared in previous posts, I thought it might be helpful to have them all in one place.  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Les Campeurs

1. Document that includes IPA-style interpretive reading tasks, an interpersonal task and presentational writing task and an interpretive listening 
2. Object pronoun practice worksheet
3. Link to pdf of story (pp 7-9)

Clotaire a des lunettes

1. IPA-style reading comprehension (separated into 2 parts)
2. Link to pdf of story (pp 1-3)
3. Link to video (Active as of 4/29/20)

Le Football

1. Traditional multiple choice assessment with grammar section on verb tenses
2. Link to written and audio version of story
3. Link to video (Active as of 4/29/20)

Je quitte la maison

1. Link to text
2. Link to video (Active as of 4/29/20)
3. Document with 1) true/false prediction questions, 2) comprehension questions, 3) inference questions 4)future tense practice 
4. IPA
5. Pair Crossword (Students take turns giving clues to enable their partner to fill in missing words.)

• Partner A
• Partner B

Je suis malade

1. Document with reading comprehension and grammar practice (object pronouns and verbs)
2. Link to written and audio versions of text
3. Link to video (active as of 4/29/20)

King

1. French evidence-based true/false questions
2. Multiple choice questions about video 
3. Link to video (active as of 4/29/20)
4. Link to copy of text 

Louisette

1. Comprehension questions (true/false + justification) and grammar practice (verb tenses and object pronouns)
2. Speaking and writing assessment
3. Multiple choice comprehension quiz
4. Text of story
5. Link to video (active as of 4/29/20)
6. Pair crossword activity (Each partner has different words missing and they take turns giving each other clues.)
7. Directions for making pair crossword

Le Musée de Peintures

1. Document with 1) true/false with justification questions and 2) verb practice 
2. Pair crossword puzzles (Students take turns giving clues to enable their partner to fill in the missing words from his/her puzzle)
3. Interpersonal and presentational writing tasks
4. Link to text 
5. Link to video (active as of 4/29/20)

Le Petit Nicolas (Feature film)

Document with 1) comprehension questions and 2) quotes from the film that the students discussed in small groups.