Mrs. Hall's Classroom Edit display name

Past projects 3

• C'est La Vie: Bringing French to Life in Bountiful.

  Funded Feb 2, 2022

  I am so grateful for your generation donation in funding my project! This fulfills a dream I have had for my classes for several years. We are so excited to be able to converse with and learn from native speakers as we continue on this marvelous adventure of acquiring French. Thank you for your continuing support of our students and programs.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Hall

• Le Voyage Perdu: Discovering the World of French Through Reading

  Funded Dec 18, 2017

  Thank you again for funding our project! As we wound up the school year, we were able to dig in to Le Voyage Perdu. I started with a short preview of the book. It is a story of 2 young men on a cruise who fall asleep on the beach in Martinique. They arrive back at the port just in times to see their cruise ship sailing out to sea. They are stranded with no money (their wallets had been stolen) and no clothes other than those they are wearing. They are unable to contact their parents. Thus begins their adventure alone on Martinique. Their solution involves a pretend - and unsympathetic - girlfriend, evil eye, talking with the dead, fortune telling, and an angry grandmother who is also a healer.

  After the preview, students read the chapters independently and presented either a skit of an assigned chapter, or a presentation on various aspects of Martinique as brought out in the book. The students were fabulous - using costumes or sometimes little puppets to tell the story and crafting some beautiful posters or presentations of the island.

  We spent the last day of class listening to presentations, watching skits and eating food at least somewhat representative of Martinique: a red rice, fried plantains, fresh pineapple. It was so nice to learn French while bringing a little of the French Caribbean to our classroom.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Hall

• Breakout in French!

  Funded Nov 16, 2017

  Thank you so much for your generous donations towards our new Breakout Boxes! They have been so much fun! I wish you could have been there when the students first came in and saw the boxes, each sealed shut with five different padlocks. What began as curiosity and a little bit of apprehension even, soon turned to excitement as the students started to understand what we were going to be doing with them.

  Our first project was to learn about and review French Holidays having to do with Christmas and New Year's. Students used information about St Nicolas, Père Noël, Yule logs and Réveillons for both Christmas and New Year's, as well as King's Cake, French style. Student emotions ranged from frustration and exasperation when they found another locked box inside the big locked box, to joy and delight as the team got each lock open. The students had a great time as well and almost every student from every class was engaged throughout the process! As for me, I had a great time resetting the game each time, finding increasingly /fun/ places to hide clues and keys. (I couldn't just rehide them in the same place - word gets out!)

  By the end of the first day of classes, students were entering the classroom so excited for the breakout boxes they had heard about from the previous students. As students exited, I got many, many comments like, "This was the best day ever!" and "When do we get to do this again?"

  Last week, we tried a breakout on the Olympics. I tried to make this one a little bit simpler than the last one to make sure all the teams were able to get through it in the prescribed time. This time we were solving clues having to do with the Olympic games in order to find the gold medals I had locked up so carefully (again with 5 locks) and for which I had unfortunately "forgotten" the combinations. The students did great and again, I saw close to 100% engagement by the students. I was able to concentrate a little more on the French language this time, and have some plans to do even more next time.

  For our next breakout, I have my eye on a Sherlock or Tintin breakout I have seen online and hope to be able to modify for our French classes. This summer, I am excited to gain a little more knowledge about the Acadien culture as I go to a conference in New Orleans. I have already seen a couple of related breakouts online, and hope to be able to incorporate some of what I learn and see in New Orleans into those breakouts for next year.

  Thank you again for your generous donations in helping us to have these experiences! What a fun way to learn not only about French culture, but problem-solving and teamwork as well.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Hall