Wednesday 30 April 2014

Our first month

Here we are on 1st May, and Light Bulb Languages has come to the end of its first month.  Not its first complete month, admittedly, but the hit counter and various other things report at the end of each calendar month.

So here are some first month stats:

  • 9,673 unique visits 
  • an average of 322 unique visits per day
  • 26,086 page loads
  • 145 new resources
  • 496 Twitter followers
  • 811 visitors to this blog
Thank you so much to everyone who has helped to spread the word, mostly during their Easter holidays, about the move from MFL Sunderland to Light Bulb Languages.  I appreciate that it's going to take some time to reach the heady heights of MFL Sunderland's 60,000+ visitors per month.  

Onwards and upwards!

Monday 28 April 2014

45 new resources for French and Spanish

New for today, another 45 new resources.  At last my "Resources for website" file is empty, and that includes the 235 resources that were very kindly donated as part of the MFL Sunderland 70 day challenge last year.  But fear not - there will be more!

So today there are new resources for Primary French, KS3 French, KS3 Spanish, French display, KS4 French, French Starters and Plenaries and Tarsia puzzles.  You'll know which ones they are as they will have "added 28.4.14" under the resource name.

Friday 25 April 2014

17 new resources

I've just uploaded 17 more resources for French, German and Spanish.  You'll find them on the pages shown below, where they'll be the ones with today's date on.

KS3 French PowerPoints
KS3 French worksheets
KS4 French grammar
French display

KS3 German PowerPoints and worksheets
KS4 German worksheets
German display

KS3 Spanish worksheets

Mon drapeau, Mi bandera and the World Cup

This series of lessons have been part of my KS2 Spanish scheme of work for Year 3 since I designed them for the 2010 World Cup.  They now form part of my "Shapes" unit which begins with flags and finishes with Gaudí mosaics.  I didn't teach Primary French at that point, but I do now, and so have rejigged the resources.  I have had very successful lessons with Year 2 and Year 4 this week, so much so that I have uploaded the resources to Light Bulb Languages (French and Spanish) so that everyone can use them.  They promote sustained, structured speaking and lead to individual reading, writing and creativity.

Here's how it works:

  1. Learn / revise the 6 colours red, yellow, blue, greem, white and black.
  2. Starting with the plain red flag (not a World Cup flag, but a starting point) do écoutez répétez / escuchad repetid of the parts of the sentence using the actions - Mon drapeau / est / rouge.  Practise until the children are happy to say the whole sentence and perform the actions with you.  Talk about what the sentence means, and why you are doing those particular actions, to help the words to stick.
  3. Work through the other colour combinations in the same way.  You'll probably need to run through the colours slides 3 times for the children to be confident.  Talk about why "et" changes its place in the sentence (the children get to explain to you what they know about writing lists in English).  It may be worth having to hand a copy of all the flags, as they will want to know which flag is for which country.  We also used the flags to do some basic maths - how many countries altogether?  8 groups of 4, therefore 32.  Three countries have red and white flags, eight have red, white and blue flags.  How many is that altogether?  How many more flags are we going to see?
  4. Repeat the process for the shapes, and practise in the same way.
  5. Show the children some flags they have never seen before and ask them to work out its description in pairs.  Then ask for a volunteer pair to share their description with the rest of the class.  There is always a really good hum of speaking and lots of actions when they do this.  They also like to go into lots and lots of detail! 
  6. Children draw and colour their own flag.  Beforehand we talk about the meanings of the colours used in flags, and which colours are not used.  This link is useful.  They then show their flag to the rest of the class and describe it.  I usually hold the picture so that they can do all the actions.  It's worth reminding the class that whatever they draw, they will have to speak about!
  7. Children can use the writing frame to write the description of their flag.  Great display potential.
  8. Children can work on the two reading sheets where they identify the World Cup flags based on their descriptions.
Easily 4 lesson / hours of work there.  And I'm sure lower KS3 would like it too.

Enjoy!


Tuesday 22 April 2014

14 new World Cup resources

I've uploaded this morning 14 new World Cup resources.  Also have a look at our Twitter feed (@LightBulbLangs) for some good World Cup links.

UPDATE 28.4.14:  We now have German World Cup resources, thanks to the lovely Rosemary Hicks.  Follow the link above.

Thursday 17 April 2014

World Cup 2014 resources


New on Light Bulb Languages today are the first World Cup 2014 resources.  So far there are 10, for French and Spanish, and there are some general ones too.

If someone could tell me how to say "Find the 32 countries of the World Cup" in German and/or Italian, I'll be able to do some puzzles for German and Italian too.

If you want some more World Cup inspiration for the new term, you could always look at our 2006 and 2010 resources which are in our archive.

Tuesday 15 April 2014

45 new resources

I have just finished uploading a grand total of 45 new resources: 28 for KS3 French, KS4 French and French Starters and Plenaries, 8 for KS3 Spanish, KS4 Spanish and A level Spanish, 5 for Primary French, 3 for Primary Spanish and 1 for German.

You'll be able to tell which are the new resources, as they have "added on 15.4.14" underneath the resource name.

There are still more to come!

Wednesday 9 April 2014

First new resources for Light Bulb Languages

I have just uploaded 38 new Spanish resources.  There is something for each Key Stage - KS2, KS3, KS4 and A level.  You'll be able to tell which are the new ones as I have put "added 9.4.14" under each resource's information.

Lots more to come.

Don't forget to tell your friends about us!

Monday 7 April 2014

Blog book

Have a read through the MFL Sunderland blog book.  There are plenty of good ideas and links.  Click on the image below to be taken to an interactive, page-turning book.


MFL Sunderland blog book

Sunday 6 April 2014

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for Light Bulb Languages, the website where you'll find all you favourite north-east-based language resources, just in a new location.  You can also follow us on Twitter @LightBulbLangs for all the latest news and links.

A bientôt!