Sample Lesson 1

Les mois et les saisons - The Months and the Seasons

 

OBJECTIVES:

To recognise and understand how to talk about month and seasons.

RESOURCES:

Download Les saisons (PowerPoint)

| Download Months Text Cards | Les mois de l’année (YouTube) Links to an external site. | Download Seasons Spelling Cards | Download Seasons Text Cards | Seasons Picture Cards Download Seasons Picture Cards | The Seasons in French (YouTube) Links to an external site. | Days, Months and Seasons Quiz (free-french-quiz.com) Links to an external site.

Note: Please download the PowerPoints to take full advantage of their content.

VOCABULARY:

l’hiver - winter 

le printemps  - spring

l’été - summer

l’automne - autumn

C’est quelle saison ? - Which season is it?

 

Timed Icon.png Warm Up

Revise months; print out the Months Text Cards and ask your student to order the months. Practise saying them in order with your student identifying their own birthday month and standing up when they say it, and also significant others’ birthdays - friends, family members - these could be represented by a photo or their name written on a piece of paper to hold up when it is their birthday month.

MainActivity.png Main Activity

Take a minute to look at the different months and think about which ones are tricky. Some are tricky in every way - août - some will be easy to recognise - octobre - but more tricky to remember how to spell. Try to make it a habit to think about these things every time you see a new word.

Ask your student if anything seems odd about the month words. They may notice that they do not have a capital letter, this is correct, months never have a capital letter in French.

Watch the Les mois de l'année video to listen to the correct pronunciation of the months of the year - repeat after and join in if you can.

WATCH - Les mois de l’année (YouTube)

Open Les saisons PowerPoint and go through the pictures for each season.

Say each season:

  • l’hiver - winter
  • le printemps - spring
  • l’été - summer
  • l’automne - autumn.

The student should listen to The Seasons in French video and repeat. Mime a season and ask C’est quelle saison ? (Which season is it?) Swap over and the student should mime a season. Once again point out that there are no capital letters at the start of these words.

WATCH - The Seasons in French (YouTube)

Display the Seasons Spelling Cards, there are gaps in the spelling of the written words, ask your student to provide the letters which are missing.

Use the Seasons Text Cards to display the written words and highlight sound spelling links. Allow student to try spelling words using the look, say, cover, write, check method.

Make four statements:

  • avril est au printemps.
  • août est en été.
  • octobre est en automne.
  • janvier est en hiver.

Ask your student what they have noticed about how you say ‘in winter’, etc. Show on the board how le or l’ becomes en or au. The only season which uses au is le printemps.

Put the Seasons Picture Cards on the table. Ask your student to select a month from the Months Text Cards and put into the correct season and say the sentence, eg. avril est au printemps. Continue until all the months are positioned. If you can blu-tac this to the wall somewhere this would be great for continuing to practise the language throughout the week.

Stretch Icon.png Follow-on Activity

Continue to refer to the Seasons Picture Cards and Seasons Text Cards, detailing which month is in which season at the start of each day. Complete the French Quiz. 

PRACTISE - Days, Months and Seasons Quiz (free-french-quiz.com) Links to an external site.