One Saturday, at a meet up of the Francophones de Newcastle I saw a little boy wearing this t-shirt. I knew it was from a book I had ; it took me a couple of minutes to remember which one then I was so excited I went over to him and said : “Je mangerais bien un enfant !” (I could do with eating a child !) He paused, looked at me… and ran off !!! I wonder why ?!?
Language of text: French
Type of text: picture book
Author or source: Sylviane Donnio / Dorothée de Monfreid
Intended age of students: Key Stage 2/3
Source reference: 2211080464
Approaches:
This is the story of a small crocodile who doesn’t want to eat what his parents are offering because he’d rather eat a child… Will he get what he wants?!
After introducing the title, as you read the story to the children, they can join in with “j’aimerais bien manger un enfant”. Once they are familiar with it, you could choose a child to represent each of the characters and act it out then do the speaking parts; you could be the narrator. It would be most interesting to focus on the dialogue bewteen the girl and the crocodile… or imagine one!
Rationale:
I want to use this book because it sends a positive message (actually a lot of nice messages about food, growing up, about girls being strong, the girl is a little black girl etc), the illustrations are clear, the text rich and it is fun!
Outcomes:
There are lots of written tasks which you could do as a follow up.
As crocodiles (though they will eat anything!) would not necessarily choose to eat bananas, cake or sausages (!) the children could design their own original menus for other animals… or look up and put into French what a crocodile’s diet should really look like!
The children could also write an ID card for each of the characters in the story using adjective which they know or adjectives from the story.
Topics or themes:
Food and healthy eating; animals and their food; when teaching “I would like”
Grammar:
Adjectives; the present tense of -er verbs
How much time required:
1-2 lessons
This is my 3rd blog with a crocodile in 4 weeks… just so you don’t think I am obsessed with wolves ha ha!
By the way I have looked it up and crocodiles, though carnivores, have been know to eat bananas… some think it makes their bellies go purple so it may not be too good for them!!
You can find more ideas for activities on the site of L’école des Loisirs here including a link to a crocodile farm!!
You can buy the book on Amazon.uk by clicking here.
