This book was recommended to me about 3 years ago by the lovely Sarah Barett from LingotasticUK; we were following each other on Twitter and discovered a common passion for using puppets when teaching languages! We also met in real life at the Language Show in London in 2016 and have been supporting each other since. Thanks for the recommendation Sarah!
Language of text: French
Type of text: picture book
Author or source: Jean Maubille
Intended age of students: Key Stage 1/2
Source reference: 9782211210898
Approaches:
This is a really unusual and fun story on a quest to find out what noise a chameleon makes. I first used it with pre-schoolers and they loved it! It is easy for them to say “oui” or “non” when you make an animal noise and they have to say whether they think it is the noise the chameleon makes. On second reading you can start getting the children to join in with making the animal noises and with repeating the names of the animals mentioned. I am lucky enough to own soft toys which are: a chameleon, a pig, a lion, a cow, a bear and a wolf… You also need a fly! Mine is plastic from a box of insects and bugs. If you do not own those toys, you could print pictures of the animals and laminate them for extra activities. For instance you could give the different animals to different children and the challenge could be, as they see/hear an animal in the story (after a couple of readings you could read it without showing the pictures) to pass the animal mentioned to someone else.
Rationale:
Onomatopoeia are different in different languages and children always enjoy exploring them and their subtle (or not so subtle) differences. This is also a very repetitive story so even little ones can quickly join in with “le caméléon fait..” then “mais non, c’est … qui fait …” and at the end the question “et le caméléon, il fait comment alors?”.
Outcomes:
The children will soon memorise, through telling the story, the animals in French and the noises which they make. Older children could then rewrite the story with other animals and noises; little ones could just reorder pictures about it.
Topics or themes:
animals
Grammar:
The verb “faire” in the 3rd person singular
How much time required:
1 lesson
You can buy the book here at Little Linguist!
What is your favourite book about animal noises? Please do share!
