Lynne Horn

This year’s S2 are preparing to launch their collections onto an unsuspecting world.  They are going to be spending tomorrow writing and rehearsing so I’ve downloaded some video to help them along (not that they think they need it!).  With the wonders of the web I can show them the 2007/2008 Autumn and Winter collections from Dior, although I quite like this one from last year as it seems to sum up Haute Couture on the catwalk.  So over the next couple of periods I can look forward to the usual chaos, mainly as the boys get in touch with their feminine sides - not sure that they can be too confident in the fashion stakes though, when I asked them what “chic” meant one of them answered, “isn’t it one of those Arab guys Miss?”

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Back to school on Monday after our October holiday, so thought it was time to take a look back at my “back to school resolutions”

get our blogs unblocked - it would be good to get back into class blogging

I think at the moment Typepad has been unblocked on the machines with Websense - if this is the case I can hopefully get back into this soon.

get into podcasting - really only played with it last year

Over the next couple of weeks S4 are going to be preparing podcasts on school (cooperatively of course!) - still need to get microphones for the iPods though which is the biggest stumbling block at the moment.

find a way of charging lots of iPods at once!

our technician is on the case and we’re waiting for the USB hubs to arrive.

And on the non-ICT front

work on both independent and cooperative learning (and they’re certainly linked in the long term)

done a lot of work on this and will continue next week as S1 do a bit of collaborative writing (maybe something spooky as it’s Halloween), S2 begin to prepare fashion shows and S4 begin podcasting.  S3 and S5 will be concentrating a lot of vocab and verb learning in the coming weeks and hopefully working together they can improve here too.  I did a cooperative learning recall a couple of weeks ago - a chance to share successes and discuss problems as well as get a few more indeas on cooperative learning so look forward to giving them a go.

have a go at Rich Tasks

along with English and Creative Arts we’re hoping to do something based on fairytales/pantomine leading upto Christmas

Unfortunately my prep time and p1/2’s structured playtime doesn’t coincide at the moment, but hoping to get a bit more involved in primary French in the coming term.

So a little progress - hopefully more to report in the coming weeks!

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We still have a few days holiday and whilst there are many, many things I could be doing, I am going to indulge in the newly arrived DVD of “The Flashing Blade” which takes me back to Saturday mornings as a child.  If you are around the same age as me, this should bring back a few memories!

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dejeunerdumatingroup1nn.mov

Here is a film version of Déjeuner du matin - complete with two alternative endings.  Considering the maths room setting, I think they got the atmosphere quite well!

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Using Comic Life this group turned the poem into a comic strip, capturing the atmosphere of the poem quite well I think.  However whilst I’m on, something that irritates me about Comic Life - if you make a change to something (and if a class are typing I sometimes go round and correct errors/typos), it doesn’t always save them straight away - even clicking “save” doesn’t always mean it saves them.

I mention this because I typed in the line “J’ai pris la tête dans les mains, et j’ai pleuré” seven or eight times before it finally saved - those of you with French will understand that I felt like doing this myself, those without - the picture illustrates it beautifully.

| View | Upload your own

Put those on here using slideshare so you get the general idea.

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I got my wish as the sun shone this morning - once S5/6 had listened to “Les feuilles mortes” and translated it (their choice and I’m glad they did - they didn’t think it sounded right in English), they picked out some of the images that would best illustrate this beautiful poem and then took some photos - eventually they will all be on the school website (and better still I might finally be able to get back into our French class blog!), but in the meantime here are some of the photos with the quotes they illustrated.

[slideshare id=125856&doc=les-feuilles-mortes842&w=425]

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Well you already knew it was wonderful - this morning Alasdair Brown suggested “les feuilles mortes” as a possible poem.  Within 5 minutes I was able to download 3 versions of the song (by Yves Montand, Andrea Bocelli and Eva Cassidy) for use tomorrow. 

I’m currently dowloading the videos of Yves Montand and Andrea Bocelli singing this at the moment.

Now if the sun were to shine tomorrow we could use some of the autumnal colours round about to make our own version, but I don’t think even technology will help here.

Update:  Apparently it will be sunny tomorrow - may get my atmospheric autumn photos yet.

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I played Déjeuner du Matin to S4 earlier and set them a couple of challenges in groups.

Challenge 1 was to write the next verse - interesting so far, although not quite ready for public viewing.

Challenge 2 is to represent the poem in anyway they want - a couple of groups are hoping to film it and another is going to use Comic Life - all are quite keen to film their own verses, which may be a bit of a challenge in one case.

Hopefully the final versions will appear soon.

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After seeing this I’m tempted to abandon talking about school for the rest of the week with S4 and just let be creative with some poetry - this is how I’ve always imagined the Prévert poem “Déjeuner du matin”

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