Y3/4 Lesson 3 (Cycle A): Using shapes like the French artist, Matisse

Inspired by the animal collages of Matisse, children create compositions from coloured shapes they describe in French, recognise cognates and learn to ask for something politely.

Learning objective

  • To understand and recognise what are cognates and near cognates
  • To give and receive instructions that include shape, size and colour vocabulary

National curriculum

Languages

Pupils should be taught to:

  • Engage in conversations, ask and answer questions.
  • Present ideas and information orally.

See link: National curriculum - Languages - Key stage 2.

Success criteria

Cross-curricular links

Before the lesson

Teacher knowledge - language points

Attention grabber

Main event

Differentiation

Pupils needing extra support: Can focus on asking for just the shapes at first, then building up to using colour and/or size as they become more confident.

Pupils working at greater depth: Challenge these children to ask for a shape using both size and colour adjectives and to ask for more than one shape at a time. They can also be challenged to use the word ‘et’ to create longer sentences e.g je voudrais un petit cercle rouge et un grand triangle bleu. 

Wrapping up

During the week

  • Continue practising your greetings and feelings vocabulary from ‘French, Year 3, French greetings with puppets’ as you take the register at each end of the day.
  • Display the animal names and photos of the children’s compositions – can the children find a picture to match each name?
  • Create your own giant Matisse art – ‘L’escargot’ is popular and easy to make with large squares of sugar paper.

Assessing pupils' progress and understanding

Vocabulary

Created by:
Belinda Dean,  
French specialist
Belinda has been a French and Spanish teacher based in Bath for more than 15 years. She has delivered a range of courses for teachers and PGCE students and is particularly passionate about weaving language, culture and global learning across…
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