Part B extra: Joke

CROSS-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

❑ Literacy: Use the jokes as a starting point for discussion in English about jokes and what makes them funny. Look at examples of English jokes. Pupils can collect simple jokes in English that they think pupils in their French partner school should understand. If you are holding a video conference, pupils can tell each other jokes in their native tongue.

Watch B3: two mini-beast jokes

❑ Watch the two jokes which are separate films in B3:

Joke 1 is a play on French grammar: children know (from ch.3.2, “Les parties du corps”) that French people generally refer to parts of their bodies impersonally, e.g. “A head-louse walks on the head” not “...your head”. Hence it is possible to confuse that sentence with “A head-louse walks on its head”.

Joke 2 depends on a similar double-entendre: as in English, ‘cricket’ (the sport) sounds the same as ‘criquet’ (the insect).

❑ Literacy: Help pupils work out the meaning of the French jokes.

JOKE 1:

Antoine: “Quel animal a six pattes et marche sur la tête?” (Which animal has six legs and walks in its head?)

Voice: Je ne sais pas. Quel animal a six pattes et marche sur la tête?

Antoine: “Un pou!” (A headlouse!)

JOKE 2:

Léo: “Quel est le sport préféré des insectes?” (What is the insects’ favourite sport?)

Voice: Je ne sais pas. Quel est le sport préfére des insectes?

Léo: “Le criquet!” (Cricket!)

Part C: Who eats what?

Planning your lessons

Part C fits the pieces together: the children see how mini-beasts are a vital part of the forest’s LIFE CYCLE. By helping old leaves and wood to decompose, they create richer soil for new young trees to grow in. They are part of FOOD CHAINS in which mini-beasts eat debris of dead leaves and wood on the forest floor, and in turn attract other creatures that want to eat them - and of course, some mini-beasts eat others. The key question is, “who eats what?”

Activities

1. Warm up

Before showing the film, discuss in English (or your own language) what there might be for a mini-beast to eat if it lived on the forest floor?

If you were a worm, a spider, a woodlouse or a bird, what would you eat?

2. Watch film C1: Food chains

❑ Show film C1 to introduce the idea of ‘who eats whom’ in the forest floor habitat, and how this forms part of a sustainable forest life-cycle (see “talking point”). The film is narrated in the first person, e.g.“Je suis un oiseau et...”

C1: NEW WORDS je suis... (un scarabée)... et je mange... (des feuilles mortes)

Who eats what?

Qui mange quoi?

Who eats what?

I am (a beetle)...and I eat...(dead leaves) (les oiseaux) ...mangent... (des insectes) (birds) ...eats... (insects)

Forest food chain un insecte

- insect les feuilles se décomposent the leaves decompose les arbres poussent the trees grow

Key Sounds

Listen and enjoy copying these typical sounds: where have you heard them before?

as in... insecte heard before in main, lapin, moins as in... quoi heard before in moins, oiseau as in... je mange heard before in jonglerie, orange as in... mangent, poussent seen before in mat, fais, doigt, bras

Get used to the sounds

❑ Echoing: Show the ‘ C1. Who eats what?’ e-flashcards, with sound and text ON. Children echo as they hear phrases from film C1 , e.g. “Je suis un scarabée et je mange des feuilles mortes”.

Click to move from “I eat...” to “it eats...”

As you go through the e-flashcards, switch sound OFF and see if pupils can read the words aloud. Switch text OFF ; for each picture, can they say who the creatures are and what they eat?

Children may prefer to talk about creatures as ‘scientific observers’ rather than as if they were one themselves, e.g. “Le scarabée mange des feuilles mortes”. The second set of e-flashcards shows the phrases in the third person.

Respond with understanding

❑ Play “What do you eat?”

Give each child one of the creature cards (just those included in the e-flashcards). Switch sound and text OFF.

When a child sees “their” creature displayed, they say who they are: “Je suis un scarabée”. You then ask them what they eat: “Que mange le scarabée?” or “Qu’est-ce que tu manges?” - see “C1: extra words”.

CROSS-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

❑ Science: Play “Food chains”

Display pictures of creatures on the board, along with some arrows.

They could equally well phrase it in the first person: “Je suis un oiseau; je mange le ver de terre; le ver de terre mange le feuille morte.”

Ask other children to make different food chain diagrams; see who can make the longest!

Introduce the word for “seed” (see “ extra words”) to bring in the role of birds in helping new trees and other plants to grow.

You could let children introduce additional creatures, based on their own research and on the topics they are studying in science lessons, e.g. to show food chains amongst pond life. Their research should include dictionary work, finding the French names for their additional creatures, and working out how to pronounce them.

Talking point 1

Everyday Life In France

Life cycle of the forest

Decay and decomposition are all part of the forest’s life-cycle, in which mini-beasts play a vital role.

They help old leaves and wood to decompose, and so create richer soil on the forest floor for new young trees to grow in.

Predators and Prey

Ask a child to arrange some of the cards into a “food chain” diagram, with arrows pointing from predators to prey, showing “who eats whom”. Ask the child to explain in French what their diagram shows, e.g. “L’oiseau mange des vers de terre; le ver de terre mange des feuilles mortes.”

C1: EXTRA WORDS

Food chain questions

Que mange... (le scarabée)?

What does... (the beetle) eat?

Il mange des feuilles mortes

It eats dead leaves

Forest life cycle une graine - seed (EXTRA WORD)

L’oiseau mange des graines

Birds eat seeds

Birds are attracted to the woodland to eat the insects and other mini-beasts that thrive there - and also to eat the seeds of plants and trees, so helping to distribute the seeds, so they too play a part in the life cycle.

In this situation, the bird is an example of a predator, the animal that is eating, while the insects and seeds are its prey, i.e. what it eats.

The food chain

A food chain explains how food energy is transferred between living things in an environment. At one end of a food chain is a producer, such as plants or trees, that obtains energy from non-living sources.

Consumers get their energy by consuming other living things, as a predator - and will probably also be something else’s prey. Many mini-beasts will both eat some creatures, and in turn be eaten by others - or spend their lives trying to avoid being eaten!