Lesson 1

Objective: to learn and become familiar with the names of animals

O3.1, O3.2, L3.1
*Introduce names of animals orally, beginning with those most similar to
English. Use sound file of animal names to aid pronunciation if required. A
PowerPoint file and documents containing scanned images of the animals in
the book are contained in the Lesson 1 resource folder. Ask the children
to repeat words, when flashcards or PowerPoint images are shown.
*Invent a different action or mime for each animal. Point to pictures of
animals in story either on IWB or picture cards. Children to perform
action and/or repeat name of animal.
*Play language statues: stop as an animal statue when music stops.
*When children are more familiar with each of the words, spend time
creating and laminating some animal pictures for a hopscotch grid. Ask
the children to draw a quick sketch of each of the animals in turn -
“Dessinez un chien” etc and then stick the pictures onto a hopscotch grid
drawn on the floor for each group. Play “animal hopscotch”- children could
shout out the name of the animals their beanbag/stone lands on.
Extension:
*Make a display of the animals found in the story and their names in
French: pupils could copy-write the names of the animals for the display.
*Play “Trouvez les animaux”: this could be done by hiding the animal toys
or flashcards around the room - the teacher then asks the children as a
group (or, more controlled, one child) to find ‘trouver’ one of the animals
e.g. “Trouvez/Trouve une girafe” etc.
*Use animal shapes/images to ‘print’ or create a pattern (such as
elephant, snake, elephant, snake) then describe the pattern to a friend in
French without letting them see. Can they make the same pattern?
*A lovely “Cher Zoo” board game from www.communication4all.co.uk is
contained in the lesson 1 resource folder in pdf format. The children
could play this game throughout the week, being encouraged to say the
name of each animal as they land on it, or to say which animal they don’t
have when they have been around the board e.g. “Je n’ai pas de chien” etc.
Instructions in English are included in the game file.
Lesson 2
Objective: to show confidence in naming animals
O3.1, O3.3
*Ask children to recall the names of the animals learnt last session. Hold
up ‘small world’ zoo animals or toys, or revisit the images and cards used in
the first session. Ask “C’est quel animal?” “Which animal is it?” and
encourage children to respond with “C’est un/une…” (spend time discussing
why some words have ‘un’ and others have ‘une’ before the noun, if
children are unfamiliar with this).
*Play ‘Pass the parcel’ game: place animals from story (either pictures or
small world) in sack. Sit children in a circle. Play music & when music
stops, child holding sack takes an animal or picture and says its name in
French. Everyone repeats, place animal in centre of circle and game
continues (this enables the teacher to ‘cheat’ a little and stop the music
on the most confident children!). This game could also be played by
teacher saying an animal when music stops and child has to feel for/find
the correct animal (you could use ‘Le Carnaval des animaux’ by Saint-
Saëns for added effect!).
*Play bingo with pictures of animals. Use a counter to cover the animal or
cross out the animal when it is called by the teacher or a caller (the Bingo
cards contained in the lesson 2 resource folder could be printed and
laminated for this). More able pupils may be able to create more
advanced bingo grids by writing the words in French onto a pre-drawn
grid, or adding further animal names if they know them.
Extension:
*Read the story of Cher Zoo in French to the class. On each page
emphasise the animal names they know and ask “C’est quel animal?”
pointing to each of the animals in turn, and encourage the children to
respond with “C’est un/une…”
*Re-play the board game contained in the lesson 1 resource folder if time.
Lesson 3
Objective: to share a story and begin to describe animals
O3.1, O3.3, L3.2
*Re-read the story “Cher Zoo” to the class several times, initially asking
children to recall the animal names by asking “C’est quel animal?” and
pointing to each animal in turn.
*After several read-throughs, ask children if they can identify the
phrase which means “So I sent it back” as you read a page aloud and
encourage them to repeat this over and over again as they stamp around
the room so that they are familiar with the sound of this phrase.
*Introduce the spoken phrases on each page which explain why each pet
was returned. “Il était trop…/Elle était trop…” Show the children these
words written large on the IWB or on flashcards (they are typed large
for you in a document ‘Cher Zoo adjective cards’ provided in the lesson 3
resource folder). Talk about each of the sentences. What could each of
them mean? Which words are similar to the English words? Why do some
sentences begin with ‘Il’ and some with ‘Elle’? etc
*Re-read the story and ask the children to repeat each phrase in the
book line by line.
*Show the children the PowerPoint created by the West Sussex Grid for
Learning contained in the Lesson 3 folder entitled ‘Cher Zoo animal
sentences.’ Can the children understand and translate each of the phrases
in the PowerPoint? In the story explain that “Le chien est parfait”. Which
animal in the PowerPoint is described as ‘parfait’?
*Practice using and saying the adjectives in the story in the form of a
song. The lyrics of a simple song which can be sung to the tune of “She’ll
be coming round the mountain” is contained in the Lesson 3 resource
folder. This repeats each phrase from the story several times to enable
children to become really familiar with each one. The file name is ‘Cher
Zoo song.’
Extension:
*The words of the song could be written out and displayed in the
classroom with the animal pictures if there is time.
*Children could choose their own favourite animal from the story and
write a sentence using the model from the book to describe their animal
e.g. ‘La girafe est parfaite/L’éléphant est parfait’ etc.

Lesson 4
Objective: to recognise and name animals in a zoo
L3.1, L3.2, L3.3
*Use mask images printed from the www.sparklebox.co.uk website to
practice saying and repeating the names of some further zoo animals,
which are not contained in the “Cher Zoo” book (the sound files and
vocabulary sheet for this module will help with the pronunciation of
further animal names).
*Show children the PowerPoint slide show ‘Cher Zoo more animal
flashcards’ contained in the lesson 4 resource folder. Ask the children to
help you to type in the animal names to accompany each of the animals -
use the vocabulary sheet to ensure correct spellings of these animal
names. Use lots of repetition so that children become familiar with
repeating and saying each name when shown a mask or an image.
*Play “Swap shop”: children sit in a circle and are allocated an animal name
(in label, object or picture form if you prefer) make sure there are
several children with each item. Leader calls out an animal and those
children swap places. This could then be developed to use with a
parachute (children run underneath the parachute to swap places).
*Play ‘Guess the animal’ miming game: can children guess an animal from
your action or mime? Then swap so that children mime the animal for
their peers to guess.
*Revisit the adjectives met in the story last session. Large flashcards
showing these words can be printed from the document ‘Cher Zoo
adjectives’ contained in the lesson 4 resource folder. Recap the meaning
of each of the words (gros/grosse, grand/grande, féroce,
parfait/parfaite, effrayant/effrayante, coquin/coquine,
nerveux/nerveuse, grognon/ grognonne).
Sort each of the new animal masks or images into groups according to
which adjective applies best to each one (eg féroce: le crocodile,
coquin/coquine: le tamia etc).
*Ask children to say or write a sentence to describe each animal using the
adjectives they have assigned to each animal, e.g. ‘Le crocodile est féroce’
- ‘Le tamia est coquin’ etc. Encourage older and more able pupils to pay
attention to the gender of the noun in order to achieve the correct
adjectival agreement.
Extension:
*In P.E/at playtime, play the four corners game: the 4 corners of the
playground/hall are marked with an animal picture. Children circulate until
leader calls out an animal. Children run to correct corner. Change the
corner labels regularly to practice all new animal names.
*Use picture cards to play pelmanism “Le jeu des paires”: turn all cards
over face down, one player turns over 2, if they match, they must say the
French word. They can then keep the pair. Continue with next player.
*Add all the new animal pictures and names to the class display to enable
children to become more familiar with this new vocabulary.
*Sing the song ‘Cher Zoo song’ contained in the lesson 3 resource folder,
consolidating knowledge of language in the text.
Lesson 5
Objective: to express preferences about animals found in the zoo
O3.3, O3.4
*Recap the new animal names met last week either through naming images
or masks as used last session or ‘small world’ figures of animals. Ask “C’est
quel animal?” “Which animal is it?” and encourage children to respond with
“C’est un/une…” Ask a child to go through the book and ask the same
question to the other children.
*Play Kim’s game by selecting a group of animals or animal pictures. Show
the children, then cover the selection and secretly remove one. Can they
guess the one you took away? Ask “Qu’est-ce qui manque?” “What’s
missing?” Encourage children to respond with “C’est le/la…”
*Use the PowerPoint entitled “Cher Zoo… on trouve au zoo’’ in the lesson 5
resource folder. Recap the names of the animals - this time in the plural
form. Listen to the pronunciation on the PowerPoint and repeat the
phrases up to slide 10 several times.
*Ask the question “On trouve quels animaux au zoo?” Encourage children
to remember as many of the phrases as they can, and respond with ‘‘On
trouve des hippopotames, on trouve des kangourous et des singes’’ etc.
Reward children who remember lots of animals e.g. “Oui, Très bien!
Beaucoup d’animaux! Excellent! Super! Bravo!”
*Show slides 11-14 and repeat each phrase. Can the children state which
animals they like best? “Mes animaux préférés sont les tigres” etc. Ask
each child to state their favourite animals using the sentence model
provided in the PowerPoint slideshow. As each sentence is spoken, write
the sentence onto the board so that the children can also see how the
words look when written.
*Create a class book entitled “Quels sont tes animaux préférés?” Each
child writes their favourite animal sentence and draws their favourite
animals to add to the class book (more able or older pupils may be able to
add more detail or name more than one animal in their sentence).
Extension:
*Ask children to express more detailed opinions about each of the
animals. Teach or revisit the phrases “J’adore…, J’aime…, Je n’aime pas… &
Je déteste” and ask the children to respond with these phrases when
asked “Tu aimes les crocodiles?” etc (the flashcards contained in the
Lesson 5 resource folder PowerPoint ‘Cher Zoo opinions flashcards’ may
be useful for teaching these phrases. The images could be stuck onto the
faces of a die and the children could use the appropriate related phrase
to describe their opinion of each animal when the die is thrown. E.g. “Je
déteste les serpents” etc).
Lesson 6
Objective: to use adjectives to describe animals
O3.2, O3.3, L3.2
*Show the children the adjectives used to describe the animals in the
‘Cher Zoo’ book (word cards were used in Lesson 4: the ‘Cher Zoo
adjectives’ word document is contained in the lesson 4 resource folder).
Can the children remember the meaning of each of the words?
(gros/grosse, grand/grande, féroce, parfait/parfaite,
effrayant/effrayante, coquin/coquine, nerveux/nerveuse,
grognon/grognonne). Can they use these words to make up any sentences
about the extra zoo animals they now know the names for? e.g. ‘Le panda
est nerveux’ ‘Le kangourou est grand’ ‘Le pingouin est coquin’ etc. -
encourage children, who are able, to make the adjective agree with the
gender of the noun. Make sure the name and gender of all the animals are
displayed clearly in the room so that children do not have to panic about
which form of the adjective to use. One tip is to use blue to display
masculine words and red to display the feminine ones.
*Introduce the other adjective words contained in the word document
‘Cher Zoo extra adjectives’ in the Lesson 6 resource folder (lourd/lourde,
petit/petite, bruyant/bruyante, tranquille, timide, rapide, lent/lente,
poilu/poilue, mignon/mignonne). Practice saying the adjectives in the
masculine and feminine form.
*Sort the ‘small world’ or animal images into groups again according to the
adjective which best described each one, and once all animals are sorted
beneath one of the adjective cards, practice saying phrases which state
the name of the animal and its characteristic e.g. ‘Le dauphin est
tranquille’ etc.
*Ask the children “Il est comment, le dauphin? Elle est comment, la
girafe?” (What is the dolphin like? What is the giraffe like?) and
encourage them to answer with “Le dauphin est timide” etc.
*Introduce an action for each of the adjectives (ask the children for
suggestions) and play an action game in which everyone has to carry out
the agreed action when the word is called by the teacher or a child caller,
e.g. rapide… running on the spot, gros… arms out wide, grognon… stomping,
etc.
Extension:
*More able or older pupils may like to write their sentences or the
teacher could scribe the sentences for the class display as the children
say them.
*Revisit the song first sung in lesson 3. Can they add extra verses to the
song using the verse pattern already created and substituting new names
of animals and new adjectives? e.g. “Le pingouin était trop timide: Pas pour
moi!” Sing the song using the new vocabulary whenever possible
throughout the week and display the song words in the classroom.
Lesson 7
Objective: to describe animals in the zoo with some confidence
O3.4, L3.3
*Quickly remind children of the names of animals they have met before
using the word flashcards contained in the PowerPoint document ‘Cher
Zoo animal names’ in the lesson 7 resource folder: can they recognise and
read the words without a picture reminder?
*Revise the actions created for the adjectives in the last session, and
play the action game, with teacher or a child calling out one of the
adjectives and the children carrying out the agreed action for each word.
Display the adjective words in the room so that the children can see them
in their written form as well as hear the words as they are spoken.
*Show the children the pictures in the PowerPoint ‘animals’ in the lesson 7
resource folder. Ask “C’est quel animal?” “Which animal is it?” and
encourage children to respond with “C’est un…/ une…” - Ask “Il est
comment?/Elle est comment?” “What is it like?” and encourage children to
reply with a phrase including one of the adjectives they have learnt e.g.
Le pingouin, il est petit” or “La grenouille, elle est mignonne” etc. Children
who have learnt the colours in French during previous units of work, may
also be able to add detail to their description by discussing the colours
and characteristics of a given animal e.g. “Le crocodile, il est vert et
féroce. Il est effrayant et rapide.”
*Give the children the worksheet “Décrivez ces animaux’ contained in the
lesson 7 resource folder or a simplified version of this depending on age
and ability, and ask them to write about each of the animals in the box
provided.
Extension:
*Play “Vrai ou faux” -“True or false”. Explain to the children that you will
say a sentence about an animal and they must decide if it is true of false.
E.g. “Le serpent est poilu” – vrai ou faux? etc
*Play a parachute game: children are each given the name of an animal in
French to remember - they can run around/or under the parachute if
their animal is called out. To make this more difficult for able learners,
the children could be asked to run round or under the parachute when the
adjective spoken by the teacher applies to their animal! Challenge
children who run under for each phrase… e.g. “Mais tu es un serpent - un
serpent n’est pas poilu!” etc.
Lesson 8
Objective: to re-read a text, substituting other words to change the
story
O3.3, O3.4, L3.1, L3.3
*Give each pair of children an envelope containing images of the animals
found in the text - some can be printed from the images in the lesson 1
resource folder if needed. Recap the names of the animals found in the
‘Cher Zoo’ book and re-read the story, ordering the picture cards
according to the order they appear in the text.
* Read the book again, encouraging the children to repeat each phrase
and check for understanding.
*Print out the page templates contained in the document ‘Writing frame
for Dear Zoo’ in the lesson 8 resource folder. Discuss which order the
pages would come if they follow the same format as the original book, e.g
which page of the template contains the words of the last page of the
book? Which page would be needed if the zoo were to send an animal
which is a feminine word e.g. une grenouille or une girafe? Etc.
*Ask the children to either copy or fill in page 2 or 3 of the writing
frame for an animal of their choice. They will need to choose an
appropriate animal name (from the display in the classroom) and a suitable
adjective. They could also cut out and stick on a flap/cage design (some
printable ‘cage’/’container’ images based on the images in the book are
contained in the lesson 8 resource folder). Share the pages the children
have created and spend time allowing the children to read aloud their
page.
*Once children are confident with the task, they could be asked to
complete their own version of the “Cher Zoo” book, choosing suitable
animals and adjectives to reject some animals on copies of pages 2 & 3 of
the template, and choosing a ‘perfect’ animal to keep at the end of their
book (page 4 of the template). If children want to choose animals for
their book and do not already know the names in French, encourage them
to look up the words in a dictionary or on the internet (a good website is
www.freetranslation.com). Continue this activity into the next session.

Lesson 9
Objective: to write additional story pages for a simple book
L3.3, O3.4
*Allow additional time for children to complete and share with the class
their own ‘Cher Zoo’ booklet. Once time limit is nearing an end, children
need to be encouraged to move onto the ‘perfect’ animal page (page 4 of
the template) no matter how many other pages they have, so that their
book will reach a conclusion! They will also need to colour/create a title
page with the initial sentence of the book or use page 1 of the template.
Some children may be able to create their book pages using computer
software, depending on their ICT know-how and ability. Basic Key Stage 1
software like 2simple’s ‘2publish’ can be used to create clear printable
book pages for young children or 2create can be used to add some
movement and sound to an on-screen booklet.
Extension:
*Play a simple free online game like ‘Zoo keeper’ - ‘le Gardien de zoo’
http://www.chugulugames.com/consult-propose-jeux-gratuits-
chugulu.php?jeu=Zoo%20Keeper. Can the children say the name of the
animals in French whenever a line of 3 or more is lined up? Practice saying
“les lions, les crocodiles, les hippos, les singes, les girafes, les pandas, les
éléphants’’ quickly so that they can say the names quick enough for the
game.
Lesson 10
Objective: to make food for a party with an animal theme
O3.1, O3.3, O3.4, L3.1
*Write invitations to another member of the class in French. Possible
wording of the invitations is contained in the lesson 10 resource folder
named ‘Invites for animal day.’ The teacher could use this as a writing
frame on IWB, modelling how to complete the invitation. More able
children could add other details and create banners with the words ‘Fête
des Animaux’.
*Make animal biscuits/cookies and sandwiches in preparation for the
party. See the document ‘Menu for animal day’ in the lesson 10 resource
folder. More able pupils may understand simple instructions in French to
guide them in making their sandwiches. Try to use as much of the target
language as possible and encourage children to spot their favourite
animals “Quels sont tes animaux préférés?” etc and ask & answer
questions when cutting out the biscuits/making sandwiches etc.
Extension:
*Sing and practice the song ‘La visite au zoo’ - the words are contained in
the file ‘La visite au zoo’ in the lesson 10 resource folder.

Lesson 11
Objective: to share an animal party with games in French
O3.1, L3.2, L3.3
*Encourage children to dress up as their chosen animal and make a sign
stating in French which animal they are going to be for the party - use
the masks from lesson 4 if required.
*Play French music and march into the room for an animal parade/show.
*Sing the “Cher zoo song” from the lesson 3 resource folder and the ‘La
visite au zoo’ song from the lesson 10 resource folder.
*Perhaps also play a range of party games - some suggestions are included
in the document ‘French party games’ which is included in the lesson 11
resource folder (this document is in French but can be translated into
English by cutting and pasting the contents into the Google, language tools
translation programme if required).
*Take lots of photos and perhaps also video or record the children singing
their songs and showing their Cher Zoo books at this event so that they
can watch the film back and see how much they have learnt during the
module.
Extension:
*If you feel your children have enjoyed and excelled in this module, it
could be extended through the use of unit 5: Les quatre amis (The four
friends) QCA French scheme of work for Key Stage 2 which introduces
more animals and goes into greater detail and depth!