Teaching French : Some Fun French Geography Classroom Games Focusing on France and French Culture

Teaching French : Some Fun French Geography Classroom Games Focusing on France and French Culture
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Use Maps

Maps are wonderful teaching resources, especially for geography. Teach your beginner students about the beautiful regions of France and their agricultural assets by using maps and images of France. Let them explore France by taking an imaginary trip around France by playing French geography classroom games.

The Game

Supply your students with sheets of sketch pad paper or have them supply their own. Have them work together in teams to identify produce found in France. Have the team choose the regions from names placed in a hat, box or basket. They can make edible maps where each team uses various edible objects to display the different geographical landmarks of the various regions; or they can use images which have been cut out from magazines or newspapers.

The teams choose some major regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Loire Valley, the Rhone Valley, Alsace, Champagne, Normandy and Brittany. Students working on Brittany, for example can display images, edible objects or drawings of fruits such as apples; some apple orchards, crêpes and cider; and vegetables such as artichokes. They can even include some forests. Those working on Normandy can display pastures, butter, cream and cheese. Those doing Alsace, Burgundy and Bordeaux can display grapes and wine; and they can add some vineyards. Those working on the Loire Valley can also do grapes and wine, vegetables such as asparagus, tomatoes and endive. Champagne’s team will definitely display champagne in addition to grapes and vineyards.

Extension of Game

As an extension for review, students can again pick names of regions from a hat, box or basket, and once again working in teams or pairs, create clues about a secret location. They take turns solving the clues written by other teams or pairs. For example, in order for the other students to guess Brittany or Normandy, the team or pair can use clues such as, “It’s a gateway to the sea,” “There are many grassy meadows here,” or “Cider and crêpes we enjoy here; wine, you enjoy elsewhere.”

For the Loire valley, they could make clues such as, “Blois, Chignon and Nantes are so beautiful” and “Come to the Tours wine festival” or “So many beautiful Renaissance castles". The Alsace team could create clues such as, “Would you like to eat some sauerkraut?’” or “There are many German place names and German foods here.”

Your students will enjoy these French geography classroom games, especially if they make edible maps, and can enjoy some of the fruit and vegetables, and desserts after; no wine of course. Bon appétit les enfants!

You can use these ideas to have your students learn, review and thus reinforce the other themes of geography, such as locations, places, human interaction and the environment, and movement and communication. Eventually, they will also come up with creative ideas of their own, as they continue to enjoy these geography games.

This post is part of the series: Games for Learning French

Try these great games to use in the classroom for learning french!!

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  3. French Learning Games: A Direct Object Pronouns Lesson Plan