Aug 19, 20233 min read

French Morning Bell Work Teaching Idea

Updated: Jul 29

French Morning Bell Work For Middle School

Click For Freebie French Immersion Lessons!

As educators, we are always seeking innovative ways to make learning more engaging and effective for our students, right? A popular way to do this is with morning bell work. This teaching strategy involves starting the day with a short, focused activity that not only helps students settle into the classroom environment but also sets a positive tone for the rest of the day. In this blog post, we'll explore how I choose to do morning bell work in my classroom that has been a great success with French Immersion students.

Please note that the downloadable lesson is at the bottom of this post!

Step 1: Every single day (or almost), when my students walk into my class, there is a question on the white board. They read the question and answer using a dry erase marker on the board (they must answer in complete sentences). This is an individual task. My students are quiet when they walk in the morning.

Step 2: Once everyone has arrived and completed their morning tasks, I get them to come to the carpet. We review the question of the day, focusing on different aspects of the sentence each month or two. We start the year with punctuation and capital letters and move on from there.

Step 3: At the start of the year, I read all of their answers, allowing them to share if they wrote it (of course if they want to share) and we have a fun discussion about their answers, all while reviewing their sentences. I erase answers as I read them.

Step 4: As the year goes on, I don’t usually read every single answer (it just takes too long), but select 5 or 10 at random and read them. Students LOVE this activity and it is a great way to make mini lessons on spelling, grammar, etc.

Rules:

#1 There cannot be more than 5 students at the board at once. If they walk in and there are 5 students, they are to move onto writing important information in their agenda or reading a book, and heading back to answer once there are fewer students up front.

#2 They are not to write their names under their answers. We will go over their answers and they can share if they wish or remain anonymous.