Holiday Fun at Brooklands

Our Brooklands Literacy Group was fortunate once again to receive funding from the United Way so we could share the love of reading with the students at Brooklands school. As we have done many times in the past 10 years, former Brooklands students who now attend St. James Collegiate went back to Brooklands to read. In preparation for our big pancake breakfast event that takes place annually in February, St. James students were able to spend some time with the teachers and students they will be reading to again in the new year. We chose Jan Brett books for each classroom and each group read a story (which was then gifted to each classroom teacher), facilitated a craft activity based on the story they read and provided a small snack for all students.

                                          

                                          

                                              

Happy Holidays to you all! Looking forward to 2015!

Frog's legs, s'il vous plaît!

On Monday, I took my wonderful French class to Café Ce Soir. The owner, Cam, hosted us in his restaurant and provided us with a lesson in French cooking and we were served delicious, authentic French cuisine for lunch. We learned how to make a number of French dishes including béchamel sauce and crème brûlée.

While learning about French cooking (and the vast quantity of butter used) and even some history, everyone was given the opportunity to try les cuisses de grenouilles (frogs' legs) and escargots. It was a unique and rare opportunity for most of the students. They really are an adventurous group!

After sampling the appetizers, we sat down for our lunch that included onion soup for all accompanied by a Croque-Monsieur (baked ham and cheese sandwich), a Salade Niçoise or a Sandwich Calanque (shrimp and egg sandwich). Our meal was finished with an eggnog crème brûlée. C'était délicieux!

                                               

                                                

                                               

It was a great morning! We will have to return to sample some of the fabulous desserts created by Cam!

                             

Magic in the Air

It's been a while since I have been able to post. It just got really busy and I wasn't able to spend very much time here. There's a number of exciting things happening next week that I'm planning to share here too.

Back in September, my French class started making a video. We spent a number of weeks filming a kind of promotional video for French. Then, a group of the students started editing once or twice a week, when time allowed. And now it is complete!

I had heard the song Magic in the Air by Magic System repeatedly over the summer during the World Cup. My kids loved it and we listened to it constantly. I decided that it would be a good song to introduce to my French class since the lyrics were mostly in French and it was an upbeat, catchy song. A promotional video is something I had been wanting to make for a long time and I knew that this was the class to do it with since they had made videos in class in previous years and really seemed to enjoy  making videos. I think the video turned out great and I am really proud of what they have done. Enjoy!