Mrs Pimparel and Mrs Higley in France.

Date: 17th Oct 2017 @ 10:06pm

Friday: We arrived at the airport in Carcassonne, collected our cases and made our way to the hotel.  We immediately went to the old city to take part in a treasure hunt, asking locals for help in French! We were split into groups and Mrs Higley led her team to victory.  

Carcassonne is a beautiful city and we look forward to sharing the history of the castle and photos with our classes. 

Saturday: A continental breakfast was followed by three hours of French speaking lessons before lunch. During the afternoon, we started to plan for our main task and presentation of the week. We toured the medieval city again and managed to get a video of a lady making crepes. She was very keen to speak to us and help with the French.   

Sunday: We started the morning with an enjoyable methodology session in which we learnt French rhymes and word games. We are both looking forward to sharing these with Year 2 and 6 on our return. In the afternoon, we set off to play a game of Petanque which is a form of boules where the goal is to toss a hollow steel ball as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet, while standing inside a circle and all instructions were in French. We played in a local park and picked up some handy tips from the locals.  

Monday: After breakfast, we headed to our French lessons taught by Emmanuelle and Anne – Marie. In this session we listened to a French story, played games but most of the time was spent improving our French grammar.  

In the afternoon, Mrs Pimparel and a group of colleagues decided to hire bikes and cycle to a Lac de la Cavavere ‘a 10km round trip’. Mrs Higley went for a leisurely stroll along the canal which turned into a rescue mission for a colleague’s class mascot (a small rabbit) which had "jumped" out of her bag. She made good use of her French by asking locals if they had seen the missing rabbit.  

Tuesday: Again the day started with 3 hours of French lessons. As well as extending our French speaking, Mrs Pimparel prepared activities linked to French gym instructions whilst Mrs Higley learnt some great songs. After lunch, we attended methodology classes where we practised more French and played games to help with the learning of French in our classes. This was followed by a trip to a book shop where we bought some lovely books to share with classes back in school. The evening was spent tasting a traditional French meal – cassoulet. 

10:45pm (local time) Mrs Pimparel is now preparing a story book for tomorrow and I am busy getting items ready for Thursday's school visit.   

We will keep you posted on our final few days in Carcassonne.  

 
à bientôt 

Mrs Higley and Mrs Pimparel 

Wednesday: We completed our French lessons this morning. Then after a quick visit to the supermarket to purchase items for school, we spent the afternoon making the final adjustments to the activities we plan to complete with the French children - Year 6 letters are packed as is the lovely book made by Year 2. We are very excited about our visit but we have to be up at 5:30am to ensure we get to Toulouse on time!! 

Thursday - What an exciting day! After a very early start (up at 5:30am!), we travelled to Toulouse to visit our partner school. We shared the book Dear Zoo and all our resources made by our children in Year 2 and 6. The French children were delighted to recieve our gifts and practsie their English. They also helped us with our French! Later in the day we were invited to a conference with two astronauts; one American who had travelled into space on the space shuttle and one French astronaut who had worked on the International Space Station for the European Space Agency (like Time Peake)! What an experience. We have lots to share with the children when we return. Tomorrow we have more French then home!