Macarons Mercredi is a super competitive, low-prep, vocab or circumlocution game!
Macarons Mercredi is the French version of Taco Tuesday, created by the fantastically talented Erin author of The Engaged Spanish Classroom. There are a lot of resources out there for Spanish teachers, and I was so excited to see her game that I couldn’t help but want a French version! So, I was able to tweek it and make it work for us francophiles! Instead of Tacos on Tuesday, we have Macarons on Wednesday!
You can play with any number of topics! It’s so versatile! Play with numbers, sports and hobbies, animals, different verbs, family members, types of transportation, characters or events from a novel… the list goes on and on!
A Few Ways to Play
Play in pairs or a group of three, but I have found pairs work best. Students each get 1 different color marker, crayon or colored pencil and 1 game sheet between all players. Students race to find the right word.
*Because this is a “race” it gets competitive… VERY competitve. I’ve found that reminding students how to be polite competitors is worth the few seconds… Otherwise I’ve had students colored from fingers to elbows by their competitors and a few markers broken. Ahhh, middle school! As you can see below, some papers are in better condition than others 🙂
Vocabulary Game:
Say the word in English or French and students race to find it in the opposite language. Students color in the macarons as they find them. If doing it this way, you may want to say the word in the target language to get in as many repetitions as possible.
As an added bonus (and to get in wayyyyy more repetitions – INPUT, INPUT, INPUT people!), circle the vocabulary words! Personalize your questions to your students and let the conversations blossom! This also allows your students to take a breather between each competitive question.
Not familiar with circling or personalizing questions? Here are some resources from others: “How to Circle in a CI Classroom” by Ashley from Srta Spanish and “Introduction to PQA” from Teaching Comprehensibly.
Circumlocution Game:
The Circumlocution strategy is my favorite because it provides SO much more comprehensible input for novice-level students. For intermediate-level students it serves as a model for getting around words they don’t know – a super important and LEARNED skill.
Choose one of the words from the sheet and describe it however is best for your students, keeping in mind being comprehensible is the target! Students race to find the word being described and color in their macaron when they find it.
This is all a ton of input, and because it’s a competitive game, it’s almost like tricking the kiddos into learning! : )
Get your editable Macarons Mercredi template here, print and go have some fun!
HAPPY TEACHING!
