1 - How Many Places at Home? ~5 mins
How many different places does your home have? Count the kitchen, bedrooms, garden and the rest quietly in English, then share with a neighbour.
Today we tour Camille's house in Lyon: eight parts of a French home. By the end you will name each one in French and say one simple thing you do there.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Name eight parts of a French home
- Sort each one into le or la
- Say one simple thing you do in a named place
Take a quick show of hands for three places, four, five or more. Keep it light and move on after a minute or two. The point is to wake up the idea of home spaces before the French words arrive. Do not introduce any French yet. Image has no French text: English-only labels or an unlabelled cutaway only.
2 - Eight Places in Camille's House ~10 mins
Here are the places in Camille's house in Lyon. English and the picture show first. When each card flips, listen to the full French phrase (with le or la), then repeat it with the class. We learn four places, re-run them together, then meet the next four. Watch which ones take le and which take la.
Run this on the IWB with the whole class. Keep a simple house cutaway visible as an anchor. Teach in two chunks of four so the set does not blur: chunk one (inside) la cuisine, le salon, la chambre, la salle de bain; quick choral re-run of those four; then chunk two la salle à manger, le grenier, le garage, le jardin.
For each card: show English + image first, play the audio (or model yourself), class repeats twice (once all together, once by table), then flip to confirm the French. Do not ask pupils to guess the French before they have heard it. Point at the article every time so the pair is what they hear. Insist on the full phrase, not the bare noun.
Cuisine has that soft kwee-ZEEN, exaggerate the EE and grin when they nail it. Tricky ones to watch: la salle à manger (lah sahl ah mahn-ZHAY) with the à, and le grenier (luh gruh-NYAY).
3 - Le or La? ~8 mins
Time to sort Camille's places. We sort as a class. When your table is called, say le or la and the full place name. One volunteer drags on the board. Everyone else: thumbs left for le, thumbs right for la, on every card.
Whole-class only: one pupil at the board, everyone else signalling and saying the article. Invite volunteers to drag, or work with one pupil dragging while tables call out. If a word is misplaced, pause and say the full phrase together before trying again.
Four are feminine (la cuisine, la chambre, la salle de bain, la salle à manger) and four are masculine (le salon, le grenier, le garage, le jardin). Remind them there is no clever rule here: they learn each article with its noun. Four and four, nice even split. Give the table a quick cheer when both columns are clean.
4 - Into Your Copy ~5 mins
From today's list only, write the places that are in your house, each with le or la, in the order you would walk through them. Copy each article and word carefully from the board (watch the à in la salle à manger). Only use places from today's list that you actually have, four places is fine.
Pause the board and leave the flashcard deck or a full le/la list of the eight phrases on the IWB for the whole task, no separate printout required. Everyone's pen should be moving, and praise careful copying of the multi-word phrases. Walk the room and check the article is going in front of every word: a list of bare nouns will not carry the gender pairing. Pupils only write places from today's list that match their own home; they do not invent extras. Do not collect these.
5 - Spin a Place in Camille's House ~10 mins
First we learn three short frames together. Then spin the wheel on a place in Camille's house. When it lands, say what happens there.
French sentence if you can; otherwise English action + French place name is perfect. Frames stay on the board:
- Je mange dans… (I eat in…)
- Je dors dans… (I sleep in…)
- Je joue dans… (I play in…)
Listen for your turn!
Do not spin until the frames are chorally secure. Model and class-repeat these with pronunciation before anyone else spins:
- Je mange dans la cuisine (zhuh mahnzh dahn lah kwee-ZEEN) — I eat in the kitchen
- Je dors dans la chambre (zhuh dor dahn lah SHAHM-bruh) — I sleep in the bedroom
- Je joue dans le jardin (zhuh zhoo dahn luh zhar-DAN) — I play in the garden
- Optional extra: Je regarde la télé dans le salon (zhuh ruh-gard lah tay-lay dahn luh sah-LOH(n)) — I watch TV in the living room
Leave the three frames on the IWB during spinning so pupils are not inventing from nothing. Default expectation for first turns: English action + French place name (e.g. "I sleep in la chambre"). Full French is a bonus, not a gate. Any full French sentence is a win, big reaction. Keep the pace brisk so several pupils get a turn. If the same place comes up twice, ask for a different action the second time.
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