Desmos in French classes – a versatile tool

Have you tried using Desmos in French class yet?  One of the things I like using it for is a bell work/check-in at the beginning of class. It gives me time to take attendance and wait for stragglers while also getting an idea of how students are feeling and if there is anything they want me to know. I’ve made a collection of check-in screens with a French theme and you can GET THEM HERE (click).  Use them with your own classes, edit them, add to them – whatever you like!  Here are the three types of screen and instructions on how to make your own.

Ways to use Desmos in French class

Which one has to go? – this is a pretty simple idea, just have 4 items and students have to choose one to get rid of.  Canva and Spark are both tools that you can use to make new images.  Sometimes I’ll do a cultural thing, sometimes it will be a vocabulary theme.  In any case, these are easy to make because you just need to make a graphic. Here’s a Canva link for a template. I also have some pre-made selections of graphics – you can try out this freebie with 5 different images, or this set of 100.

On a scale of 1-9 – this is also fairly easy, you just need more images to make it happen.  This can be fun to do with famous people, animals, etc.  Just make the blank card with the images (3X3) and have students choose the multiple choice numbers. Here’s a Canva template to make your image board.

On a scale of ______ – this one is the trickiest to make because you’ll have to pay attention to the code.  First, you’ll need five images of the same person that you want to use.  It’s best to find images that have a wide variety of expressions.  They should all be cropped to the same size and orientation . 

I generally use 10 inches wide by 5.6 inches tall – Here’s a template for making the images, put one image on each page and then download all of them.  Then, you’ll need to add them to the graph – use one that is already existing, make a copy of it and then add the new images to it as new layers.  Then, you’ll need to set the center for each of the images.  Make sure each image has a different equation!  The equations should be as follows:

• image 1:(5,6{a<3.5})
• image 2:(5,6{3.5≤a≤4.5})
• image 3:(5,6{4.5≤a≤5.5})
• image 4:(5,6{5.5≤a≤6.5})
• image 5:(5,6{6.5≤a≤7.5})

Of course, you aren’t limited to using Desmos in French class – you can use these tools to make fun openers for any class! Use them for a basic emotional check-in each day, or just as a fun way to start off a class using whatever you’ve been doing recently. The templates I shared above can be copied and edited to use in other language classes as well.