As a French teacher, I love when my students create beautiful projects, and my favorite is always the French menu project! This is one of my favorite projects to grade because it is so creative and the students always put a lot of effort into it.
Things to consider when making a French menu:
Students usually create a menu with different food categories such as main course, side dishes, desserts, and drinks. When creating their menus, I have students consider the following:
– What type of cuisine they want to feature
– Which dishes will go well together
-How expensive their items will be
– The order in which the dishes will be served
Want to make menus with your French class? Here are some tips to get you started!
– Have students choose a theme or cuisine. This will help them decide what dishes to include. Some popular themes include: French regional cuisine, haute cuisine, bistro food, and street food. They can even do international foods if you don’t want to stick with all French.
– Make sure the dishes you choose go well together. You don’t want your menu to be too heavy or too light.
– Consider the order in which the dishes will be served. The appetizer should whet your appetite, while the main course should be hearty and filling. The dessert should be something sweet to finish off the meal.
I also have students look online at maps so they can create a typical address in France. I show them how to write phone numbers, too, so they can add a French-fashioned phone number.
Here’s an example of a menu for a beginning class.
You can have students write the articles or not, depending on the age and your goals for the assignment. I have them write in Euros, because understanding different money systems is a key cultural component of a foreign language class.
A lot of teachers love using my French menu project, because it makes the planning so easy that even beginning French students can be successful with it.
I change up how I want to grade my students, so this includes a standard-based grading rubric and a one-column rubric. The pre-writing pages and the vocabulary list help keep students organized and on-task.
What do teachers say?
Shelley C. says, “This was such a great resource. My students used this as a planning template, and then created their own menus using Canva. Thank you!”
“My students loved this project and enjoyed creating their own restaurant menus. I enjoyed that the expectations were clear, and this resource included vocabulary supports my students needed.”
“My students LOVED this project! They enjoyed creating and presenting their restaurant menus. I expanded this project to have them create a dialogue of someone ordering food at their restaurant and also had them create 3D models of their restaurants. Best project ever of this school year!”
See more of the French menu project here.
I love this project because it’s a great opportunity to practice your French cooking vocabulary, and it’s also a lot of fun to have students expand the learning by creating restaurant skits afterward !
Talk to you soon!
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