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French Task Cards for Avoir and Être

French games, French grammar, Middle and high school teaching

French Task Cards for Avoir and Être

Avoir and être can be so challenging for beginning French students! If you need a fun way to review these important French verbs, task cards might be just the right activity for your students! You can use them at learning centers in your French classroom, give them to fast finishers, or play a game of Scoot!

What is Scoot?

Scoot is a really fun game that has been a long-time favorite in my class, because it helps my students really get the concepts, and they get to move around a lot. Movement is really helpful for helping students retain information, and providing movement is a great way to get those wiggly students to focus and work more quickly.

Whether your students are antsy, practicing grammar isn’t their favorite activity, or if you just want to mix things up, this fun game is a great way to add a little variety. Moving around is the number one thing we can do to help students stay focused. You’re sure to have kids in each class like this, but the others will also benefit!

I especially love this game for practicing avoir and être, because students are either just starting to learn verbs and find it kind of boring or they are in immersion and need to review this but don’t think they need the practice. Either way, it’s a fun way to practice something not all students love!

So, how do you play Scoot?

If you already use task cards, you’re already using part of the Scoot game without knowing it! Here’s how you set up a game of Scoot:

Get a set of French task cards you love and tape one card on the corner of each desk.
Give each student an individual answer sheet.
Students will move from desk to desk at certain intervals answering the questions on their answer sheets. I’ve always given them 30 seconds, but you might give them 1 minute if you need more time.
When it’s time to move, you can signal this by saying “Scoot!” or if you prefer French, my teammate and I decided to use the term “Filez!” Either way, just let them know the word to listen for.

Tips for easy set-up:

Number the cards and then tape them on desks in numerical order so that students can easily move from one desk to another.
Walk them through the order before you start moving so they know exactly where to go each time they move.
Students start with the question at their desk, so if a student is at question 15, he/she would do question 15, then when it’s time to move, that student would move to question 16.
If you have 20 students and use 20 cards, then the student at desk 20 would move to desk 1 for his/her next turn.

When you have finished, you can check the answers together, making this a perfect review for a quiz or test. I give a prize to the students who get a perfect score (and I include a prize in all Scoot games), but your students will love it with or without prizes!

Other ways to use French task cards:

Give a few cards each day to groups of 3 or 4 students and have them practice together.
Use them for bell-ringer questions or as exit tickets.
Put them at a learning center for center rotations or fast finishers.