Why not take a little English out???

One way to teach your children French is to take some English out of their lives. Instead of saying 'Good Morning' to your children each morning, say 'Bonjour'. Instead of saying 'Good Night' at bed time say 'Bonne nuit'. You might think this is such a small step, but after time you can replace other English words you say every day to your children and then next thing you know, they will be saying 'Bonjour' to you in the morning!

French for tots - the lazy's man way out.

I am not a huge fan of television, but it does have some great uses. And one of the best is for teaching kids a foreign language. You may be asking - how??? Well...walk over to where you keep your DVD collection for your kids and look at the back of the case of one. I bet they have a French language track.

My kids love The Little Einsteins in French. They don't complain either. We just have deemed it a French show and they enjoy it. They even say "Let's watch Little Einsteins and practice our French."

So, the next time your kids ask to watch TV, but you feel they've had enough try it in French...

Fruit Bat French game for your toddlers

Ever have one of those days were you just kind of wanna lay around? Well here is the perfect French game for you...It's my sister's creation, but I changed it to be a French game. It's called Baby Fruit bats.

First you lay on your bed or on the couch and you summon all of your kids to you. You explain to them that they are baby fruit bats and they need to find their food to eat. What you do next is simple, you just tell them to find something in a certain color. This is where I changed it to French. So we practiced all of the French colors. You can say "Okay little fruit bats, go find something 'bleu'. Flap your wings". Off your kids go to find something 'bleu' while flapping there arms. Then when they all return the baby fruit bats pretend to eat it and then await for the next command. If your kids are more advanced in French you can play the whole game in French. And at the end of the game you just tell the little fruit bats to put away the toys, clothes, pretend food, or whatever they got out.

Spring - Printemps

Spring is in the air and this means there are new opportunities to teach your toddler French. You can take a walk with your child and pick wild flowers. Every time you pick one you can review your colors in French.

white - blanc
blue - bleu
red - rouge
yellow - jaune
green - vert
purple - violet

Teaching a preschooler French is hard work...

It's not easy to teach a preschooler French, work full-time, take care of your house, cook food, and all of the other millions of things that I'm sure you do. Just know that every bit you do today will really help them later in life. If you can even get the basics down now, by the time they are learning it in school they will be so far ahead of everyone else, that they can focus on the more difficult grammar.

Just keep doing it and make sure you at least to a little a day so they see learning French as part of a routine and something that they will do every day. They might fight a little at first, but after awhile they will really enjoy 'their French time' and they will thank you for it when they are not starting from scratch in College French when it is so much more difficult to pick up a language.

Scrapbooking with your kids to learn French

Here's a great activity for any day, but especially for a rainy day.

What you will need:
scissors
glue stick
old magazines
construction paper
yarn or string

What to do:
Let your toddler guide this activity by allowing them to cut out whatever pictures they want in magazines. While they are cutting the pictures out, you can both say the word together in French. Or you can focus on colors or numbers during the activity. Then they can paste the pictures on consturction paper and after you are done you can bind the papers together with string or yarn. You can continue to add to your scrapbook every week and review the words you learned the previous weeks. It's a great interactive way to sneak in a little French into your child's life.

Introducing new words to your toddler

Kids are learning new words in English every day. Why not teach them some words in French before you even tell them what the word is in English? If your child points to something and asks you what's that? Take a few seconds to look up the word using a French/English dictionary or go online and use an online dictionary and then teach them the word in French.