Summer break from French - Yes or No???

Personally, I won't be having a break longer than 1 or 2 weeks max. from teaching my kids French. If you give your children a whole summer off from studying French, then they will likely have to relearn what they learned the previous school year. If you really feel your kids need a break from schooling, you could try to do 15-30 mins. a day and review/reinforce what they've already learned by doing some fun activities.

If mama needs a break, like I've said in the past, just pop in a disney movie and change it to French for the audio. If they complain, just say, "in French or nothing." I'm pretty sure they will choose to watch the movie in French.

Learning a language is not like riding a bike. Once you learn to ride a bike you never forget; however, with a language if you do not practice you can forget a lot of what you already learned.

Have a great summer!!! I will be posting some of our summer activities on this blog so be on the look-out!

Fruit salad

Wanna teach your kids some fruit words? Make a simple fruit salad and you have many opportunities to learn the fruit words and reinforce through the activity. You can practice as you buy the fruit at the supermarket, when you cut the fruit and when you all eat the fruit salad. A nice laid back way that you can buy fruit without the craziness of a superstore is to go to a farmer's market. This way you can take your time and learn all of the fruit. Here are some fruit vocabulary words:

une banane -----banana
une cerise ------cherry
un citron------- lemon
une fraise ------strawberry
une framboise --raspberry
une mûre -------blackberry
une myrtille ----blueberry
une orange -----orange
une pêche ------peach
une poire -------pear
une pomme -----apple
un raisin --------grape

Dot to Dots - practicing numbers in French

One great way of practicing numbers in French with your kids, especially higher numbers is by having them do dot to dots. Everytime they pass a number, make sure they say it in French. In no time they will be counting to 100.

Make sure to also spot check numbers out of order when you teach numbers because it's much easier to learn numbers in a sequence than out of order.

Here's a website with lots of free dot to dots that you can print out:

http://www.dottodots.net/

Short on time, double click on this image and print it out!

Birthday wishes in French!

Today is my birthday and it's a great time to focus on some French birthday vocabulary. I've tried to teach them some French birthday vocabulary on their own birthdays, but they are just too focused on parties and birthday presents to focus. So I thought my birthday would be a better idea.

Joyeux Anniversaire is the way you say Happy Birthday in French.

A simple song you can teach is sung to the same tune as Happy Birthday in English.

Joyeux anniversaire
Joyeux anniversaire
Joyeux anniversaire (add person's name here)
Joyeux anniversaire

Hopscotching numbers in French!

My 3 year old hasn't ever played Hopscotch before, so I decided to teach her today. Since she was new to the game I decided to just make it a French game from the start. We are only playing hopscotch in French.

As she jumps on each square I get her to say the numbers in French. My 6 year old loves this game as well. My 17 month old just tries to wipe away the chalk, but he's learning from hearing us play.

The more we play this game the more I'll introduce commands and phrases for them to learn in French.

Books in French and in English

Another good way to increase your child's vocabulary, especially school aged kids is to get some books that have the story in French and in English. Some people think that you should only get French books, but with the French/English books it may not intimidate your reader as much.

Also, you could do both. Get a few books that are only in French and some that are in both French and in English. I know Barnes and Noble has some, but you might have to ask someone where they are located because in our book store they were in a bottom corner of a shelf and I would've never found them if I didn't ask. Amazon has some as well or you could search on Ebay for some great deals from Canada.

Chalk Play

Learning French in a different environment from the kitchen table is always a good idea to me! One thing my son suggested this morning was to go outside and play with chalk on the sidewalk. Sounded like a great idea, but I also wanted to do a little French lesson, so we combined them. I wrote out some math problem and had him tell me what I wrote and what the answer was in French. Then we also goofed around and drew thing and had fun, but the whole time we made sure we used some of our French vocabulary for the colors and the names of our pictures. It was a great time and I'm sure we'll be doing this again.

Next time I think we'll do a little French hangman on the sidewalk. I think my oldest son will get a kick out if it.

French flash card games

Here's a great web site that has lots of flash card games you can play with either French flashcards you made or French flashcards you bought:

http://www.eslkidstuff.com/flashcardgamesframe.htm

My favorite flashcard game is when I pass hold 1 card at a time and I don't show the kids the picture. They have to ask questions (in French) to guess what I'm holding. For beginners in French, they could make French/English question. For example: "Is your picture vert?" The more they learn, the more their sentences will evolve.

And most importantly have fun!

Create Flash Cards

Creating your own Flash Cards is a great way to learn new vocabulary in French. With my younger daughter, who is 3 years old, I usually find pictures on line and print them out and let her color and paste them onto cards. The whole time she is coloring she is repeating the French name of the word over and over again.

For my 6 year old I have him draw the pictures sometimes. Because he is actually seeing the picture in his head as he draws it on the card, I really feel like he is focusing on it and will learn it better in the long run. This really works well for things that he likes, for example: train, car, truck.

It really doesn't matter which way you make them, but I do know one thing, if they are actively involved in making the cards then they tend to have more pride in the cards so when you use them as flashcards to review, they'll say things like "I remember when I drew that! That's a voiture!"

Making Gingerbread men to teach body parts in French

One fun way we teach the body parts in French to our kids is by making Gingerbread men (and women). You can review the body parts in French as you make them and then your kids 'test' can be eating off the body parts and telling you what they just ate after they are cooked.

It's a very fun way to teach and the rewards are plenty. My son just laughs so much when he eats off the 'tête'.

Some phrases you can learn are:
"Je vais manger..." I am going to eat...
"J'ai mangé..." I ate...
"Je mange..." I am eating...

Here's a recipe that I found for gingerbread cookies from http://www.cooks.com/:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1710,155181-252195,00.html

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. dark molasses
1/4 c. water
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
2 1/2 c. all purpose flour


Beat sugar, shortening, molasses and water in a large bowl on low speed until blended. Beat on medium speed 1 minute. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, 1 to 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle counter top with flour; turn dough onto surface. Roll dough with a rolling pin until 1/4 inch thick. Cut with gingerbread man cutter.

Lift cookies carefully with a large spatula onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Decorate cookies with raisins (optional). Bake until set 8 to 10 minutes. Let cookies cool 3 minutes, then carefully remove from cookie sheet with a spatula.

Cool and decorate with frosting if you like. Makes about 1 dozen cookies.

Flip Flop French Workbook with CD

I'm having a blog sale!

I'm selling the Flip Flop French Workbook (which I co-authored) for only $15 which includes a CD and FREE SHIPPING (in the US and Canada)!!! It sells for $25 on Amazon.

I have limited supplies, so use the buy now button on the right-hand side before I run out.

(I am trying to make room for my latest French workbook that is coming out in a few months! More details to come...)

Quebec culture - food

What to throw in some Quebec culture while you teach your kids French? If so, one way to introduce them to the culture of Quebec, is through food. A popular dish from Quebec is Poutine. Basically it is French Fries topped with gravy and melted cheese curds. Not the healtiest of dishes, but it sure tastes good.

Another dish is called Tarte au Sucre or sugar pie. Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 unbaked 9 inch pie crust

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
Mix brown sugar, cream, and flour together in a mixing bowl until smooth. Pour the filling into unbaked pie crust
Bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

I found this recipe on http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tarte-au-Sucre-II/Detail.aspx.

Here's another version that has walnuts: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quebec-Sugar-Pie/Detail.aspx

Another way to learn French vocabulary...

A few days ago I wrote about having a French word wall to introduce new French words. Another way to introduce French vocabulary is to label objects in your hours. What we do is we pick a theme and label those objects for 2 weeks. We don't label too many things or the kids get overwhelmed. My daughter likes to have the things labeled in her room. So we labeled her bed as le lit. Every night before we go to sleep she points to the little note card and says 'Le lit, le lit!' It's very cute.

As for the themes, you can have colors, furniture, toys, kitchen objects, bathroom items, the options are limitless. Whatever you are studying that week you can label. I would suggest to only label about 10-15 things at a time. When you are ready to label new items, then you can removed the old labels and review them at the same time. You can even make a game out of it and tell your kids to go find the 'le lit' label, etc.

What about parents who don't know how to speak French?

Lot's of people would like to teach their child a foreign language but they don't know how to speak one themselves. Why not learn with your child? You can learn basic vocabulary together with the aid of websites and books. Don't worry about pronuncation because there are websites that have recorded pronunciation of words in case you need it.

When you feel like you've gotten to a point that you want to learn French as an adult, you can get Pimsleur French from your local library to try it out. There is also http://www.livemocha.com/ which is a free online language website where you can learn several different languages. It's a great start for adult or teen language learners.

The more you learn, the more you can teach your children.