Il court, le furet

If you want to teach your children a great and fairly easy song in French, here is one of my personal favorites: Il court, le furet. Here is a site that has the lyrics and it is also sung by a native speaker.

http://www.hello-world.com/French/song/furet.php

My kids listened to the song so much they are singing this song constantly (as am I).

Creating a French picture dictionary

One useful way to help your little French learners retain the vocabulary words they have learned is to have them create a little French picture dictionary. Any spiral notebook or something like that will do. If your kids can write, they can write the words and then draw a picture. If they can't write yet, you can write the words, but still have them draw the pictures next to it.

This exercise will help your kids gain ownership of their learning and they will be proud to show their dictionary to grandma and grandpa, I'm sure.

This is especially useful if your kids are at the reading age, but even if they aren't, it's a good way to help you remember what words in French you have taught your kids.

And then there are other things...

This is a continuation of the post from yesterday...
Then there are other things that interest my son. Currently it is plants (before it was trains and cars). He likes to plant seeds, watch them grow and harvest them. I think he could hang out at his little garden for most of the day, which is too long for me. However, if I add a little French to the gardening, then it makes everyone happy.

With plants, you can learn basic planting vocabulary, colors, planting verbs, numbers to count your flowers, fruits and vegtables. Really the ideas are limitless.

Here are some vocabulary words:

The hoe - la binette
The rake - le râteau
The shovel - le pelle
The spade - la bêche
The trowel - le transplantoir
The fork - la fourche
The pruning shears - les cisailles
The hedge shears - le sécateur
The hedgecutter - la tailleuse de haie
The grass shears - les tondeurs
The axe - la hache
The mower - la tondeuse
The wheelbarrow - la brouette

To dig - foncer
To hoe - biner
To plant - planter
To water the plants - arroser les plantes
To cultivate - cultiver
To prune - élaguer
To weed - désherber
To mow - tondre

These great lists were found on this website: http://www.brighthub.com/education/languages/articles/35788.aspx

Run with what you got

Not sure where to start this school year with French for you preschoolers or homeschooled kids? Why not just start with what they like and run with that?

My daughter is really into tea parties, so we like to practice French while having a tea party. My son is not big into tea parties, after all he "is 6 and is not a girl." But, what little 6 year old boy can resist some milk and cookies for the tea party? Not my son. Since a tea party is very prim and proper we practiced our polite French words like:

de rien - please
s'il vous plait - please
merci - thank you
excuse me - excusez-moi

We also tried to stick with French for the entire tea party, which was hard. So, if it gets too tough just stick with saying French for a few things to start with. The key is to keep the kids happy and interested.

School's back in session

School's back in session - it's time to really start teaching some French to your kids (and to yourself, if you need it). Here are a few websites that could help you brush up on your own French so you can easily answer your kids French questions. These are all free websites aimed at helping you learn French!

www.livemocha.com - I really like this site! It has different levels and you can get a French pen pal, as well, if you would like.

www.bonjour.com

www.frenchassistant.com

www.frenchspanishonline.com