Easter Egg and Basket French Activity

Here is another French Easter activity for you to do with your children.

Print out the Easter Basket I found on another site. Write out the names of the different French colors on each egg. Then, use the other worksheet I made of eggs. Have your children color those eggs and cut them out. Then, they can paste the correct egg on the correct egg in the basket. If they are not yet reading, you can read the word to them.

In order to print out the pages, just double click on the picture and it will bring put it in another window where you can print it out.

Spring and French Language

The weather is getting nicer and nicer and now is the time to take a nature walk and use the blooming flowers to increase your children's French vocabulary. If you haven't studied French in a long time or if you are learning French with your children, you can take a little pocket dictionary with you on your walk. This way if they point to something and ask you how you say it in French, you'll be prepared.

Here are some useful French Springtime vocabulary words:

Spring - le printemps
flower - la fleur
grass - l'herbe
tree - l'arbre
butterfly - le papillon
Smell! - Sens!
Look! - Regarde!

More Felt Doll Activities

My motto with homeschooling is to run with whatever works. What worked was the felt dolls. So, today I practiced listening comprehension with my kids. I told them how to dress the dolls in French and then they had to dress the dolls correctly.

We also reversed this and they had to tell me how to dress the dolls in French. I turned my back so that they couldn't see what I was doing. It made it more fun for them to see if mom would get it right.

Then, when daddy got home from work, we let him join in the action. A simple, yet very effective way to teach French clothing words.

You can also do this with felt faces and different color eyes, mouths and hair.

Felt dolls and French

A really fun thing I did with my kids this weekend was to cut out a few dolls and clothes from felt. Felt is kind of hard to cut for kids, so I did most of that work, but they got to design the clothes.

Felt is really neat because it stick to other felt. Thus, you can play 'paper dolls' but with your felt dolls. While you do this you can practice clothing words in French.

First, you can have your children decorate the clothes you cut out with glitter, markers, fake jewels or anything you can think of. Then, afterwards you can do different role playing games or just change the clothes and mix and match outfits. Make sure they practice their French the entire time!

I think your kids will really enjoy this activity. And, felt is really cheap to buy. You can find it at Wal-mart or Michael's.

Here's an example of what you can do. Ours didn't turn out as well, so I thought I'd show this example instead. :-)

Here are a few French clothing words you can use:

un manteau -coat
un pull - sweater
un tee-shirt - T-shirt
un pantalon - pants
un jean - jeans
un short - shorts
des chausettes - socks
des chaussures - shoes
des tennis - sneakers
un pyjama - pajamas

Making Cookies, Learning French Shape Words

Today, I played a fun little game with my daughter. I had some pre-made cookie dough and put it on the cookie pan and then I told her what shape of cookie she was to make, in French. She had so much fun making the different shapes.

After we cookies them she told me their shapes in French before eating them. We used Peanut Butter cookie dough because that was what we had, but you could use sugar cookie dough and they could decorate them afterwards. That way you could practice the colors in French, as well as the French words for shapes.



Here are some helpful French shape words that you could use:

le carré – the squarele
cercle – the circlele
cœur – the heartle
rectangle – the rectangle
le losange – the diamond
l’ovale – the oval

Here's a Sneak Peak at the French for Little Boys Workbook

Here are a few pages example pages of my French for Little Boys Workbook. This book has 50 activities to teach your son (or daughter) French. Although it's for 'Boys,' girls who like trains, cars, animals and robots would like this workbook as well. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Easter Worksheet - learning French colors

Here's a French Easter egg worksheet I made for my children today and I hope you find it useful. It has a color key in French and they can color the eggs according to it. Also, you can have them count the eggs and designs in French. I think it's important to use the current holidays in order to motivate children to learn a foreign language. Enjoy!

French Easter Egg Worksheet

Here's an Easter worksheet that I made which you can use to help your children practice their numbers in French! After they finish matching the eggs with the same numbers, you can tell them different colors in French which they can color the eggs.

The Jelly Bean Olympics

Some days I just get to where I want to goof off all day. Today was one of those days. I did it, but in a fun and educational way. We had the Jelly Bean Olympics. We had silly games using jelly beans and the whole time I made the kids speak French.

One game was a jellybean relay where each kid had to have a spoon with 1 jelly bean and then run the distance of the yard, the other child was then shouting out the number in French, then we switched kids and added a jelly bean. The other child now had to yell out the number in French. We also yelled things like, "Cours!" (run) and "vite!" (quickly).

We also had a jelly bean toss where I laid different colors of construction paper on the ground and they had to toss their jelly beans to the right color of paper. So, if they had a blue jelly bean then they had to throw it on the blue piece of paper. (Of course they had to use their French and say which color they had.

We tried to balance jelly beans on our noses, but that wasn't very successful, but it did bring a lot of laughs!

And what do you think we did at the end? Yup, we ate a bunch of jellybeans! All and all a good day!

Dust off those old picture books and put them to use!

Remember all of those old board books and picture books you read to your children when they were 1 to 2 years old? Break them out and put them to use again.

Lots of picture books have themes that you can use for your own French lessons. Perhaps you can find one for shapes, colors, opposites, etc. And then make a lesson with that book as the basis.

If you are learning French along with your child, you can have a little cheat sheet with the words in French. They'll never know and if they do know, they won't care.

I think having your children see the pictures as they learn new words will help them to remember the words more. And you will put those old books to good use again!

Using Spring to learn French

My 2 year old is learning French and English at the same time, but he tends to use English much more often. English is his 2nd language because he was born in Taiwan. So, French is his 3rd language. I have to think out of the box in order to 'trick' him into practicing French with the rest of us. Today, we took a walk around the neighborhood and all of the beautiful azaleas were in bloom. He started to pick the ones up off of the ground that had fallen and I saw a great opportunity to get him to practice numbers.

I was carrying a plastic cup in my bag, so I let him use it to gather up the flowers. I helped to him count the flowers in French. When we were done collecting flowers and we went home he started to count the flowers by himself in French. He didn't get too far and he looked to me for help, but he did try.

The lesson I learned today, is run with whatever is motivating your child at that time, especially younger children. And use the different seasons of the year to aid you!

French for Little Boys

I'm very excited to announce my new workbook for teaching French to little boys!




This French workbook is designed to target the obsessions of little boys: cars, trains, bugs, and more. You and your son will open the door to the French language while coloring trains, playing memory games with different types of bugs and racing his favorite toy car down an exciting race track full of obstacles. This workbook is created especially for parents who do not have any prior knowledge of French. You and your son can embark on a journey of learning a foreign language together. Everything you need is inside this workbook, including a pronunciation guide, dictionary and teaching hints.

Stay tuned to this website for a few samples pages that I will post later in the week. Please let me know if you have any questions. If you'd like to order a copy through Amazon, click on the picture and it will direct you to Amazon.

Telling time

Telling time might be hard for preschoolers, but I have a 2nd grader and many of you may so you can use these activities for them and allow your preschoolers to watch. They will pick up a lot of it.

You can print out this clock, cut it out and use it to practice telling time with your children:

http://www.fi.edu/time/Journey/JustInTime/clock1.html

Also, if you have a real clock that has moving hands, you can use that and allow your kids to move the hands too so that they feel involved.

Lastly, here is a worksheet with different clocks and you can have them say outloud to you what time it is in French.

Telling time in French

Since you have to explain to your children that the time has changed due to DST, you might as well introduce them to telling time in French. :)

Here are a few of the expressions you'll need to start teaching time.

Quelle heure est-il? - What time is it?
Il est une heure. - It's 1 o'clock.
Il est trois heures et demie. - It's 3:30.
Il est quatre heures et quart. - It's 4:15.
Il est cinq heures moins quinze. - It's 4:45.
Il est midi. - It's noon.
Il est minuit. - It's midnight.

Teacher your kids Alouette

Alouette is a great French song that you can teach your children. You can teach them the body parts as you sing the songs together.

Here are the lyrics:

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai la tete

Je te plumerai la tete

Et la tete, et la tete

Et la tete, et la tete

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le nez

Je te plumerai le nez

Et le nez, et le nez

Et le nez, et le nez

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai les yeux

Je te plumerai les yeux

Et les yeux, et les yeux

Et les yeux, et les yeux

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le cou

Je te plumerai le cou

Et le cou, et le cou

Et le cou, et le cou

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai les ailes
Je te plumerai les ailes

Et les ailes, et les ailes

Et les ailes, et les ailes

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le dos

Je te plumerai le dos

Et le dos, et le dos

Et le dos, et le dos

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai les pattes

Je te plumerai les pattes

Et les pattes, et les pattes

Et les pattes, et les pattes

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai la queue

Je te plumerai la queue

Et la queue, et la queue

Et la queue, et la queue

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

I got the lyrics off of the following site. It also has the melody, so you can sing the song to music.

http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/a014.html

Egg Carton Flowers and practicing French

I remember doing this craft activity when I was little with my mother and sister. However, before we just did the activity as a craft activity. With my children, I do it as a French craft activity.

What you will need:
Egg carton
Scissors
markers

pipe cleaners

What to do:

1. Separate the individual egg cups by cutting each one apart with scissors. You may need to help your children with this part.
2. With your children, cut out little petals in the egg compartment. (You can practice French number here.)
3. Have your children color the cups with markers.

4. Push the pipe cleaner up through the middle of your flower. Bend it down in the middle of the flower so it stays in place.

5. Shape leaves out of the other side of the pipe cleaner and use the excess for the stem.

As you do this, you can try to incorporate as much French as you'd like. You can practice colors (when you children color the flowers), numbers (by counting the petals) or anything you would like your children to learn.

French Easter Traditions

I did some research on French Easter Traditions and found lots of great information.

One Easter game that children play is they roll raw eggs down a slope. The person whose egg did not break is the winner.

Another game they play is to toss row eggs into the air. The person whose egg breaks first is the loser.

Poisson d'Avril means April fish. It's chocolate in the shape of a fish. Children eat them in French throughout the month of April. They also have chocolate bells which symbolize the real bells that are rung on Easter Sunday for the Resurrection of Jesus.

Maybe you can incorporate some of these traditions in your family, though I'm not too sure about playing with raw eggs. :-)

To read more about these traditions see:

http://www.frenchfriends.info/culture/easter_paques_traditions

http://www.articlesbase.com/religion-articles/french-easter-traditions-paques-179755.html

http://french.lovetoknow.com/French_Easter_Traditions

Online French Games for Kids!

I find it really hard to find good online French games for my kids. I did find two sites that I like. The first one has some games which are free and some you have to get a subscription for. Here's a link to the free ones:

http://www.hello-world.com/resource/free.php

They have bingo, tic tac toe, songs and more.

Here is one from the comic book - TinTin. They have a few cute games you could play with your children.

http://www.tintin.com/#/jeux/jeuxYoungs.swf

If anyone has found other free online games please post a comment so we can all share them.

Playing "Restaurant"

You can play this at home or if you feel really up to it, you can do this at a real restaurant. What I like to do is I make something like a fruit salad with lots of different fruit. I also make a few other small things. I try to have lots of little food so my children can practice lots of different vocabulary words. I sit them down at a table and I pretend to be a waitress. (Really, I always am anyways, so that role is no different.) As they eat the different food, I have them say phrases like:

Je mange une fraise. (I'm eating a strawberry.)

Tu manges une orange. (You're eating an orange.)

You can also play this with play food or with food they've colored and cut out. The key is to get them to practice different types of food words in French.

I eat! You eat! We all eat!

Most of my posts deal with learning and practicing vocabulary. This post will be a little about grammar, in order to get your children to speak more complete sentences. Here is the verb to eat:

Manger - to eat

je mange - I eat

tu manges - you eat

il/elle mange - he/she eats

nour mangeons - we eat

vous mangez - you eat (formal or plural you)

ils mangent - they eat

You don't have to teach your children all of the forms of the verb. You can stick to learn 'je mange' and 'tu manges' until your children learn those, then add more if you want to.

The interesting thing about 'tu' and 'vous' in relation to what your children call you (the parent), I've heard people call their parents both of them. So, it's up to you if you'd rather have your children say 'tu' or 'vous' to you.

The next few lessons, I'll write some posts about different activities you can do to reinforce 'I eat' in French.

Learning numbers in French - different approaches

Practicing numbers in French may get boring for your children after awhile. Here are a few activities you can do for a change.

1. Cut circles of yellow construction paper and pretend they are gold coins. You can have your children count them.

2. Also, you can do the same as the above except put different numbers on each pretend coin. Then, you can hide them and your children can collect and put them in their treasure box if they have one. If they don't have a treasure box, you can help them make one out of a shoe box.

3. You can also play 'store' with pretend food and have your children buy the food from you by counting out the pretend coins.

Frère Jacques

One great way to help your children learn French is by singing familiar songs. You can teach them Frère Jacques.

Here are the lyrics:

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,

Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!

Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don.

Here is a link to a mp3 of it sung by a native speaker:

http://popup.lala.com/popup/2810527664468133162