Making Valentine's Day cards and learning French!

Today we spent our time making St. Valentine's Day cards. Sure it's easy to go to Wal-mart and buy a bunch for a few bucks, but it was more fun this way and a great learning experience for the kids. We made sponge heart cards. I cut out sponges in the shapes of hearts and had all of the different paint colors on different plates. I made them speak French while they were stamping their hearts on the cards. They said things like, "J'ai un cœur bleu." (I have a blue heart.)

After the paint on the cards dried, I got the children to practice their printing. My oldest son is now 6, so it wasn't a problem for him, but I helped my 4 year old a bit with hers. They wrote, "Je t'aime!" (I love you) on the cards right above the painted hearts.

It was a very successful French lesson!

St. Valentine's Day words in French

The stores had Valentine Candy out the day after Christmas and I'm a bit early too to post Valentine's Day words in French. But, I like to prepare a bit for the upcoming weeks and reinforce vocabulary.

Vocabulary words:
the heart - le cœur
St. Valentine's Day - Bonne Saint Valentin
love and isses - tendres baisers
love (noun) - l'amour
I love you - je t'aime

Activity:
What you will need:
Construction paper or white paper
scissors
crayons

What to do:
1. Cut out a heart from construction paper (a pretend candy box). Then, cut out little rectangles (pretend chocolate candies).
2. Write the numbers 1-10 (or whatever vocabulary you are focusing on.) on the pretend chocolate candies and you can have your child decorate them as well.
3. Have you child glue the pretend chocolate candies on the heart. Every time they glue one on, they can say the number in French.

Options:
You can use an empty heart shaped candy box. Also, you can write anything on the candy pieces (colors, animals, etc.).