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.

Winter Wonderland

It's the season for some fun winter vocabulary. Since all children love snow, here's a great opportunity to teach your daughter or son some new French words.

snowman - homme de neige
snow - neige
winter - hiver

There are many activities you can do with your child to teach them these French words. If you are lucky enough to live in a place where it snows, you can simply go outside and play in the snow together and build a homme de neige saying the new words as you build him. However, if there is no snow where you live, you can either make snowmen with playdough or do something I loved doing with my mother when I was a child. You can make snowmen pancakes for breakfast, while your child watches you. They can help you stir before cooking them and then together you can decorate them after they are cooked. Your child can add raisins or chocolate chips for the eyes, nose and buttons. While he decorates them, make sure you reinforce 'homme de neige' by saying it often, so they learn the word. Be creative and most importantly have fun!

"I can't teach my kids French because I can't speak it."

A lot of people I know refuse to try to teach their children a 2nd language, because they themselves don't know a 2nd language. Some people believe you have to be fluent or even a native speaker of the language in order to succeed. I whole-heartedly disagree. Learning a 2nd language for an individual really can open up the doors in life. That person can do so many things that others cannot. So even if you don't know enough French or Spanish to make your child fluent in that language, you can give them a head start and open up their brain to language learning. When children are toddlers they are like sponges soaking up everything around them. Exposing them to another language will only increase their ability to learn other things, especially math. Also, even learning a little bit of a language now will help them to learn it more later. They will be used to the sounds of French or Spanish and can excel in those languages in school. So, teaching your child a 2nd language really does give them a little boost in life. And there is nothing sweeter than to hear your 2 year old say 'please' in a foreign language.

French Christmas Carols

We are already singing Christmas Carols at my house, so I thought, hey why not teach my children some in French. I found a great website with a bunch of Christmas carols in French, with the English translation right next to it.

http://french.about.com/od/christmascarols/French_Christmas_Carols_Chants_de_Nol.htm .

Happy Holidays!

Puzzles and learning French

Today I was putting a puzzle together with my son Callum and I remembered that we didn't practice any French today. So, instead of working on the puzzle together in English, we just switched to French. Well kind of French and English combined. "Callum where are all of the rouge pieces?" "Which color is this?" "It's vert." I just kind of threw some French in there throughout the entire time we played. Just try to teach your children French in whatever activity you are doing and it will really keep the pressure off of them and yourself as well.

Baking with your kids as a way to learn French

A good French teaching tip that I practice a lot is teaching my children French while we are baking. They are so absorbed by watching and helping with the baking that they don't even realize they are learning French at the same time.

Here are some words to you can teach your kids while you bake something fun together:

sugar - sucre
flour - farine
salt - sel
milk - lait