The four seasons in French!

Now is a good time to do little art projects at home since it's so cold outside. Today you can teach your child the four seasons in French. You can cut out 4 tree trunks for your child out of brown construction paper, then for 'le printemps' (spring), on one tree they can put leaves that they cut out. For 'l'été' (summer), they can put leaves and apples on one tree. For 'l'automne' (fall), they can cut out orange, yellow and red leaves to put on a tree. Then for 'l'hiver' (winter), they can either leave it blank or they can add a little snow to it.

Afterwards you can put up the 4 trees with labels on your 'French Wall' or fridge and you can practice the words.

You can use the picture below as a guide for your tree, or you can double click and print it out and let your child color it brown. And don't forget you can have your children practice their colors too while doing this activity!

Parts of the head in French!

We all like teaching our babies/toddlers their parts of the head when they are about 1 or 2 years old. Why not do it in French with your toddlers or older kids. You can ask them questions like: "Où est la tête?" Then you can show your child that "la tête" means head by pointing to your head or their head.

Here are a few more head/face words in French:

les cheveux - the hair
les yeux - the eyes
le nez - the nose
l'oreille - the ear
la bouche - the mouth
la dent - the teeth

Family words in French

You can teach your children family words by creating a family tree together. You can use pictures or just the names of people in your family. You may just want to start with the basic family vocabulary and expand from there. You can keep it simple by teaching the immediate family names like mother, father, sister brother in the beginning.

Here are some vocabulary words you can use:

father - un père
mother - une mère
brother - un frère
sister - une sœur
son - un fils
daughter - une fille
husband - un mari
wife - une femme
grandfather - un grand-père
grandmother - une grand-mère
grandson - un petit-fils
granddaughter - une petite-fille
cousin - un cousin(e)
uncle - un oncle
aunt - une tante
nephew - un neveu
niece - une nièce

French words for the parts of the house

Above is a list of words that you can print out, cut out and tape to the appropriate item in your house. You and your child can do this together and practice the word as you tape it to the item. Double click on the above image to open up the list to a new page, so you can print it! You can also have your child draw a small picture of each word next to the word!

la porte - door

la plancher - floor

le mur - wall

le plafond - ceiling

l’escalier - stairs

la cheminée - fireplace

la fenêtre - window

la chamber - room

Being polite in French!

Everyone wants to have a child who is polite. Thank you and Please are two of the first things I taught my children in French. A polite child is great, but a polite child in French is cute and great together! Here are some phrases you can teach your child:

pardon - pardon
excusez-moi - excuse me
Merci beaucoup - thank you very much
de rien - you're welcome
s'il vous plaît - please

Attached to this post is a simplied bingo game that you can play with your child. You can print out the chart and hang it on your fridge. Then, when you child uses one of the phrases correctly, they can put a sticker on it. When they get 3 in a row, they win!

(Double click the bingo image to make it bigger and to print it.)

Making snowflakes, using French!

We are getting back in the swing of homeschooling today. The first thing we did was we cut out a few snowflakes and with every snip of the scissors we counted in French. There isn't much snow here in South Carolina, so the kids really enjoyed this exercise. You can take this to different levels by using the verb to cut - "couper".

Afterwards, you can hang up all of the snowflakes on the walls or better yet, hang them from the ceiling!

If you don't know how to make paper snowflakes, visit: http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html

Here are a few pictures from our lesson:

Happy New Year! Starting out the New Year Learning French!

Happy New Year! Now is the time to set some teaching goals for your child and you for learning French. Do you want to spend 15 mins a day teaching your son or daughter? 1 hour? Whatever you decide, try it out and see if it works out, then you can adjust it if you want more time or less. For me, the best thing is to set a goal and work towards it!

Attached to this blogpost is a calendar for January. Print it out and use it to track your child's progress. You can have your child put a sticker for each day of the week that they study French. While they are doing this, they can also learn the days of the week in French. Notice that you don't capitalize the days of the weeks or months in French. In order to print it out, double click it and it will open into a new window, then you can print it out!

Have a great French-learning New Year!