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