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