How much French knowledge do I need?

I know a lot of parents are a little worried about teaching their kids French that is not perfect and they decide not to teach French for that reason. I disagree. I don't think you have to speak perfect French in order to teach your kids French. In fact, I don't think you have to know any. I think you can learn side-by-side with your child. As you learn the colors in French, you can teach your kids the colors.

You can also get yourself and your kids a French tutor. Most colleges probably have some students from France or another French speaking country. You can look on craigslist or contact the international club of the local college and try to find a tutor. You can even hire a tutor for both of you. 1 hour with you and 1 hour with your children?

Every area is different, but the going rate around here for a French tutor is $20 a hour. This may or may not be the right option for you, but it is worth thinking about. Also, make sure you get references and that your French tutor has some teaching experience. A good recommendation goes a long way!

Toddler puzzles

I'm sure you have a ton of those little toddler puzzles where they have numbers, letters, shapes, animals, etc. Here's a new idea for a use for them. Use them to aid in you teaching your child French. Every week you can use a different puzzle and reinforce those words. This even works with older kids. My 6 year old doesn't mind me using 'baby puzzles' to teach him French. I even find him playing with them when I'm not looking.

The main hurdle in this exercise is to find all of the puzzle pieces. If you kids are like mine, they are probably behind the couch.

Shaving cream fun!

Here's an idea that my sister told me about that sounds very messy, but is a lot of fun! Here is what we did. We went outside and sat around our patio table, which is made of plastic for easy clean up. I sprayed the top of the entire table with shaving cream. Then I would tell them different things in French and they would have to draw or write them. We practiced numbers, animals, body parts, and all sorts of other things.

When we were finished we just hosed down the table and that was that! If you don't have a big plastic outdoor table, you can also do this activity in a metal rectangle cake pan or something like that. Just make sure to do the activity outside so it will be easy to clean up. And since it's summertime, you can also hose off your kids if they get too dirty!

Summer break from French - Yes or No???

Personally, I won't be having a break longer than 1 or 2 weeks max. from teaching my kids French. If you give your children a whole summer off from studying French, then they will likely have to relearn what they learned the previous school year. If you really feel your kids need a break from schooling, you could try to do 15-30 mins. a day and review/reinforce what they've already learned by doing some fun activities.

If mama needs a break, like I've said in the past, just pop in a disney movie and change it to French for the audio. If they complain, just say, "in French or nothing." I'm pretty sure they will choose to watch the movie in French.

Learning a language is not like riding a bike. Once you learn to ride a bike you never forget; however, with a language if you do not practice you can forget a lot of what you already learned.

Have a great summer!!! I will be posting some of our summer activities on this blog so be on the look-out!

Fruit salad

Wanna teach your kids some fruit words? Make a simple fruit salad and you have many opportunities to learn the fruit words and reinforce through the activity. You can practice as you buy the fruit at the supermarket, when you cut the fruit and when you all eat the fruit salad. A nice laid back way that you can buy fruit without the craziness of a superstore is to go to a farmer's market. This way you can take your time and learn all of the fruit. Here are some fruit vocabulary words:

une banane -----banana
une cerise ------cherry
un citron------- lemon
une fraise ------strawberry
une framboise --raspberry
une mûre -------blackberry
une myrtille ----blueberry
une orange -----orange
une pêche ------peach
une poire -------pear
une pomme -----apple
un raisin --------grape

Dot to Dots - practicing numbers in French

One great way of practicing numbers in French with your kids, especially higher numbers is by having them do dot to dots. Everytime they pass a number, make sure they say it in French. In no time they will be counting to 100.

Make sure to also spot check numbers out of order when you teach numbers because it's much easier to learn numbers in a sequence than out of order.

Here's a website with lots of free dot to dots that you can print out:

http://www.dottodots.net/

Short on time, double click on this image and print it out!