Si tu aimes le soleil...

With the emergence of the sun last week and the feeling that summer may finally be on its way, it seemed only right that we should have a song about the sun by way of celebration!

If you are familiar with the song "If you're happy and you know it" which I'm sure you all are, then the tune will be no problem for you.  The only difference being that this song asks you to clap your hands etc. if you like the sun.

The lyrics are as follows:

Si tu aimes le soleil, frappe des mains (clap your hands)
Si tu aimes le soleil, frappe des mains
Si tu aimes le soleil, le printemps qui se réveille
Si tu aimes le soleil, frappe des mains

in the subsequent verses "frappe des mains" is replaced with:

tape des pieds (stamp your feet)
claque des doigts (click your fingers)
fait le train (be a train i.e."choo choo")
dit hourra! (say hurray)
saute en place (jump on the spot)
dit bonjour! (say hello)

The craft we made this week  - a sun mobile - was inspired by a pinterest find here: http://onecharmingparty.com/2012/06/27/summer-crafts-for-kids/

To make your own you will need:

2 paper plates
thin yellow card or thick paper
yellow, orange and gold collage materials
yellow/gold thread/wool
glue

First cut strips of the yellow card/paper to make the sun's rays.  Then fold them over and stick them around the edge of one of the plates.  Cut a length of the thread/wool and knot in a loop.  glue this to the plate between two of the rays.

Next, glue the other paper plate over the top to hide all the gluing you have done.

Finally get creative on both plates with the collage materials and glitter! :o)

Here are our fabulous shining suns to give you some inspiration:

Happy singing and crafting!! :0)

Preschool session 6 - les animaux et les couleurs

After a week off for half-term, I was interested to see how much my little pre-schoolers would have remembered of what we had learnt over our first 5 sessions.  I was amazed to find them not only able to say "bonjour" and sing our bonjour song with their usual gusto but also easily able to recall numbers to 6, how to introduce themselves, say how they are, AND sing all the songs and rhymes we have been learning!  They really are little superstars and it just goes to show what even a little foreign language exposure a week at such a young age can do, their little brains just soak it all up - fantastic!

So, for this half-term we will of course continue to reinforce the work we did over the first few sessions but our new topics are going to be animals and colours and they are going to be mainly focused around Eric Carle's "Ours brun, dis-moi..."  this seemed an obvious choice of story for this topic.  If you are unfamiliar with it check out my blog post of a couple of week's ago about the story.

I read the story to the children in English and French and decided for the first session to focus on just 4 animal words in depth.  I chose l'ours (the bear), le mouton (the sheep), le chien (the dog) and le chat (the cat).  I chose these particular 4 for the following reasons - the bear because this is the title and starting point of the story; the sheep because this allowed me to introduce the song baa baa mouton noir and the colour noir (black); and le chien and le chat as I figured several of the children would have one of these as a pet and so would be interested to learn their names in French.

We practiced saying the names of these 4 animals and then we played 2 games with our puppet Jacques.  In the first game, Jacques tried to remember the names of the animals, if he got them right the children would put their thumbs up and say "oui", if he got it wrong they would put their thumbs down and tell him the correct name of the animal.  In the second game, I asked the children to "fermez les yeux" (close their eyes) and Jaques hid one of the animals - the children had to say in French which animal was missing when they opened their eyes.  The children all responded well to these games and they provided plenty of oral and listening practice of the new words.

We then sang baa baa black sheep in English before I introduced the French version.  For those who are unfamiliar with the lyrics, they are as follows:

Baa baa mouton noir
As-tu de la laine?
Oui, monsieur, oui, monsieur,
trois poches pleines.
Une pour mon maître,
Une pour Madame,
Et une pour les enfants
qui jouent au ra-ta-tam.

I then asked the children to choose another colour from the story, they chose rouge and so we sang "baa baa mouton rouge" instead!  This proved a popular addition and so I intend to add to this over the next few weeks by adding additional verses including a variety of colours.

I have decided that for this topic each of the children will make a mini book.  I have made them all a front cover entitled "Je vois..."  and this week gave each of them page one which has a picture of a sheep and the line "un mouton noir" ready for them to colour in black.  We will add a page or two each week and then once complete it can be stapled together as a little book to read together at home and reinforce the language.

As always, we rounded off our session by singing au revoir to each other.

Animal vocabulary can be reinforced at home if playing with toy animals, or looking at picture books with animals in.  Also a day trip to the zoo or just to the park to feed the ducks can provide opportunities.

Colours can be practiced even more easily - when putting bricks or mega blocks away, when getting dressed, when out and about, in the car - my children love to take a colour or two each and when they see a car in one of their colours they have to shout out it's colour name.

Hope you have a fun week of colours and animals! :o)

Dans sa maison, un grand cerf...

Our new song this week kept to the animal theme of ours brun dis-moi from last week as we sang "un grand cerf".

You may be familiar with the English version of this song already "In a cottage in a wood".  The French version differs in that rather than an old man in his cottage it is un grand cerf (a big deer) but other than that it is pretty similar.

The French lyrics are as follows, with actions in italics:

Dans sa maison (make a roof shape with your hands)
un grand cerf (spread your hands out with palms forward, touching the sides of your head with your thumbs to make antlers)
regardait par la fenêtre (put on hand above eyes and mime looking)
un lapin venir à lui (make bunny ears above your head)
et frapper ainsi (mime knocking on a door)
"Cerf, cerf, ouvre moi" (make antlers again and then mime opening a door)
"Ou le chasseur me tuera" (make a gun with your hand)
Lapin, lapin entre et viens (bunny ears again and then beckon with your hand)
me serrer la main (mime shaking hands)

The English version differs slightly and goes like this:
In a cottage, in a wood,
A little old man at the window stood,
Saw a rabbit hopping by,
knocking at his door.
"Help me, help me, help me" he said
"Before the hunter shoots me dead"
Come little rabbit, come with me,
happy we will be.

Our craft this week started with a print out for each child of a rabbit and a deer, a piece of A3 craft paper and free choice from the craft box of materials, glitter glues, colours, etc etc.

Here are their fabulous creations to inspire you:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :O)

ours brun, dis-moi...

This week as a change from a new song, I decided that we would once again have a story with a related craft.  I have recently purchased Eric Carle's "Ours brun dis-moi" (Brown bear, Brown bear) and it has already become a firm favourite with Little Imp.  It is such a good story to read in a foreign language to your little one not only because it is a story that they are probably very familiar with in English, but because the French is fairly simple and very repetitive and as with all Eric Carle books the pictures are colourful and engaging. If you do not have a copy of the story lots of libraries have foreign language children's book now so that may be worth a look.  I bought my copy from little linguist but it is also available from amazon and waterstones - and I have often picked up good condition French books second hand on ebay for a fraction of the new price!  Alternatively, here is a link to a slideshare of the story online: http://www.slideshare.net/smt786/our-brun-dismoi?ref=http://pinterest.com/pin/527132331355014382/


To accompany the story I had lots of ideas for craft activities - in fact if you check out my "ours brun" pinterest board you will see just how many I have come across that I think are worth a try at some point!  In the end, however, I decided to exploit the obvious opportunities which the book offers to introduce colours and animals.

We haven't had the paints out in our craft time for a while and I have a whole load of animal sponges and stencils, so this too seemed like a good starting point.

Each of our toddlers chose to paint whichever animals they wanted from the selection available and using whichever colours they wanted from the available paints.  We then annotated these for them to describe what animals they could see in their picture, along the lines of the book.

So, for example, on the top of Little Imp's picture I wrote out:
"Little Imp, dis-moi ce que tu vois?" (Little Imp tell me what do you see?) followed by "Je vois..."  (I see...) and then I labelled each of her animal pictures accordingly e.g. un chat rouge (a red cat) etc.  Her painting is now proudly displayed on the playroom wall not only providing lovely decoration but also giving us the opportunity to practice some French when we are playing in there and look at it.  I tend to do this with all her artwork as it provides lots of different vocabulary opportunities during the week :o)

Of course, you do not necessarily need to use paints and stencils/sponges to create such a picture.  Your little one could draw their own animals or you could print out some animals to colour in and then stick them onto a backing sheet to label them.  You could also make a little mini book - in fact this is something that I think I will do with Little Imp when she is a little older.

Here are our fabulous paintings to give you some inspiration for your own brown bear style pictures:

Happy story telling and crafting! :o)

Preschool session 5

This session was the last before the half-term holiday and so provided a good opportunity to recap on what we have learnt in our first few sessions ready to start on new topics after the holidays.

We started off, as always, by singing our bonjour song and greeting one another in French.  We then sang "bonjour mes amis comment ça va?" and practiced asking and answering the question " ça va?" with one another and our puppet Jacques.

We then moved on to revising the numbers 1-6 - we did this through playing the game introduced last week - "Où se cache le bébé pingouin?"  - and reading the book "dix grenouilles" (10 frogs) by Quentin Blake.  This introduced numbers beyond 6 and the children were quickly counting up to 10 themselves.  We then completed an activity sheet where we had to correctly identify the numbers on the ladybirds and then count out and stick on the correct number of dot stickers on each one.  The children enjoyed this activity and created some pretty multi-coloured ladybirds to take home in their folders.  

We sang our two counting songs - voici mes doigts and cinq brioches aux raisins - which pretty much all the children are word perfect on now! :o)

We practiced asking and answering the question "comment t'appelles tu?" and sang the little rhyme "deux petits oiseaux" (2 little dickie birds) for reinforcement.

Finally, I introduced a new song - 5 petits pois (5 little peas) which the children enjoyed.  See last week's toddler session post for the lyrics and actions.

As this was our last session of the half-term, all the children were given a certificate (diplôme) which outlines in French and English what they have achieved this half-term.  Namely: to greet people, to give their name, to ask how someone is, to say how they are, to count to 6, to sing a variety of songs and to say goodbye.  Quite an achievement in 5 weeks I think! :o)  I am so proud of my little preschoolers' and the progress they have made in 5 short weeks and I can't wait to get back next half-term and start learning some new words, phrases and songs with them! :o)

Wishing you all a good half-term break and looking forward to another fun half-term of French ahead! :O)

5 petits pois...

One of Little Imp's absolute favourite action rhymes at the moment is 5 little peas and the other week she asked me how to say it in French. Hmm, I replied, I don't know if they have this rhyme in France, I'll see what I can find.  After lots of searching I finally came up with a version from the "Comptines pour enfants" app on my phone and Little Imp is now well and truly hooked on both versions.  It seemed like a good one to introduce at our toddler session and so last Friday that is what I did :o)

Now, I was quite surprised that not many of our little ones knew the English version, so for those of you that are new to this rhyme here are the English words and the actions:

5 little peas in a peapod pressed, (hands clasped together with fingers interlocking)
1 grew, (lift one finger)
2 grew, (lift a second finger)
and so did all the rest. (lift 3 more fingers)
They grew and grew, (move your hands further and further apart)
they did not stop
Until one day that pod went  (drag the suspense out here with a pause)
POP!!! (Clap hands together on pop)

The French version goes like this (the actions are the same):

5 petits pois serrés dans une cosse,
Un grandit,
Son voisin grossit,
Les trois autres aussi.
Ils grandissent, grandissent,
grossissent, grossissent,
et...........
CRAC - la cosse éclate!!!

To accompany this rhyme we were obviously going to need to make a peapod and peas - unfortunately I completely forgot to take any photos this week, so I just have two of Little Imp's to share with you, one of the outside of the pod and one looking in.

To make your own peapod and peas you will need:

A paper plate
green collage scraps
glue
5 green pompoms
a stapler
scissors
googly eyes/eye stickers (optional)

First, fold your paper plate in half and cut down to a peapod shape.  Staple the sides of your plate together.

Next, let your little one loose with the glue and collage scraps to decorate the peapod green.

Finally pop your 5 little pompom peas inside - you can add little eyes if you wish like Little Imp did!

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

Preschool session 4 - counting, the hungry caterpillar and expressing preferences

This week I decided to introduce a story to my preschoolers, given that we are focusing on counting this half-term la chenille qui fait des trous (the very hungry caterpillar) seemed a good choice as it offers the opportunity to count the fruits that the caterpillar eats.  The fact that most, if not all, of the preschoolers would already be familiar with the story is also valuable as they can follow the story even if they don't understand every word of the text.

The story was very well received by the preschoolers, who joined in counting the fruits on each page and listened beautifully throughout.  It prompted a discussion, in English, of which fruits they like and dislike and so in a deviation from my planned session I decided to go with it and introduce "J'aime" (I like) and "Je n'aime pas" (I don't like).  I introduced the phrases with simple actions - thumbs up for J'aime and thumbs down for Je n'aime pas - and we had a quick practice altogether saying the phrases and showing the actions.  I then asked questions like "Qui aime les pommes?" (Who likes apples?) whilst holding up the book showing the fruit and the children responded altogther calling out their chosen phrase and showing the action.  Once we had done a few of these and they were getting confident at saying the phrases, I switched to asking individuals "Tu aimes les poires?" (Do you like pears?) etc and receiving individual responses.  Some children were reluctant to participate alone but most were enthusiastic in their responses.

To practice recalling the numbers 1-6 without counting up, I introduced a new game: "Où se cache le bébé pingouin?" (Where is the baby penguin hiding?).  I adapted this game from one I found on teacherspayteachers.  The original version includes more numbers and requires a pocket chart to play.  My simplified version involved printing out an A4 sheet of card on which were 6 numbered penguins and then printing out separately a baby penguin.  I then asked the children to "fermez les yeux" (close your eyes) whilst I stuck the baby penguin with blu tac behind one of the penguins.  I would then say "ouvrez les yeux" (open your eyes) and the children would put their hands up and take turns to guess where the baby penguin was by saying a number in French e.g. "cinq".  Once the penguin was found we would start the game over and I would hide him again.  The children really enjoyed this game and were all eager to participate.  Some were able to instantly recall the numbers in French and some counted up to reach the one they wanted to guess - I think with some more play they will soon all be instantly recalling these numbers.  And once we progress to more numbers it will be simple to adapt my word document to have different numbers on the penguins, and jumble the order up, etc.  Any parents of my preschoolers please drop me an email if you want me to forward you the word doc and you can print out a version to play at home. :o)

The rest of our session included singing 5 brioches aux raisins, voici mes doigts and deux petits oiseaux and practicing answering the questions "Comment t'appelles tu?", "Quel âge as-tu?" and “Ça va?”, which all the children are getting more confident in answering despite having had a week off last week. :o)

Have a good week practicing your French! :O)