Wednesday 8 October 2014

Je sais compter - week 4 - 5 ouistitis/5 naughty monkeys


For the fourth week of our counting theme, our craft focused on the action rhyme "5 ouistitis" or as we know it in English "5 naughty monkeys".  Ouistiti doesn't translate as naughty monkey, rather a ouistiti is a marmoset monkey - I have to admit though from having observed them closely at the zoo with Little Imp this summer they do have a rather cheeky air about them and seem to be the perfect choice for this rhyme!! :0)

If you would like the lyrics to this rhyme, please see my earlier blog post on it :0)

For our craft we made some naughty monkeys and a bed for them to jump on. To make your own, you will need:

A paper plate (or a piece of card)
Craft foam
Felt/fabric scraps, ribbon etc
Craft lollipop sticks 
Glitter (what toddler craft doesn't need glitter!)
Glue
Scissors
Felt pens
And maybe some little monkey templates - I printed some off on card so that there was a choice to draw freehand or use a template to draw around or simply to decorate the printed monkeys.

First you need to cut out the bed shape from the paper plate or piece of card.

Add a pillow and quilt from fabrics or your choice.  You then need to cut 5 small slots along the middle of the bed, big enough for the lolly sticks to go through.

Create your monkeys out of foam or card and decorate as you wish.  Glue the monkeys onto lollipop sticks.

Slide the sticks into the slits you cut in the bed and now by sliding the lolly sticks up and down you can make your monkeys jump up and down on the bed, and even fall out if you wish to act out the rhyme :0)







Happy singing and crafting! :0)







Wednesday 1 October 2014

Je sais compter - week 3 - Quel âge as-tu?


For our third counting session I decided to teach the children how to give their age in French, so after our singing we had a little practice at saying "j'ai trois ans" or "j'ai deux ans" together before we started our craft.

As a prompt for practicing the phrase at home, we made a picture with a birthday cake and the correct number of candles for each child, the grown ups then wrote the phrase onto the pictures (little imp wrote her own phrase 😃 )







Happy singing and crafting! :0)