Preschool Game to Learn Family Members in French

Posted by Admin

September 7, 2008

When teaching preschoolers, I find that the simplest, most repetitive activities are often the best. Here’s a simple French game that was a hit with my 2-6 year old students. First, create individual pictures of these family members:

un frère - a brother

une soeur - a sister

Maman - Mom

Papa - Dad

Set out the family pictures and choose a child to sit in a chair facing the door. Older children might get a kick out of wearing a blindfold, but some 2 or 3 year-olds can find that terrifying!

While the “chosen child” sits in the chair, unable to see, another child chooses one of the family member pictures. Meanwhile, the group chants this little rhyme . . . a “Foreign Language Fun” original!

Frère, Soeur, Maman, Papa

Toc, toc, toc,

Qui est là?

The child in the chair tries to guess who is knocking on the door. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s fun. Listen to my 5 year-old say the rhyme on the audio file below. He’s an anglophone, and excited as can be by his internet debut!

Photo Credit: by vierdrie at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/622835

Help support this free site. Visit the Foreign Language Fun Amazon Store for a wide selection of recommended language learning materials. Merci!

Foreign Language Fun, French

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.

Comments

Congrats Diane!!!! Hope to hear more of your little ones (and you too), he sounds adorable Deven was asking me… “who’s that?”

I really love this cute and simple game, kinda similar to my knock, knock game for introducing new vocabulary for pretty much anything.

BTW - I might be moving my podcast over to podbean, I like the ability to embed individual episode “players”, something mypodcast does not offer.

Comment by Maribel on September 8, 2008 @ 1:06 am

Hola Maribel. I remember that game! There’s a traditional ‘toc toc toc’ rhyme in French I had taught the kids, and this just supported it beautifully.

I just signed up for podbean today, but I found an easier way to embed audio clips w/o it (which is all I want to do.) I’ve started podcasting for my high school students–as if they don’t get enough of me during the school day!

Comment by Admin on September 8, 2008 @ 1:11 am

Bonsoir Diane…

Simple games always make learning easier… and everything is about “repeating” until it becomes a reflex…

And… take the word of a native Francophone for it, your 5 yr old son’s pronunciation is excellent! But, he has a great teacher