Foreign Language Fun

I just have to tell you about my preschool French lesson today!  I’ve been teaching in one form or another since 1988, so whenever I come up with something new I feel happy and excited.  (It doesn’t take much—I’m easily amused!)

Anyway, here’s my spur of the moment monkey lesson:

After the usual warm-up of hello songs, calendar & TPR, I introduced my monkey friend, le singe.  Then I read Eileen Christelow’s Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (Board Book)  My copy is in English, so I just improvised the French, pausing to count monkeys and yell “Aieeee!” whenever one fell off the bed.

One of the teacher resources I’ve used for years is Rhyme Time: A Beginner’s Collection of Nursery Rhymes Translated into French and Rhyme Time: Spanish (A beginner’s collection of nursery rhymes translated into Spanish) (Rhyme Time) by Marilyn Simundson-Olson.  Although I usually opt for rhymes from the native culture, I couldn’t resist adopting her catchy version of the “Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” song.  I’ve had huge success with it in preschool, elementary school, and middle school.  What the hey . . . I’ll probably test run it with my high schoolers, too.  They know to expect that sort of thing from Madame!

Anyway, after providing the listening input of the rhyme along with the pictures in Christelow’s book, we had a little TPR fun!  One child wore a scrub top and became le docteur, a little girl (Maman) stood off to the side with a cell phone, and the rest of the kids sat in a big circle on the carpet.  The middle of the circle was the bed.  I chose five “monkeys” to jump as we said the rhyme.  I’d point to one monkey to fall down.  The child would hold his head and yell, “Aieee!” while Maman dialed the phone and the doctor wagged his finger and scolded, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed!” We continued until no monkeys were left standing.

As closure, we played “Monkey, Monkey, Where’s Your Banana?”  One child sat in the middle of the circle with eyes closed.  The other children counted to ten and passed around a plastic banana.  The “monkey in the middle” then opened his eyes and tried to guess who was holding the banana.

An no English today!  Hurray!

Next week, I’m going to bring in Steven Haskamp’s book called Eight Silly Monkeys.  I only have the English version of this one, too, but I’ll just read it in French.  This version has the monkeys spinning, eating, dancing .  . . I’m going to have a lot of fun incorporating new TPR actions into the song.

So, that was the fun and simple highlight of my day.  Now if I can just get rid of this strange craving for bananas . . .

Photo Credit: by Dany Sabadini at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/923276