Happy Crepe Day!  February 2 is la Chandeleur in France.  Follow this fun tradition:  as your crepe is sizzling away, hold the pan in one hand and a coin in the other.  Flip that puppy up in the air!  Catch it in the pan, and your family will be prosperous for the year ahead!  Miss?  Well, clean up and try again.

Kids will enjoy these online activities about la Chandeleur from www.fete-enfants.com and from www.momes.net

Crepe recipes abound online.  Check out this one from www.allrecipes.com.  You don’t need a fancy pan, but be sure you get it nice and hot.  Personally, I love my crepe maker from VillaWare.  It’s easy to bring into the classroom to have a little immersion cooking fun!

And finally, here’s a FREE pdf French lesson about crepes that you can use in your French classes or at home.  It’s great for beginners of all ages.  Click to download:

Free French Crepe Lesson

Happy Crepe Day!

Image by clipart.com

On the eve of this special day, French children leave their shoes by the fireplace.  During the night, Saint Nicolas arrives and fills the shoes with sweets such as candy, chocolate or gingerbread.  He is often accompanied by his donkey and Père Fouettard.  (A scary guy who doles out whippings for naught children.  Yeeks!!)

Since Nicolas is the patron saint of school children, he often visits schools on the 6th.  Watch and listen as these French children enjoy a visit from Saint Nicolas:

Here are the words to the traditional song:

Ô grand Saint Nicolas,
Patron des écoliers,
Apporte-moi des pommes
Dans mon petit panier.
Je serai toujours sage
Comme une petite image.
J’apprendrai mes leçons
Pour avoir des bonbons.

Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas,
Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas,
Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas, et tra la la…

Introduce your children or students to the St. Nicholas Day tradition with these activities:

1.  Make and decorate a paper shoe.  It’s fun and easy to do, and more convenient that real shoes in a school setting.

2.  French teachers, use these downloads to teach your students about St. Nicolas Day customs.

Bonne Saint-Nicolas!

Here’s my pre-Thanksgiving French lesson 2011:

1.  Parlez-vous “turkey”?  I talked about how animals make different sounds in different languages.  French cows say “Meuh,” French pigs say “Gron, gron,” and French roosters say “Cocorico!”  American turkeys may say “Gobble, gobble,” but French turkeys say “Glou, glou, glou!”  I showed the following video clip and my students loved it as a fun way to set the Thanksgiving theme.

I found something similar in Spanish, too:

2.  Next, I introduced a Thanksgiving vocabulary PowerPoint that we made at ForeignLanguageHouse.com.  It’s available in French or Spanish.  It was effective to have the students guess the feminine forms of pilgrim and Native American before I revealed the word.  When it came to foods vocabulary, I asked students their preferences.  I usually draw various smily/frowny faces on the board to indicate J’adore – J’aime (bien, beaucoup) – Je n’aime pas (du tout) – Je déteste.  Students ask a partner about a preference, and then I ask several students.  Follow-up questions are extremely important to keep the conversations flowing.  My students like to use “sauf” (except) and “mais” (but) to go beyond a simple statement.

If your students are younger, or if the concept of expressing preferences is brand new, consider our “Expressing Preferences with Thanksgiving Foods” downloads in French or Spanish

We also have a Tic Tac Toe board of Thanksgiving foods that can be used in any language.  Students can make a statement about the food (preference, pass me please, etc.) before placing an X or an O on the space.  You can make copies for students to play in partners, or you can project it onto a screen for team play.

3.  The main thing my students like to talk about is themselves.  (Who doesn’t, right?)  So we spent a lot of time discussing our plans for Thanksgiving break.  Luckily, we had recently learned the immediate future tense, so it was fabulous practice.  Some verbs and expressions were new, but within the context of the conversation it was easy to introduce them for use in the lesson.  We have French and Spanish printables in which students ask each other if they are going to cook, watch football, travel, shop, eat turkey, etc.  They write, they interview partners, and they circulate around the room collecting signatures for affirmative responses.  Be sure to participate in this activity as well!

Here’s a fun follow-up to the circulating activity:  Human Bingo!  Read off the names of the students you found while walking around the room asking, “Are you going to . . . ?”  For example:  Chantal va voyager.  Jean va faire la cuisine.  Juliette va regarder un match de football américain.  Students give themselves one point for every name/activity that matches the teacher’s answer.  Candy is always appreciated for the winner!

I am always thankful for lessons such as this that get my students speaking!

p.s.  Looking for a quick, easy lesson for the day AFTER Thanksgiving break?  If your students know the past tense, the downloads from #3 above also include past tense versions of the printables.

 I just received the new Whistlefritz French Cha, Cha, Cha CD (review coming soon!)  I’ve already been having a ball incorporating the fun, catchy melodies into my lessons.  In fact, there’s one song I love so much I wanted to tell you about it right away!

Les Nombres is a fantastic way to practice counting up to 20 by 1′s, and up to 100 by 10′s.  It was a success in both my preschool and my middle school classes.  My little ones shook maracas with every Cha-cha-cha and my older students made up a little dance.

Click here to listen to a sample.  Les Nombres is Track 5.

Here’s a simple numbers PowerPoint I made to go along with the song.  Click to download:  Numbers PowerPoint.

It’s very quick and easy to reinforce numbers and counting vocabulary with music and movement.

Here’s what your students will learn in French:

1 – un

2 – deux

3 – trois

4 – quatre

5 – cinq

6 – six

7- sept

8 – huit

9 – neuf

10 – dix

20 – vingt

30 – trente

40 – quarante

50 – cinquante

60 – soixante

70 – soixante-dix

80 – quatre-vingts

90 – quatre-vingt-dix

100- cent

Enjoy singing and learning with Whistlefritz!

It’s time for some new Foreign Language House printable calendars for October and November in French and Spanish.  These are useful in so many ways:  practice days, months, dates, counting; record homework, daily weather, or special events; plan units.

FREE Spanish October Calendar
FREE Spanish November Calendar
FREE French October Calendar
FREE French November Calendar

Be sure to join our mailing list (right sidebar) so that you’ll be the first to know when we publish freebies.  There’s something new every month!

10 – dix

9 – neuf

8 – huit

7 – sept

6 – six

5 – cinq

4 – quatre

3 – trois

2 – deux

1 – un

Décollage!

Children can watch this video clip of the Ariane rocket launch.  Find French Guyana on the globe and show children le Centre Spatial Guyanais.  Culture can indeed be infused into even the most elementary of lessons!

For more information on the French space program, go to ArianeSpace.com

It’s now common practice for me to search YouTube for my lesson content and theme.  Here are a few examples of video clips that can enrich language and culture for kids.  I hope this short list will inspire you with ideas for using video to support your lessons :

• This week I was teaching about pigs and other farm animals as a prelude to “The Three Little Pigs.”  This clip of pigs on a farm provided lots of needed repetition of the new word, “cochon.”  I also shared this song about farm animals.
• When we read Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I found a school’s video about the lifecycle of the butterfly and this authentic song about caterpillars.
• Zoo and wild animal themes were enriched with authentic songs by children such as “un éléphant” and even movie trailers like Georges le petit curieux.  I had never quite understood the appeal of Bébé Lilly until I showed “Dans la jungle” to mesmerized toddlers and preschoolers.
• Teaching family members?  Listen to this French boy talk about his family.
• Fall pumpkin theme?  Visit a pumpkin farm in Quebec.
• Transportation lesson about trains?  Little boys will LOVE watching France’s TGV!

I hope this list has sparked some ideas for ways you can use YouTube video clips in French or any other target language.  There is a wealth of material out there . . . songs, rhymes, vocabulary & grammar presentations, not to mention videos of the target country and customs.  I like to show my students how crepes are made on the streets of Paris, an insider’s view of the Eiffel Tower, and lots lots more!

Enjoy exploring language and culture through the authentic video clips on YouTube!

p.s.  Always, always, always do your initial YouTube surfing far away from little eyes.  You never know when you might stumble upon something that is not rated G.  Another family-friendly place to find teachable moments on video is TeacherTube.

French for Kids:  The Bear Essentials is a great way to introduce children to the French language.  This “beary” fun French homeschool unit study covers the basics such as greetings, colors, numbers, shapes, weather, seasons, family, house, places, days, and months.  The vocabulary lists are linked to audio podcasts so that your child can hear the correct pronunciation.  This 56-page e-book provides picture flash cards, coloring pages, game ideas, and word searches . . . and lots of bears!

The Bilingual Bear books (from Barefoot Books) are a nice complement to this French homeschool unit study.

I have always loved the Madeline books by Ludwig Bemelmans.  In fact, I even named my Siamese cat in honor of the spunky little French school girl.  Last summer I developed a summer day camp called “Learn French with Madeline” and I’m currently teaching a once-a-week homeschool enrichment program by the same name.  As you can imagine, my classes are filled with darling little girls between the ages of 4 and 7.  Every session, I read a Madeline book in English, we make crafts, play with Madeline toys & games, and learn French bien sûr! What impresses me, is that the Madeline books hold the same magic today as they did when I taught almost 20 years ago, as they did when I was a little girl, and as I imagine they did when they were first published in 1939.

On the last day of my camps & classes, my little girls don their yellow paper Madeline hats and recite snippets of the story interspersed with French songs.  The paper plate craft hats they make are extremely cute, but nothing compared to the child Madeline costume I recently received from Costume Discounters, a site offering an extensive array of Halloween costumes.   I brought the costume in to my class this past week and all of the girls took turns trying it on, while some of the moms even snapped pictures.  (I heard lots of  ”How CUTE!”  The photos will be a darling souvenir of the class!)  The quality is really nice . . . the little blue dress is made of thick, soft, cozy fabric, and the yellow hat hold its shape nicely.  My 5 year old son has been putting it on and breaking into the “I’m Madeline!  I’m Madeline!” song every chance he gets.  (What a nut!)  But it just goes to show how costumes nurture imagination and play, bring characters and stories to life, and can even encourage language learning!

Un grand merci to Costume Discounters for providing the costume for this Foreign Language Fun review.  I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent quality and thrilled with how cute every single one of my girls looked wearing it.  Whether your little girl wants to dress up like Madeline, or any other character you can imagine, check out the other kids Halloween costumes available, too.

Photo provided by http://www.costumediscounters.com

This pretty tooth fairy finger puppet by Folkmanis, complete with a little pocket for a lost tooth, perfectly represents the American image of the Tooth Fairy.

But does the tooth fairy come to France to collect lost baby teeth?  Mais non! In France, it is a mouse (une souris) who makes those midnight calls.

The tradition grew out of a 17th century French fairy tale called La bonne petite souris. You can read the story in English here.

Visit www.mapetitesouris.com for information and activities in French.

Want to know how to say baby tooth in French?   une dent de lait . . . milk tooth.

Happy Tooth Fairy Day!

Mouse image by clipart.com