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.

Here’s a fun, quick vocabulary game that my 7 year-old and I enjoyed today.  We were reviewing Spanish colors and prepared two sets of flash cards:  one set of colored cards, and one set of Spanish color words.  (I NEVER use English translations!  Picture-word is the way to go!)

Before the actual game, we sang color songs, identified flash cards, and named the colors we saw on our clothes and around the house.  We matched the sets of flash cards, picture to word.  Now, we were ready for the big Bingo game!

My son and I each prepared a simple four-square grid.  We chose different color flash cards to set in each square of our grids.  The word flash cards were turned upside down in a pile.  Taking turns, we would pick up the top word card from the pile, announce the color, and attempt to create a sentence.  Whichever one of us had that flashcard on our bingo card would turn it upside down.  Play continued until one person had every flash card on the grid flipped over.  That’s a Bingo!

Bingo Flip-Up is a simple games kids will enjoy playing again and again!  It’s great for play at home or in small groups in a classroom.

Have fun playing in a foreign language!

Image credit: clipart.com