le 27 septembre

Quelle belle journée! I love the enthusiasm of these children. It always makes me happy to see their smiling faces and hear them try to speak French.

HALF HOUR

I am gradually learning the names of all my new little “amis.” It’s a great way for them to continue to practice, “Je m’appelle…” and it helps me review every Tuesday.

Today, we started by learning a simple poem. It goes like this:

C’est l’automne! (It’s autumn!) Je mange une pomme. Croque! (I eat an apple. Crunch!)

For the first line, they stand with their hands high in the air, waving like tree branches. For the second line, they pretend to hold an apple and take a bite. We’ll continue to do this throughout the month of October and see if it sticks with them.

We then worked on numbers up through 5. I laid out one apple at a time, saying, “Il y a une pomme. Il y a deux pommes.” and continued this with trois, quatre and cinq. Then, we took them all away until I finally said, “Il n’y a plus de pommes!”

They were introduced to another finger puppet, a new glove with each finger being a different color: violet, rose, gris, brun, and noir. We used the same song as last week, only with these new colors. Here is the song we sang, to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin?”

Où est bonhomme rouge (2), Il est là (2), Bonjour, bonhomme rouge (2), Au revoir (2)

Another puppet managed to make it into my “sac” today. His name is “Dormeur.” Many children thought that he was Santa Claus, but he is really Sleepy Dwarf. He had little conversations with each child, asking, “Est-ce que tu es fatigué?” (Are you tired?) He kept yawning and acting very tired, laying down and covering himself with his “couverture.” He tried to share his blanket with each of the children, asking them to close their eyes and go to sleep. (Ferme les yeux, tu peux dormir.) Many of the children were active participants, and even did some pretend snoring. C’était fantastique!

We continued to work with food today. We saw la banane, les raisins, la fraise, l’orange, la pomme, et le pain. Each child had a picture of one of these. On a work rug, I laid out each of these separately. We played a matching game and practiced saying these words. If you know any French, you can work on these words with your child at the grocery store or even at meals. It’s a fun activity and a great way to point out healthy food.

We concluded with our song, “Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds.” Next week, we’ll be learning a new song about fall, so we’ll take a break from that one, but because it’s such a favorite, you can be sure it will come back again at some point.

EXTENDED DAY

In the afternoon, we continued working on key responses to “Comment ça va?” I’m trying to get them to understand “très bien” (very well), “comme ci-comme ça” (so-so) and “mal” (not well). Many of them are eager to try, others would prefer to simply listen. My hope is that by mid-year, everyone will be trying those speaking skills.

We then learned a little geography in France. We focused on three cities: Paris, Rouen, and Toulon. After locating these on the map, I introduced them to a French poem called, “À Paris sur mon petit cheval gris.” To take advantage of the beautiful day, we headed outside. I put up various pictures of these cities. We then got on our horses and acted out the song. This is always a lot of fun and a great way to reinforce colors and introduce new places. Click here to learn more about it!

Once we came inside, we broke into groups and played color memory. Not only is the color on the card, but also the written word. The idea is that each time they flip over a card, they try to say the name of the color. They did an excellent job with this activity.

I then taught them a basic fall French song: “Pomme de reinette et pomme d’api.” If you’d like to hear the song, click here.

We concluded our time together by starting a story about Simon & Barklee and their travels in France. The story is in English, but should help to give the children a better understanding of France and how different things there can be. We will read a little bit of this each week.

Merci et à la prochaine…