le 10 janvier

Bonne année! It felt great to see all of my friends at ChildLight Montessori.

HALF HOUR

We started our circle time with “le roi.” He came for a little visit since last Friday was La fête des rois, celebrated by many in France and other countries in Europe. Le roi had a little chat with me while drinking his “chocolat chaud.” He even had a few guimauves… what a treat to put those mini marshmallows into his hot chocolate. I opted for “le thé.”

I then introduced them to M. Pomme de Terre. The children always enjoy putting in the various body parts and taking them off. It’s a wonderful tool to teach them various French words: les yeux (the eyes), le nez (the nose), la bouche (the mouth), les oreilles (the ears), les cheveux (the hair), les bras (the arms), and les pieds (the feet.)

We started working on a new song for winter, “La neige tombe.” It’s all about the snow falling on different body parts and how we get very chilly, but by rubbing, clapping and stomping, we can warm up each part. Click here to listen to the song.

We ended with a game of “Je vois.” They always love to play games and this is a wonderful quick game to review colors.

EXTENDED DAY

In the afternoon, we started with a mini worksheet. They had to match the phrase to the correct season: Il fait beau. Il fait froid. Le vent souffle. Il fait chaud. We then worked on saying these. We will continue with speaking through the end of the year. Hopefully by May they will be confident when on stage in front of all of you.

We then celebrated la fête des rois. What a thrill! Since I wasn’t with them last Friday, the actual celebration day, I just had to do it with them today. We even invited Pat to join us because she heard that there would be food. We had a gâteau aux pommes. Inside the cake was a fève, actually an edamame. We divided the cake equally among all the children, Jen, Pat and I… ça fait douze! Since Hannah was the youngest in the group, she decided who would get each piece. Pat ended up getting the last piece and voilà, she got the fève. So, she was “le roi,” or in our case, the queen, I guess. Since she wouldn’t be with us for the entire afternoon, she graciously offered to pass her crown to an assistant. She had each child pick a number, un à neuf. The lucky winner guessed “huit” and voilà, the crown was passed to Griffin. She helped to lead our closing song by using “le roi” puppet. It was really a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures… I apologize about the lighting, the sun was tricky today!

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We reviewed two of our four seasonal songs. They did a wonderful job with this. Certain songs really get them excited which is great fun to see.

In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, our play in May will be about the four seasons. From now until then, we will be focusing on everything related to the seasons and then we’ll tie it together into a performance for you. As things unfold, I will keep you posted.

Merci et à la prochaine…