Dans la ferme de MacDonald I-A-I-A-O

As the title suggests, our new song this Friday was a French version of an English favourite - Old MacDonald had a farm.  This song gives the opportunity to introduce some animal words in French and also the animal sounds, which are different to the sounds in English.  It also has the advantage of introducing French vowel sounds through the I-A-I-A-O phrase.

There are lots and lots of different versions of this song ranging form the more French sounding La ferme à Mathurin to the most English sounding "Dans la ferme de MacDonald".  It really is down to you which you prefer - a quick google search will bring up lots of possibilities for you to choose from.

For the version we sang on Friday, the first verse goes like this (the tune is, of course, the same as in English!):

Dans la ferme de MacDonald I-A-I-A-O

Dans la ferme il y a des vaches

I-A-I-A-O

Il y a un meuh par ici, un meuh par là,

Ici un meuh, là un meuh,

partout il y a des meuh-meuhs

Dans la ferme de Macdonald I-A-I-A-O

Of course, you can add as many verses as you wish and in any order you choose.  To get you started here are a few animal names with their sounds:

la vache = the cow      meuh

le mouton = the sheep       bêêê 

le cochon = the pig                  groën 

le carnard = the duck             coin 

le cheval = the horse             hiiiiiiii 

la poule = the hen                  cotcotcodet 

le chien = the dog                   ouah-ouah 

le chat = the cat                      miaou 

le coq = rooster                      cocorico

l'âne = the donkey            hihan

le chèvre = the goat          bêêê

Our craft today was a peekaboo barn.  I got the idea from the all kids network website and have included the link here because there are some templates which you can print off for the barn itself and also the animals:

http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/animals/farm/barn-animals.asp

The craft was easy enough to do, although our toddlers (and their older siblings) did find it a bit time consuming as there were so many different elements to make the picture.  By the time we had finished our sing-song we didn't have lots of time for creating.

The end results though were fantastic, I'm sure you'll agree!



Have fun singing and crafting!