Nous chantons joyeux Noël...

Tonsillitis gone, voice back and so it was back to toddlers as usual this morning  :0)

Having missed last week's session I wanted to try and cover the songs I had planned for both weeks and so there are 3 new songs this week.  All of course with a Christmas theme, and a lovely Christmas tree craft to accompany them.


The first song up is my reinvention of the Christmas classic "We wish you a merry Christmas", " Nous chantons joyeux Noël".  Sung to the same tune but a bit more toddler friendly and action focused, the lyrics are as follows:

1. Nous chantons joyeux Noël,

Nous chantons joyeux Noël,

Nous chantons joyeux Noël,

Et une bonne année!

2. Nous frappons joyeux Noël,

Nous frappons joyeux Noël,

Nous frappons joyeux Noël,

Et une bonne année!

3. Nous sautons joyeux Noël,

Nous sautons joyeux Noël,

Nous sautons joyeux Noël,

Et une bonne année!

 

This got us all warmed up on this cold, wintery morning and was popular with all our toddlers.

 

Song number 2 is sung to the tune of "Frosty the snowman" and I'm afraid I can't take the credit for this one.  It is one that I stumbled across a long time ago and have used with children in school each Christmas since.  I'm afraid I have no idea where it came from and so can't credit the author.  It is a super little song though and I'm sure you will enjoy it as much as we did this morning.  The lyrics are as follows:

 

Je m’appelle Frosty.

Je suis un bonhomme de neige.

J’ai deux yeux noirs et une bouche

et un nez de carotte.

Je m’appelle Frosty.

Je suis un bonhomme de neige.

Je porte un écharpe verte, un chapeau noir

et je suis très content!

Finally, song number 3 is again one of my own.  I took Little Imp to a local Toddler group the week before last and we sang this lovely little song to the tune "I'm a little teapot":

I'm a little snowman

short and fat

Here's my scarf and here's my hat.

When the weather's snowing,

come and play.

Build a snowman everyday!

 

I thought it was a lovely idea and decided to try to come up with a French version for our group.  I'm sure it could be improved upon but here it is:

 

Je suis un bonhomme de neige

petit et gros,

Je porte une écharpe et je porte un chapeau.
Tous les jours quand il neige,
allons-vite,
Faisons un bonhomme de neige
tout de suite!

After our singing and dancing, we made some lovely Christmas trees to take home.  We had the templates of a tree and some decorations on card and after we decorated them and cut them out we could assemble them to make a 3d tree.  Here are the results of our efforts:

 

More Christmas songs and craft ideas next week and in the meantime we hope you have fun singing some not very authentic but catchy and simple French songs! :o)

 



Petit Papa Noël ...

With this Friday's toddler session falling on the last day of November, I decided that I would start off our run of Christmas songs and activities with an advent calendar craft.  I came across a great Father Christmas one, I will give more details in a minute, and this then meant we needed a song about  Père Noël himself.

The trouble then came with which song to choose.  Did I go for a traditional French Christmas song - which would be a little tricky for our toddlers to join in with but would be authentic.  Or did I go for a simplified song about the man himself fitted to a well known tune that everyone would have a chance of joining in with over the next few weeks?

It was a really difficult one.  I wanted to stay true to France by choosing a proper Christmas song, but equally I wanted Little Imp and her friends to be able to join in themselves with the singing.  I would love her to be singing Christmas in both English and French this year!

After much deliberation and listening to plenty of songs I decided that we would have 2 new songs this week.  For our traditionally French tune, I chose the children's favourite of "Petit Papa Noël".  I love this song, the lyrics are so sweet and it is such a gentle song - I can see it becoming a bedtime song for the next few weeks for Little Imp.  As it is rather long though and the vocabulary quite complicated for our little learners, I cut it down to the first verse and the chorus, which are as follows:

C’est la belle nuit de Noël

La neige étend son manteau blanc

Et les yeux levés vers le ciel

À genoux, les petits enfants

Avant de fermer les paupières

Font une dernière prière.

Refrain:

Petit Papa Noël

Quand tu descendras du ciel

Avec des jouets par milliers

N’oublie pas mon petit soulier

Mais avant de partir

Il faudra bien te couvrir

Dehors tu vas avoir si froid

C’est un peu à cause de moi

 
Then for our break from tradition and our "sing-a long" song, with some simple Christmas vocabulary, we sang to the tune of  Frère Jacques:

Papa Noël, Papa Noël,
où est tu?, où est tu?

Je suis dans le traîneau, je suis dans le traîneau,

Ding, dang, dong, ding, dang, dong!

Petit cadeau, petit cadeau,

où est tu?, où est tu?
Je suis dans la chausette, Je suis dans la chausette,
Ding, dang, dong, ding, dang dong!

As i said, our craft this week was a Father Christmas advent calendar.  I found the idea and the template on the kaboose website here: http://crafts.kaboose.com/santas-beard-advent-calendar.html

I printed the templates out onto card and then found all the red materials that we had in the craft box - tissue paper, felt, net, crepe paper, card, pipe cleaners, foam, pom poms, etc. which the children could use for the red part of Santa's hat.  I also put out green materials for the holly leaves and cotton wool for the white trim on the hat.  There were the usual colouring pens and glitter glues for extra decoration.

The idea is to decorate Santa's hat and face but leave the beard with the numbered circles blank.  During Advent, you then glue one cotton wool ball onto the beard each day and by Christmas Eve you have a completed picture.

Here is how we got on:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :o)