Catch up post 2 - Noël

Here is the second of my catch up posts featuring our activities on the topic of Noël (Christmas).  Unfortunately due to illness we only managed 2 Christmas themed sessions.

The songs we sang for this topic included Quand le père Noël, Je suis un bonhomme de neige, Frosty le bonhomme de neige, Nous chantons joyeux Noël, Papa Noël où es-tu? and dix petites rennes.

Our first craft activity was to make a père Noël advent calendar.  We decorated Santa's face and hat using the collage materials from the craft boxes and plenty of glitter glue, the idea then being that the children could add a cotton wool ball to Santa's beard every day and by Christmas Eve he would have a full beard.

Our second Christmas craft activity was making our own cartes de Noël (Christmas cards).  The children designed their own cards and we added the message joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas).

Happy singing and crafting! :O)

Noël week 3 - cartes de noël

Our final toddler French before Christmas ended up with us making Christmas cards, that was not quite what I had in mind at the start of the week, however!

My plan was for us to make salt dough ornaments. I was going to make the salt dough in advance, split into several bowls and colour with food colouring so that all the mummies would have to do when they got the decorations home was bake them. A fantastic idea I thought and one which I have tried before so I knew would work - until that is I started searching Pinterest!! I came across an amazing recipe for a pure white salt dough. It seemed simple enough and how wonderful, I thought, to be able to make white looking snowmen and white Santa beards.

Well, goodness only knows what I did wrong but what I ended up with in no way resembled salt dough!! It was however the most fantastic stuff - crumbly in your hands and mouldable but when you put it down it "melted"!

Okay, I thought slight change of plan after our singing we will play with snow instead! Little Imp was certainly enjoying playing with it once it was made.

Alas, by the following morning my "snow" had set solid!! Arrrgghh disaster!! A quick raid of the craft cupboard and we were off, armed with enough card and crafty bits to make some beautiful cartes de noël.

The toddlers seemed happy enough with the choice of craft and made these beautiful cards for their family and friends.

Little Imp and I wish you all a "joyeux Noël et une bonne année" and hope that Papa Noël pays you all a visit next week! :0)

Noël week 2 - handprint Christmas tree canvases

This week we again sang our selection of Christmas songs and I decided it would be nice to make a proper keepsake craft either for our toddlers to keep or to give as a Christmas gift.  Little Imp has decided that she would like to give hers to her grandparents and so it is now wrapped and under the tree :0)

Obviously you can buy special acrylic paints to use on canvases but these don't really mix well with toddlers so we just used our usual washable poster paints in a variety of colours.  Our toddlers used their handprints to make the tree itself and fingerprints for the baubles.  They then added the trunk, star and a pot if they wanted on using a bristle or foam brush.  

I think the results are fab and there will definitely be one delighted set of grandparents in our house on Christmas Day :0)

We have one more Christmassy toddler session to go before the big day arrives but until then Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Noël week 1 - advent calendars

Last Friday was a first in our almost 2 years of Toddler French - Little Imp and I were the only ones there!! We started our new topic of Noël (Christmas) today then but I kept with last week's planned craft of an Advent calendar even though we are a few days into Advent now!

The songs I have chosen for our Noël theme are ones which I feel are simple enough for our toddlers to join in with and which have actions to accompany them.  Some are French songs - but some I have just written my own French version of English toddler/preschooler Christmas songs.  You can find lyrics for several of our Christmas songs on last year's Christmas time posts.  Our songs this year are:

Nous chantons joyeux Noël

Dix petits rennes de Noël

Je suis un bonhomme de neige

Quand le père noël

Frosty le bonhomme de neige

and Papa Noël, où est tu?

The craft is one that proved very popular last year, a Father Christmas Advent Calendar.  The children decorated Santa's hat and face with an assortment of red, white and green materials, pens and glitters. The idea is to cover the numbered circle each day with a cotton wool ball and by Christmas Eve Father Christmas' beard is complete! We, of course, glued cotton wool on the first 6 numbers as we decorated. :0)

Here are our completed calendars:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

On l'appelait Nez Rouge...

For our last pre-Christmas toddler session today, we enjoyed singing all our Christmas songs from the last few weeks and attempted a new addition - "On l'appelait Nez Rouge" or "Rudolf the red-nosed Reindeer".

I have to admit that it was not the easiest song for toddlers (or Mummys!) to sing - but we had fun trying.  We just sang the first couple of verses, if you want to have a go yourself the tune is the same as in English and the lyrics are as follows:

On l’appelait Nez Rouge,

Ah! Comme il était mignon!

Le petit renne au nez rouge

Rouge comme un lumignon!

Son petit nez faisait rire

Chacun s’en moquait beaucoup

On allait jusqu’à dire

Qu’il aimait prendre un petit coup!

Une fée qui l’éntendait

pleurer dans le noir
Pour le consoler lui dit
“Viens au paradis ce soir!
Comme un ange Nez Rouge
Tu conduiras dans le ciel
Avec ton petit nez rouge
Le chariot du Père Noël!”

Of course, a song about Rudolf required a craft about Rudolf, and today we made Christmas cards with a hand and footprint Rudolf on the front.  To make your own you will need a piece of A4 coloured card folded in half, brown construction paper (or similar), construction paper in a colour of your choice for the antlers, a red pom pom or felt, foam etc for the nose, googly eyes, and of course - glitter!!

First of all, draw around your toddler's foot - this will make Rudolf's face.  Then draw around each of their hands - these will become the antlers.

Cut these shapes out and glue to the folded card - antlers first with the face just covering the bottom of them.

Add the nose and eyes and draw on a smile and then decorate with glitter and any other embellishments you wish!

Finally, finish your card by writing "Joyeux Noël" on the inside.

Here are our fantastic Rudolf cards - what a great keepsake of tiny hands and feet!!

 

 

Little Imp and I wish you all a "Joyeux Noël et une bonne année" and we'll be back with more French songs and craft ideas in January! :o)

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)