À la ferme week 1 - farm animal glove puppets

Friday saw the first week of our new theme "à la ferme" and a lovely selection of farmyard songs.  Our songs include:

Dans la ferme de Macdonald (old Macdonald had a farm); baa baa mouton noir (baa baa black sheep); cinq petits cochons (this little piggy); le fermier dans son pré (the farmer's in his den) and sur son petit cheval gris.  Most of these songs have their own blog posts if you want the lyrics or other related craft ideas.

For our first farm craft I decided that we would make some animal glove puppets.  Little Imp got a puppet theatre for Christmas and is still very excited to put on little shows for us with her puppets and I felt sure that the other toddlers would enjoy making and playing with puppets too.

I bought premade felt glove puppets from a local craft shop and then the children set about decorating them and turning them into animals.  To decorate we had a selection of coloured felt and pva glue.

Here are our wonderful puppets to inspire you:

Un canard (a duck)

Un cochon (a pig)

une vache (a cow)

une poule (a hen)

un cochon

un canard

Of course there are plenty of other farm animals you could make, perhaps you will make one of these animals:

une chèvre (a goat)

un mouton (a sheep)

un cheval (a horse)

un chien (a dog)

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

5 ouistitis...

I love the action rhyme 5 naughty monkeys and thought it would be a great one for our toddlers, but there didn't seem to be a French version out there and try as I might I was really struggling to fit the words to the tune myself.  I was on the verge of abandonment to be honest with you when I stumbled across "10 ouistitis" on Pinterest.  I quickly shortened it to 5 ouistitis as otherwise we would hardly have fitted any other songs in last week and set about thinking up a craft to go with it.

You can find the original 10 ouistitis song here:
http://www.charivarialecole.fr/comptine-des-10-ouistitis-a29491308

The lyrics to our first verse then were:

5 ouistitis qui sautent sur le lit,
l'un tombe et s'évanouit
Maman téléphone au docteur qui dit:
"Stop! Ça suffit de sauter sur le lit!"

A "ouistiti" is a marmoset and by using this word rather than "singe" (monkey) the tune works better - an inspired idea, and one which I wish I had thought of!

I took the inspiration for our craft this week from one we did way back in the early part of 2012 before I had started to blog about the group.  We sang the song "5 dans le lit" and made little lollipop stick people in an envelope bed.  Using this as a starting point I decided that we would make some monkeys that could both jump on the bed and fall off it.

To make your own you will need:
stiff card for the bed
felt/fabric to make the covers
foam/card to make the monkeys
lollipop sticks
scissors
glue

First draw a bed on the stiff card and cut out.  Cut out some of your fabric or felt to make covers and glue this onto the bed.  Set aside to dry.

Draw 5 monkeys on the foam or card - you can draw them freehand or find a free clipart picture to use as a template.  Cut them out and glue one onto each lollipop stick.

Make 5 slits in the bed big enough for the lollipop sticks to slide into.

Put the lollipop stick monkeys into the slits in the bed.  By moving the lollipop sticks up and down you can make the monkeys jump and if they jump too high, they will come out and fall off the bed :o)

Here are our fantastic jumping monkeys to give you some inspiration:

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

Il était une bergère...

There was a shepherdess was the new song a couple of weeks ago - only now finding time to post!! - and an opportunity to also revist an old toddler French favourite "baa baa mouton noir".

Il était une bergère is a traditional French comptine with a few versions and many verses. Although it starts off fairly lightheartedly about a shepherdess making cheese from her Sheep's milk it becomes more and more sinister as the song goes on ending with the death of the kitten in some versions or continuing with extra verses where she visits the confessional and seeks forgiveness in some. I took the decision, therefore, that we would stick with the first 2 verses only for the purposes of the toddler group :0)

The lyrics for these two verses are as follow:

Il ètait une bergère

Et Ron et Ron petit patapon,

Il était une bergère

Qui gardait ses moutons, Ron, Ron,

Qui gardait ses moutons.

Elle fit un fromage,

Et Ron et Ron petit patapon

Elle fit un fromage

Au lait de ses moutons Ron Ron

Au lait de ses moutons.

There are various versions available on iTunes to download of you can listen and watch some animated versions on you tube.

Our accompanying craft is one which we did in our very first toddler French session to go with baa baa mouton noir but as we only had 2 children at that session I decided we would do it again.

To make your own standing woolly sheep you will need:

White card

2 wooden pegs

Felt pens

Googly/sticker eyes

Wool - any colour(s) you choose

First cut out a sheep body shape from your card and set aside, then cut out a head shape, draw on a mouth, colour in the ears, add eyes and set aside

Decide what colour you want your Sheep's legs to be and use the felt pens to colour in the wooden pegs.

Decide on the colour(s) you want for your sheep and then begin winding wool all around your Sheep's body. Some of our toddlers chose to instead cut up the wool and stick it on to the body which worked just as well :0)

Attach the pegs to the body and then glue on the face.

Voilà - one little woolly sheep which should stand up by itself (a bit of tweaking of the pegs might be required!)

Here are our fantastic creations:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :O)

 

Preschool session 9 - les animaux et les couleurs

Time seems to be flying by so quickly at the moment, that end of summer term round of cello concerts, sports days, dance shows... I can't believe how far behind I am with keeping the blog updated!  I will give a quick overview of what we did in the Preschool groups last week here, then update with last week's toddler session.  Then I will try to get back on track this weekend with a proper post about this week's preschool session which will be the final one before the summer break.

So, last week we were continuing with our theme of animals and colours based around the story ours brun, dis-moi.  We sang the songs we have been learning over the last few weeks - "Dans la ferme de Macdonald", "Tourne tourne petit moulin", "Deux petits oiseaux", "Peux tu marcher comme un canard" and "Baa baa mouton noir".  Again, we expanded on Baa Baa by adding extra verses as the children chose different colours for the sheep to be.

We played a game with the coloured beanbags, throwing and catching and calling out the colours - the children are all gaining in confidence in naming the colours in French and are really good at recognising the French names if I call for "vert" for example the child with the green beanbag will throw it to me, more often than not accompanied by the other children shouting "A. has it!"

I introduced a new game in this session as well which proved a big big hit - so popular in fact that we had to play it twice and had there been more time the children would have loved to play it again, I have promised we will play it at this week's session :o)  The game is one I am sure you are familiar with - matching pairs.  I made some cards of the animals in the story, so a brown bear, yellow duck, etc.  I then cut these in half so that the children have to find the matching heads and tails of the animals.  We sat in a circle and each child took it in turns to turn two cards over - if the cards matched they got to keep them, if not they had to turn them back over.  However, to get us practicing the French vocabulary they also had to name either the colours they had turned over or the animals.  On our second game, they had a go at naming both.  Such a simple game and one that could easily be adapted to introduce French vocabulary with any matching pairs game I'm sure - Little Imp has a game that matches the animal to it's baby and this is great fun to play in French or English.

I read the children a new story about animals, the wonderful "Cher Zoo" (Dear Zoo) by Rod Campbell.  The children enjoyed the story and I was thrilled that some of them were able to join in with "grenouille" (frog) and all were able to join in with "chien" (dog) - the animals that we have come across in Ours brun over the past few weeks.  As well as listening to the story, we also spoke about the various colours of the animals and the boxes and crates that they are hiding under.  You can find my review of this book here: http://www.frenchfortoddlers.blogspot.co.uk/p/book-reviews.html 
And an idea for a dear zoo craft activity here: http://www.frenchfortoddlers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/cher-zoo.html

The next session will be the final one on this topic and the final one before the summer break.  The children will all be bringing home their end of topic certificates and also their progress reports. 

Wishing you a fun week of French! :o)

Cinq petits cochons...

I'm sure that all of you are familiar with the English nursery rhyme "This little piggy", well last week at our toddler session I introduced a French version which I had come across on momes.net

The lyrics are similar to the English but not quite the same as you will see.  The actions, however, are exactly the same :o)

Cinq petits cochons
tout roses et tout ronds  (hold up all 5 fingers of one hand)

Celui-ci reste à la maison (wiggle the thumb)

Celui-ci va au marché (wiggle the index finger)

Celui-ci mange tout (wiggle the middle finger)

Celui-ci ne dit rien (wiggle the ring finger)

Et celui-ci pleure tout le long de la chemin.
Guiliguili!

We haven't done a cake related craft for a while and so I decided that this week we would make little piggy cupcakes.  To make your own your will need (per piggy cupcake):

a cupcake
pink frosting (butter cream or royal icing will be fine)
a pink marshmallow
a raisin cut in half
two triangles cut out of a slice of strawberry

Simply spread the icing onto the cupcake and place the marshmallow in the middle for the snout.  Next add the raisin halves as eyes and the strawberry triangles as ears.  Finally, devour your masterpiece!!  Miam, miam!

Here are our cute little piggies for you to admire!

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

Preschool session 8 - les animaux et les couleurs

I seem to be way behind on my blog posts at the moment, tomorrow will be the 9th preschool session and I still haven't written about the 8th or last week's toddler session!

So, last week's preschool session (number 8) continued with the themes of colours and animals and we repeated the songs and activities from the previous 2 weeks, including dans la ferme de macdonald, baa baa mouton noir and peux-tu marcher comme un canard and playing various games with the beanbags and schleich animals.

I introduced a new song to the group "Tourne tourne petit moulin".  I chose this song as it is nice and simple and repetitive and does include a bird and a fish so fits the animal topic.  It is a firm favourite at our toddler session and I hope that it will become one with the preschoolers too.

The lyrics (and actions) are as follows:

Tourne, tourne, petit moulin,   (roll arms)
Frappent, frappent, petites mains,    (clap hands)
Vole, vole petit oiseau,    (make hands into a bird)
Nage, nage, poisson dans l'eau (make hands into a fish)

Petit moulin a bien tourné
Petits mains ont bien frappé
Petit oiseau a bien volé
Petit poisson a bien nagé

We also played an animal colour bingo game which I had made for the children.  Each child had a bingo card (see top picture for Little Imp's card) and a pen, as I called the animals, e.g. poisson orange, they had to find them on their bingo card and cross them out or circle them.  The children focused well on this activity listening carefully for the animal names and colours and proudly pointing them out to me on their sheets before marking them off.

This week's session will continue with the same theme and hopefully I will get my post written a bit quicker! :o)

Preschool session 7 - les animaux et les couleurs

Last week's preschool session was still focused on the topics of animals and colours.  We started the session as usual with our bonjour song and asking one another "ça va?". 

I again read them the story of "Ours brun, dis-moi" and was impressed that they had remembered some of the animal names from the first session.  I introduced a couple more animals to the four from last week, namely le canard (duck) and l'oiseau (bird).  We played some games with Jacques (our puppet) where he hid one or more of the animals and the children had to guess in French which was missing. 

We sang "Baa baa mouton noir" again and I introduced a new song "Dans la ferme de Macdonald".  On our farm Old Macdonald had a sheep, a duck, a dog and also 2 new animals le cochon (pig) and la vache (cow).  As the tune is familiar and the lyrics very repetitive it did not take the children long to pick this song up and join in with me.  To view the lyrics and a related craft idea for this song, see my previous blog post here: http://www.frenchfortoddlers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/dans-la-ferme-de-macdonald-i-i-o.html

The only colours we had really looked at in the first week, aside from reading the story were noir and rouge (we sang baa baa mouton rouge) and so this session I introduced the remaining colours from the story:
bleu (blue)
jaune (yellow)
vert (green)
orange
blanc (white)
brun (brown)
violet (purple)
I introduced the colours using beanbags and we played a variety of games involving throwing and catching the beanbags and chanting the names of the colours.  Jacques was also involved in the games and as last week with the animal names kept getting the colours muddles and needed the children to correct him.

I gave the children a further 2 pages for their mini books to take home and colour in - un canard jaune and un oiseau rouge.

We then had a bit of a dance about sining "Peux-tu marcher comme un canard?" (Can you walk like a duck?) before singing our goodbyes.  You can find more details on this song and a related activity on my post here: http://frenchfortoddlers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/peux-tu-marcher-comme-un-canard.html

The next session will focus on some more animals and consolidating colours - and of course there will be another new song to sing!! :0)

Preschool session 6 - les animaux et les couleurs

After a week off for half-term, I was interested to see how much my little pre-schoolers would have remembered of what we had learnt over our first 5 sessions.  I was amazed to find them not only able to say "bonjour" and sing our bonjour song with their usual gusto but also easily able to recall numbers to 6, how to introduce themselves, say how they are, AND sing all the songs and rhymes we have been learning!  They really are little superstars and it just goes to show what even a little foreign language exposure a week at such a young age can do, their little brains just soak it all up - fantastic!

So, for this half-term we will of course continue to reinforce the work we did over the first few sessions but our new topics are going to be animals and colours and they are going to be mainly focused around Eric Carle's "Ours brun, dis-moi..."  this seemed an obvious choice of story for this topic.  If you are unfamiliar with it check out my blog post of a couple of week's ago about the story.

I read the story to the children in English and French and decided for the first session to focus on just 4 animal words in depth.  I chose l'ours (the bear), le mouton (the sheep), le chien (the dog) and le chat (the cat).  I chose these particular 4 for the following reasons - the bear because this is the title and starting point of the story; the sheep because this allowed me to introduce the song baa baa mouton noir and the colour noir (black); and le chien and le chat as I figured several of the children would have one of these as a pet and so would be interested to learn their names in French.

We practiced saying the names of these 4 animals and then we played 2 games with our puppet Jacques.  In the first game, Jacques tried to remember the names of the animals, if he got them right the children would put their thumbs up and say "oui", if he got it wrong they would put their thumbs down and tell him the correct name of the animal.  In the second game, I asked the children to "fermez les yeux" (close their eyes) and Jaques hid one of the animals - the children had to say in French which animal was missing when they opened their eyes.  The children all responded well to these games and they provided plenty of oral and listening practice of the new words.

We then sang baa baa black sheep in English before I introduced the French version.  For those who are unfamiliar with the lyrics, they are as follows:

Baa baa mouton noir
As-tu de la laine?
Oui, monsieur, oui, monsieur,
trois poches pleines.
Une pour mon maître,
Une pour Madame,
Et une pour les enfants
qui jouent au ra-ta-tam.

I then asked the children to choose another colour from the story, they chose rouge and so we sang "baa baa mouton rouge" instead!  This proved a popular addition and so I intend to add to this over the next few weeks by adding additional verses including a variety of colours.

I have decided that for this topic each of the children will make a mini book.  I have made them all a front cover entitled "Je vois..."  and this week gave each of them page one which has a picture of a sheep and the line "un mouton noir" ready for them to colour in black.  We will add a page or two each week and then once complete it can be stapled together as a little book to read together at home and reinforce the language.

As always, we rounded off our session by singing au revoir to each other.

Animal vocabulary can be reinforced at home if playing with toy animals, or looking at picture books with animals in.  Also a day trip to the zoo or just to the park to feed the ducks can provide opportunities.

Colours can be practiced even more easily - when putting bricks or mega blocks away, when getting dressed, when out and about, in the car - my children love to take a colour or two each and when they see a car in one of their colours they have to shout out it's colour name.

Hope you have a fun week of colours and animals! :o)

Dans sa maison, un grand cerf...

Our new song this week kept to the animal theme of ours brun dis-moi from last week as we sang "un grand cerf".

You may be familiar with the English version of this song already "In a cottage in a wood".  The French version differs in that rather than an old man in his cottage it is un grand cerf (a big deer) but other than that it is pretty similar.

The French lyrics are as follows, with actions in italics:

Dans sa maison (make a roof shape with your hands)
un grand cerf (spread your hands out with palms forward, touching the sides of your head with your thumbs to make antlers)
regardait par la fenêtre (put on hand above eyes and mime looking)
un lapin venir à lui (make bunny ears above your head)
et frapper ainsi (mime knocking on a door)
"Cerf, cerf, ouvre moi" (make antlers again and then mime opening a door)
"Ou le chasseur me tuera" (make a gun with your hand)
Lapin, lapin entre et viens (bunny ears again and then beckon with your hand)
me serrer la main (mime shaking hands)

The English version differs slightly and goes like this:
In a cottage, in a wood,
A little old man at the window stood,
Saw a rabbit hopping by,
knocking at his door.
"Help me, help me, help me" he said
"Before the hunter shoots me dead"
Come little rabbit, come with me,
happy we will be.

Our craft this week started with a print out for each child of a rabbit and a deer, a piece of A3 craft paper and free choice from the craft box of materials, glitter glues, colours, etc etc.

Here are their fabulous creations to inspire you:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :O)