Le corps - week 3 - pancake faces

For the third week of our body topic, I decided on an edible craft. These are always particularly popular with our toddlers and I was just about quick enough to snap some pictures before they disappeared!!

I bought ready made scotch pancakes from the supermarket and the children made faces on them using cream cheese, raspberries, satsuma segments, plum and raisins.  And we got to reinforce some face vocabulary:

le visage = face

les yeux = eyes

le nez = nose

la bouche = mouth

Here are our yummy faces :0)

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Le corps week 6 - moi!

In our 6th and final week of our topic le corps last Friday, we made life size people.

Our toddlers lay down on a long sheet of wall lining paper and we drew around them.  They then had free choice from a variety of craft materials to make their life size person - felt, foam, wrapping paper, shiny paper, tissue paper, crepe paper, wool, ribbon, pipe cleaners, glitter glue, buttons, etc.

Once complete, these were then labelled in French with the names of the body parts: la tête, le bras, la jambe, la main, le pied etc.

The children really enjoyed having such a big canvas to be creative on this week and this is a craft that would be easy and fun to replicate at home.

Here are our creations to give you some inspiration:

Happy singing and crafting! We'll be back in a fortnight with a new topic and a new collection of songs and crafts! :0)

Le corps week 2 - X-ray

A while back I came across a fun looking craft on Pinterest where you use cotton buds to look like bones in an x-ray. This seemed like a great craft for our continued theme of le corps and simple enough for even our littlest toddlers to get involved in.

To make your own you will need:

Craft paper (preferably black, I couldn't find my stash of black so we had to improvise!)

A pencil or white chalk

Cotton buds

Scissors

Glue

Simply draw around your child's arm and hand on the paper and then let them go nuts with the glue.

Stick cotton buds on to resemble bones

Here are our fabulous x-rays:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Alouette...

Friday's toddler session introduced the well-known French song Alouette to our little ones.  I'm sure you are all familiar with this cheerful sounding tune, which lends itself to actions and is therefore very attractive to toddlers and pre-schoolers - needless to say we didn't dwell too much on what exactly we were planning to do to these poor little birds!!  Why is it I wonder that so many nursery rhymes and songs are so sinister?

The lyrics to the first verse, for those that are unfamiliar, are:

Alouette, gentil alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.
Je te plumerai la tête,
Je te plumerai la tête.
Et la tête, et la tête,
Alouette, alouette,
ahhhhhhhh

The song can continue with as many verses as you like including: les yeux, le bec, le dos, etc.

For our craft this week, we made some fabulous rocking birds made from folded paper plates.

To make your own, you will need:
a paper plate,
collage materials,
googly eyes,
feathers
thin ribbon,
glue

Firstly, fold the paper plate in half.

Next, decorate both sides with your collage materials and add a few feathers, googly eyes and a beak.

Add a feather or two and some thin ribbon for a tail

Stand your bird on a flat surface, give it a gentle tap and it will rock :o)

As usual, here are our fantastic creations to inspire you:

 

No preschool or toddler sessions this week - so I will be back next week.

 

Happy singing and crafting in the meantime! :o)

 

le doigt, le pouce, ça bouge...

Our new song this week involved lots and lots of actions and movement and was great fun for Mums and toddlers alike - it certainly warmed us all up on a cold January morning!

You are, I'm sure, all familiar with the popular children's song "One finger, one thumb, keep moving".  Well, I stumbled across this French version recently and knew it would be perfect for our toddler group.  Trying to think up a related craft was not so easy - but in the end I settled on life-sized people that we could label with the body parts mentioned in the song.  Little Imp's is now proudly displayed on the playroom wall giving us plenty of opportunity to reinforce the vocabulary every day.

The French version is sung to exactly the same tune as the English, although the lyrics are not a direct translation.  I will put the action directions in brackets after each line.

le doigt, le pouce,     (hold out first a finger and then a thumb)
ça bouge. (x3)           (roll arms)
un, deux, trois!           (clap hands three times)

le doigt, le pouce,     (hold out first a finger and then a thumb)
le bras, la jambe,       (touch arm, then leg)
ça bouge. (x3)           (roll arms)
un, deux, trois!           (clap hands three times)

le doigt, le pouce,     (hold out first a finger and then a thumb)
le bras, la jambe,       (touch arm, then leg)
une signe de la tête    (nod your head)
ça bouge. (x3)           (roll arms)
un, deux, trois!           (clap hands three times)

le doigt, le pouce,     (hold out first a finger and then a thumb)
le bras, la jambe,       (touch arm, then leg)
une signe de la tête    (nod your head)
debout, assis              (stand up, sit down)
ça bouge. (x3)           (roll arms)
un, deux, trois!           (clap hands three times)

To stick with the body parts theme, we also sang "tête, épaules, genoux, pieds" (head, shoulders, knees and toes) - you can find my blog post for this song with the lyrics and a little person craft under June 2012.  Another great body parts song with plenty of fun actions is "Savez vous planter les choux?" (Do you know how to plant cabbages?) and the blog post for this song including lyrics and a cabbage planting and plant pot decorating craft activity can be found under July 2012.

To make your own life size person, you will need:
a roll of paper (we used wallpaper lining paper as it is relatively inexpensive but thick and therefore reasonably robust!)
a pencil
things to decorate your person with - we used: felt, tissue paper, wrapping paper, ribbons, wool, crepe paper, pipe cleaners, feathers, doilies, shredded tissue paper, foam stickers, felt pens, crayons, glitter glue, fabric petals, etc.

First lay the paper out on the floor, get you little person to lie on the paper as still as they can and draw around them with the pencil. 
Next, get creative with your craft materials to create your life-sized person.  You could go for a self-portrait of your toddler or just let your imaginations run wild and make up your own person.

Here are our creations to give you some inspiration:

Happy singing and crafting! :o)