Le petit train fait...

Our theme this week was transport and try as I might I could not find a song that covered several forms of transport.  We have previously sung "les roues du bus" and I began to wonder if it was possible to alter the words to fit other modes of transport...  It was and the song "Le petit train fait" was born!

So, the tune is the wheels on the bus and the first verse goes like this:

Le petit tran fait chou chou chou
chou chou chou
chou chou chou
Le petit train fait chou chou chou
pour aller à Bottesford.

Obviously I chose Bottesford as that is where our Toddler group takes place but you can replace it with the town you live in or "la maison" or "la plage", etc. as you wish.

I wanted the song to include a variety of modes of transport but didn't want it so long that the toddlers became bored of it so i decided just to add 3 more verses.  I added "la petite voiture fait vroom, vroom, vroom" (car), "le petit avion fait neeyaam"(aeroplane) and "la petite fusée fait woooosh" (rocket).  I also tried this with my primary school groups and they then added more verses themselves making up sounds for ambulances, lorries, motorbikes, tractors etc.  Lots of fun!!

Our craft then needed to include a variety of transport in order to cover the vocabulary in the song and also the possibility of introducing some more at home during the week.  I decided on a town scene with movable transport to make the craft more fun and interactive. 

To make your own transport town scene, you will need:
a3 sheet of craft paper or thin card
black paper/foam/felt for the road
blue paper/foam/felt for the sea/lake/pond
green paper/foam/felt for grass/fields/bushes
paper to make the buildings
transport foam stickers - I got mine from yellow moon, they have updated them now though and they are even more colourful and bright and not expensive for the amount you get in the bag.  Here is a link if you want it: http://www.yellowmoon.org.uk/product-Transport-Foam-Stickers-A067.htm
Alternatively, you could make your own transport using the paper, card, foam etc in your craft box.
craft lollipop sticks
felt pens, crayons, glitter glues, etc

First design your background scene.  Then cut slits in the roads etc where your transport will go, allow them some room to move along the road/track but don't cut to near to the edges of the paper as this makes your picture very unstable and difficult to play with. 

Stick your transport onto your lollipop sticks and pop them through the appropriate slits in the picture.

Voilà!  A perfect interactive transport picture! :o)

Here are our wonderful creations to give you some inspiration for your own project:

 

 

Don't forget to check out the book review page for my transport themed recommendations!

 

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

 

 

V’là le bon vent...

A change in the weather this week with the end of the snow but the appearance of very strong winds which has made Little Imp and I feel like we were going to take-off more than once!  It felt only right then that we should stick with the weather theme from last week and sing this week about the wind.

V’là le bon vent, is a traditional French children's song and Little Imp and I love it.  We have it on CD and it is one we often sing along to in the car - well we join in with the chorus anyway!  There are many verses and they are not very toddler friendly really so I decided that we would just focus on the chorus in the toddler session.  The lyrics in their entirity can be found on the momes website here though for anyone wants to give the whole song a try: http://www.momes.net/comptines/vent/lbon-vent.html

And if you are unsure of the tune, you can find it on Mama Lisa's website here: http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=3177&c=22

 

The chorus goes like this:

V’là le bon vent,

V’là le joli vent,

V’là le bon vent,

M’amie m’appelle.

V’là le bon vent,

V’là le joli vent,

V’là le bon vent,

M’amie m’attend.

 

A rough translation:

Here comes the good wind,

Here comes the pretty wind,

Here comes the good wind,

My love is calling me.

Here comes the good wind,

Here comes the pretty wind,

Here comes the good wind,

My love is waiting for me.

 

Our craft this week was to make a kite - not a real one that would fly but one we could display on the wall or use as a bookmark, etc.

 

To make your own you will need:

coloured card, wool or string, ribbons, colours, stickers, glitter, etc for decoration.

 

To make your kite:

Cut a kite shape from your card,

Stick a length of wool on to the back of the card,

decorate your kite using your colours, glitter, stickers etc,

Finally tie bows onto the wool using the ribbons.

 

Once we had made our kites we sang the song again this time making our kites fly around the singing circle :o)

 

Here are our fantastic kites for you to enjoy:

 

 

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

Brr, Il fait froid!

Given the very cold and snowy weather which most of the UK have been enjoying (or enduring) this week, it seemed obvious that I needed to find a song or rhyme about the snow or the cold.  I had a look on one of my favourite websites www.momes.net and came across this lovely little action rhyme which was perfect for our little toddlers to join in with.

The rhyme is called Il fait froid (It's cold) and the words are as follows:

Brr! Brr! Brr!
Il fait froid! Froid! Froid!
Pour nous réchauffer, nous allons sauter!
Sur 1 pied, (sur 1 pied)
Sur l'autre pied, (sur l'autre pied)
Puis sur les 2 pieds!
Tournez, tournez, arrêtez.
Nous sommes réchauffés!!!

An English translation would be:

Brr! Brr! Brr!
It's cold! Cold! Cold!
To warm ourselves up we are going to jump!
On one foot
On the other foot
Then on both feet
turn around, turn around, stop.
We have warmed up!!!

Of course, a cold rhyme needed a cold craft and what better than an animal which loves the cold weather - a penguin!  We designed our own mosaic penguins using black, white and yellow paper, card, felt, foam, doilies, tissue paper, etc., eye stickers, and ribbons.  I found a lovely template here: http://crafts.kaboose.com/mosaic-penguin.html which when printed out on card was perfect for our toddlers to decorate with their mosaic pieces.

Here are our fantastic penguins:

 

Little Imp and I hope that you enjoy jumping around to this week's rhyme and making a penguin of your own! :o)

Au clair de la lune...

This week I opted for a very traditional French children's song "Au clair de la lune" for our new song.  I decided to use just the first verse as although the tune is not too fast the vocabulary is quite tricky for tiny tots and it is very important that the children are going to be able to join in with the singing as well as the mummies!

 

The first verse lyrics are as follows:

 

Au clair de la lune

Mon ami Pierrot

Prête-moi ta plume

pour écrire un mot

Ma chandelle est morte

Je n'ai plus de feu

Ouvre-moi la porte

Pour l'amour de Dieu

There is a translation of the lyrics into English on Mama Lisa's wonderful website here for those that would like one:
http://www.mamalisa.org/?lang=French&t=es&p=161

A song about the light of the moon, obviously needed a moon based craft activity and whilst trying to think of something I remembered a craft that I had done years ago when my eldest children were toddlers - puffy paint!  This would create the perfect texture for a picture of the moon.

To make your own puffy paint you will need 3 parts pva glue to 1 part shaving foam.  This must be the original foam and not the gel kind.  Just mix the two together and you have a wonderfully gooey (if rather manly smelling!) mixture with which to get creative.  When it dries it stays puffed up on the paper so ideal for our moon, but also great for a snow picture, etc.  If you want to make different colours of puffy paint just add a little food colouring to your mixture.

To create their moon pictures, out toddlers used brushes - or their hands - to spread puffy paint in a moon shape on their craft paper.  They then added some stars using a variety of materials from the craft box - felt, shiny paper, tissue paper, card, etc.  And a bit of sparkle with some gold glitter glue.

 

Here are their wonderful moon pictures:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :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)

 

Londres flambe, Londres flambe...

Welcome to 2013!  Little Imp and I wish you all "une bonne année"!

For our first toddler session of 2013, I decided on a French version of an English round "London's burning" and a lovely Fire Engine and Fire fighter craft to go with it.

The lyrics to the French version are as follows:

Londres flambe, Londres flambe.

Quelle affaire, quelle affaire

Au feu! Au feu!

Pas d’eau, rien à faire!

Clearly, it is not such an issue in France if London is burning as rather than pouring on water - they have none and can do nothing!!  Still, a nice simple song for toddlers to learn and join in with though and one which can be sung as a round, which is also nice for a change.

After our sing song, we went over to the craft tables to create our Fire Engine and fire fighter craft.  For this craft, you will need:

• 1 A3 sheet of craft/construction paper for your background
• 1 fire engine template which you can print from here: http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/support-files/firetruck.pdf
• red felt pens and collage materials for the fire engine
• black paper/foam for the wheels
• craft lolly sticks/straws for the ladder
• shiny paper/stickers for the flashing light
• red paper/card for the firefighter hand print
• pink/flesh colour paper/card/felt for the faces
• yellow paper/card/felt/foam etc. for the hats

Once you have everything ready, this is how you make it:

• First, fill in your fire engine with red.  You can either colour it or paint it or, like we did use red materials to make a collage.
• Next, cut out your fire engine and glue it onto your background sheet.
• Now, using your craft lolly sticks or similar glue a ladder onto the fire engine and use your shiny material to add a flashing light on the top.
• Cut out two wheels from your black paper or foam and glue them onto the picture.
• You are now ready to make your Fire fighters.  Draw around your toddler's hand on red paper or card and cut out.
• Glue this onto your background sheet.
• Next, cut out 5 small faces and glue them on to the fingers and thumb on your picture.  Draw on eyes and a mouth with felt pen.
• Finally, cut out 5 yellow hats for your fire fighters and glue on.

Here are our finished pictures:

Happy singing and crafting! :o)