Deux petits lapins...

This Friday was the last toddler session before Easter and so despite the cold and the snow it seemed only right that we should have a song/rhyme and a craft with an Easter theme.


The rhyme I chose is in no way an authentic French Easter rhyme but the language is so simple that toddlers and preschoolers can easily pick it up and join in - and as it is based on a familiar English rhyme the actions are no problem either!


I am sure that you are all familiar with the rhyme "Two little dickie birds", well let me introduce you to "Deux petit lapins" (two little bunny rabbits).  The tune and actions of the rhyme are exactly the same, but the words have been altered to fit an Easter theme.


Deux petits lapins
Assis près du lac.
Je m'appelle Jean
et Je m'appelle Jacques.
Au revoir Jean,
Au revoir Jacques.
Rebonjour et
Joyeuses Pâques!

To accompany our bunny rabbit rhyme, I chose a lovely Easter bunny mask craft that I came across on Pinterest.  To make your own, you will need:

A paper plate,
white paper,
pink paper,
black paper,
a pencil,
a craft lollipop stick,
scissors,
glue,
sticky tape

1.  Cut out the middle circle of your paper plate and discard.
2.  Cut out 2 bunny ears from your white paper, and two smaller bunny ear shapes from your pink paper.
3. Glue the pink shapes onto the white ears and set aside.
4. cut 6 thin strips of black paper and curl the ends with your scissors to make the whiskers.
5. Using the sticky tape, stick the ears to the back of the plate, the whiskers to the front and the lollipop stick to the bottom on the back to give your little one something to hold when wearing their mask.
And it really is as simple as that!

Here are our fabulous Easter bunny masks:

Happy singing and crafting and we will be back in a fortnight! :o)

 

Joyeuses Pâques!



Le printemps...

After an unintended break from our toddler group last week with a poorly child, we were back on full form this week and the sunshine peeping through a few times during the week and Spring almost officially here, I decided that we would not have a brand new song this week, rather we would bring back a firm favourite from last year.


The wonderful people at Sparklespeak (www.sparklespeak.co.uk) last Spring very kindly posted a free song on their blog called "Le printemps est arrivé" (Spring has arrived) and it was so popular with our toddlers that we sang it every week pretty much until enough was enough and around about October time I hid the song sheets away for a few months!


You can listen to the song for yourself here: http://sparklespeak.posterous.com/106728605

And here are the lyrics from the chorus and verse one to give you an idea:

Youpi! Youpi! Ça y est!
Yippee! Yippee! That's it!Le printemps est arrivé.
Spring has arrived. Youpi! Youpi! Ça y est!
Yippee! Yippee! That's it!Bonjour le soleil.
Hello sun.
Les fleurs poussent.
The flowers are growing.Et hop!
Hup!

1. Les fleurs poussent.
The flowers are growing.Et hop!
Hup!


Hmm... I don't seem to be able to change my font colour back to black now!!  Oops!

We like to dance around to this song as it has such a fab catchy tune.  We have also made up some actions as follows:
For "bonjour le soleil" we make a big circle with our arms to signify the sun.
For "les fleurs poussent" we start crouched on the ground in a ball and then grow up like a flower.  We repeat this action for "et hop".
For "les agneaux sautent" we jump around like like little lambs.  We repeat this for "et hop! et hop! et hop! et hop! et hop!"
For "les poussins naissent" we hide our faces and then hatch out and for "cui cui cui cui cui cui cui" we make a beak action with our hands

I took my craft inspiration this week from the first verse of the song: "Les fleurs poussent" the flowers are growing and decided that we would make our own flowers that grow before our eyes!

To make your own growing flower, you will need:
a paper cup
a pencil
green craft paper
a pipecleaner
squares or circles of coloured tissue paper
sticky tape
glue stick


1. First poke a hole in the bottom of the paper cup with your pencil, then set to one side.

2.Next draw around your toddler's hands on the green craft paper, depending on the size of your toddler's hands you will need two or three hands to wrap around the cup.  Little Imp is 2 years old and I needed 3 of her handprints.

3. Cut out the handprints and stick them onto the cup using your glue stick.

4. decide what colours you want to use for your flower and lay the tissue paper sheets on top of one another at a slight angle.

5. Use the pencil to poke a hole through the tissue paper sheets in the middle.  Then push the pipe cleaner through and wind it around itself to stop it coming back through the tissue paper.

6. Scrunch the tissue paper around the pipecleaner to make your flower.  You may chose to use the sticky tape to secure your flower to the pipecleaner as well - I did as I know that Little Imp will be a little more heavy handed than me when playing with her creation!

7. Now put the other end of the pipecleaner into the cup and through the hole.  Wind it around itself at the end to stop it coming back through the hole.

You now have a growing flower! :o)

Your flower can be hidden like this










And then when you push your pipecleaner up...

It grows into a beautiful flower!

ooo - the black text is back!!  How on earth did I do that?!?

Anyway, here are our beautiful growing flowers to inspire you!

Happy singing and crafting! :o)





Petit escargot...

This week I decided to introduce our toddlers to a French "jeux de doigts" (finger rhyme) that Little Imp and I love singing "petit escargot" (little snail).

For those of you that are not familiar with this rhyme, the words are as follows, and in brackets are the actions for each line.  Hopefully they will make sense!  If not there are several examples on you tube where you can watch someone acting out the rhyme!

 

petit escargot (make a snail head with your hand by using your little finger and index finger as the horns and curling your other fingers and thumb into a fist)

porte sur son dos (point to your back)
sa maisonette (make a roof shape with your arms with fingers touching in a point)
Aussitôt qu'il pleut (use your fingers to indicate rain)
Il était heureux (draw a smile on your face)
Il sort sa tête (make a snail head again and make it peep out from under your other hand arched over the top)

Our craft this week was to make a paper plate snail. To create your own, you will need:

a paper plate (for the shell)
card or foam (for the body)
a pipecleaner (for the horns)
a googly eye or eye sticker
any materials you have suitable for collage - tissue paper, paper, felt, fabric, ribbon, foam, cupcake cases, doilies, coloured cellophane, wool, etc.
glue stick and pva glue
sticky tape
glitter glue (optional)

First, you create your paper plate shell by cutting or ripping little pieces of your assorted materials and sticking them onto the paper plate.  With an older preschooler you can encourage them to try to create a spiral pattern - maybe draw one on to the plate for them to follow.  With a younger toddler just let them go nuts with the glue - you can help them add a spiral with glitter glue or a felt tip later.

Once you shell is complete set it aside for the glue to dry and you can create your snail's body.  We used craft foam for these but card would work just as well.  Either cut out free hand or draw onto the foam first.

Cut 2 lengths off the pipe cleaner for the horns and attach to the back of the snails head with sticky tape.

Glue the shell and googly eye to the snail's body and set aside to dry.

Here are our amazing snails:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

Joyeux anniversaire!!

This week marks the first birthday of les petites étoiles toddler group!! :o)


To celebrate this momentous day, our session this week was a little different to usual.  We didn't introduce a new song to the mix, instead we had requests and sang some of our favourites from over the last year.


It was so lovely to see these little toddlers and preschoolers singing at the tops of their voices in beautiful French and to think back to a year ago when none of them had really been introduced to much, if any, French at all!  And as well as becoming great little singers - they have all become great little friends as well!!  Who could have asked for more!


As there was no new song this week, and as it was a party of sorts, our craft activity consisted of decorating birthday cupcakes and then eating them!! Miam miam!!


Here are our wonderful creations - well the ones I managed to snap before they were gobbled up!! :o)

 

If you would like the words to happy birthday in French, here they are (the tune is the same as in English):

 

Joyeux anniversaire

Joyeux anniversare

Joyeux anniversaire *NAME*

Joyeux anniversaire

 

Quel âge as-tu?

Quel âge as-tu?

Quel âge as-tu *NAME*?

Quel âge as-tu?

 

Aujourd'hui j'ai (e.g. trois) ans

Aujourd'hui j'ai (e.g. trois) ans

C'est mon anniversaire

Aujourd'hui j'ai (e.g. trois) ans

 

Happy singing, celebrating and eating of cake!! :O)

Il était un petit navire...

A very busy week at Toddlers this week with those older siblings on half term holidays joining in as well! 


Sticking with the transport theme, I decided this week to introduce the classic French song "Il était un petit navire" (There was a little ship).  Now this is a long song, too long for our toddlers really and so I chose to use the version from the Skoldo CD.  This is the scheme I use with my primary classes and the songs are lovely, a reasonable speed for non-natives to sing along with and a reasonable length for children to learn and join in with.  To get hold of your own copy, visit the Skoldo website here: www.skoldo.com  Alternatively, the full version is available to read and listen to on Mama Lisa's website here: http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=139&c=22

The lyrics for the first verse go like this:

Il était un petit navire
Il était un petit navire
Qui n'avait ja-ja-jamais navigué
Qui n'avait ja-ja-jamais navigué
Ohé Ohé!


In English this would be:

There was a little ship
There was a little ship
That had never sailed
That had never sailed
Ahoy Ahoy!

To accompany our new song, our craft this week was naturally boat related.  When googling for ideas last week, I came across this fantastic rowing boat craft that actually stands up - and it's really simple to make as well!  I found it here: http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/17489/paper-crafts-make-a-boat

To make your own rowing boat you will need:
one piece thin card
3 wooden lollipop sticks
scissors
a pencil
glue
things from the craft box to decorate your boat and person e.g. felt, doilies, cupcake cases, stickers, googly eyes, felt pens, glitter glue, fabric, ribbons, wool, etc
sellotape

Folding the card is the most complicated part of the construction and is definitely best not left to your toddler!!  Even the older children needed a bit of advice on this.

1. Fold your card in half - like in picture 1 below

2. Now fold each side back on itself to create an "m" fold like picture 2 below.  This is the genius part of the whole craft that makes it actually stand my itself! :o)

3. Mark the shape of the sides of your boat and then cut along them, like in picture 3.

4. You can then secure the sides of your boat.  The link I found as you can see from the picture below used a stapler but we preferred to use sellotape with some of the children being only 1.

5. Finally cut a small slit in each side of your boat for your lollipop oars.

Now your boat is constructed, you can hand over to your toddler to finish the job of decorating it!

Once the boat is decorated, use the remaining lollipop stick to make a person for your boat.  I actually bought some little wooden people but a lolly stick would be fine.

Stick your person into the boat and pop your oars through and voilà - one self-standing rowing boat!

Here are our amazing boats to give you some inspiration for your own:

 

Happy singing and crafting! :o)

French for Toddlers is now on Pinterest!!

I have finally the last couple of days found time to join up to Pinterest and to start creating some boards - it is strangely addictive I am finding and I can see myself going crazy pinning things everywhere I go!!

The aim is to collect together craft ideas around themes in French, for example le corps or le transport - or relating to a particular story, song or rhyme e.g. La chenille qui fait des trous.

I hope that those of you who are regular readers of my blog and who love crafting with their little ones will find some good inspiration here - it is so difficult for me to settle on one craft each week when there are often dozens that I love!

Anyway, take a look and feel free to follow me!

You can find me here: http://pinterest.com/funwithfrench/

Emma :o)