À la ferme week 5 - farm animal masks

For our 5th week on our farm theme, our craft was farm animal masks.  I found some templates online and printed them out on card.  The children then got busy decorating them with a variety of materials from the craft boxes - felt, foam, tissue paper, wool, cotton wool, feathers, glitter glue, etc.

Once the creations were complete the mummies got busy cutting them out and cutting out the eye holes.  We then stuck coloured lollipop sticks onto the back so that the children could hold their masks in front of their faces.  You could of course punch holes in the sides and thread elastic through but given the ages of our little ones I felt they might prefer the lolly sticks.

Here are our amazing animal masks:

Un canard (a duck)

Un mouton (a sheep)

Une vache (a cow)

Un canard (a duck)

Une chèvre (a goat)

Un cochon (a pig)

Once all our masks were complete we sang "dans la ferme de Macdonald" (Old Macdonald had a farm) with each child taking a turn to be their animal.  We had to add an extra verse in as "une chèvre" isn't in our usual lyrics but the children were not phased by the introduction of a new animal and sang just as loudly :0)

Next week we will be singing a special song for la fête des mamans (mothers' day) and making a special craft for mummy as it will be mothers' day here on the UK on Sunday.

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

À la ferme week 4 - piggy pancakes

Little Imp and I had come across this idea on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago although the version we saw used bagels.  Assuming that our toddlers would like to make and eat more than one snack though I decided on mini bagels - typical that all the local supermarkets decided to be out of stock of them on the same week! What I did find though were some little ready made scotch pancakes and decided these would actually be perfect - especially given the alliteration in both English (piggy pancakes) and French (crêpes cochons)!!

To make your own tasty farmyard treat, you will need:

Mini bagels, pancakes or similar

Cream cheese

Icing sugar

Pink food colouring

Strawberries

Raisins

First colour the cream cheese with a little food colouring, I found that this made the cream cheese too runny and so added a little icing sugar to thicken it up to a spreadable consistency.

Slice the strawberries into circles for the snouts and triangles for the ears.

Then let your toddler assemble their snack - spread on the cream cheese, add a strawberry snout and ears and add raisins for eyes and a smile.

Finally, enjoy eating your work!! :0)

Here are our fantastic piggy pancakes, they tasted just as good as they look :0)

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

À la ferme week 3 - farm collage pictures

For the third week of our farm topic, we made some lovely farm collage pictures using a variety of materials from the craft boxes, including felt, tissue paper, crepe paper, shiny paper, foam, cotton wool, lollipop sticks, wool, ribbon, pipe cleaners and some lovely foam farm animal shapes which I found in our local craft shop.  These materials along with our toddlers imaginations were the perfect combination to produce some fantastic farm scene pictures.

I love the way that each picture is totally different from the others, it just highlights how independent and creative out little ones are becoming that they all have their own ideas about what they want to create and how they want their craft to look. :0)

Here are our pictures to give you some ideas and we hope you have fun making your own farm scene :0)

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

À la ferme week 2 - muddy pig paintings

For the second week of our farm theme, Little Imp and I decided that a painting craft would be a good idea.  Little Imp is very keen on painting on the moment and especially likes using the various sponges, textured stamps and rollers that we have so I thought it would be good to have a craft that involved using those.  I had a good search on Pinterest and liked the idea of making muddy pigs so that is what we did.  You will see from the pictures the different textures of stamps and rollers we used, some look like muddy tractor prints, etc.

Here are our fabulous creations, hope you like them:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

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)

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)