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)

 

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 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)