Le corps - week 4 - c'est moi!

So my New Year's resolution of updating my blog weekly kind of fizzled out after the end of January, I'm blaming poorly children but it could just be because I am hopeless!!  Ah well, better late than never I guess, so here is the first of a few quick catch up posts.

For the fourth week of our theme "le corps", our craft was to make a life size picture of ourselves.

I bought some rolls of wallpaper lining paper from a local diy store and cut off lengths of just over a metre - you just need to make sure you go a bit longer than your toddler's height.

First lay the lining paper on the floor and get your toddler to lie on top of the paper. With a pencil, draw around your toddler so that you have a life size outline.

With the outline complete, let your toddler choose from the craft materials you have available to create their hair, facial features, clothes, etc.

We then labelled our pictures in French with the body part vocabulary that we have been learning.

Here are our completed creations:

Happy singing and crafting! :0) 

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 2 - x-rays

Well, I'm just about keeping to my resolution to update the blog weekly again! :0)

Last Friday our body themed craft was a repeat of one we did a couple of years ago for this topic - making x-rays.

We drew around our toddlers' hands and arms and then cut up cotton buds and glued them to the hand and arm to look like the bones on an x-ray. Of course some of us added glitter as well - every princess has sparkly bones you know!!

The craft gave us the opportunity to reinforce some vocabulary and we labelled the body parts on the pictures too. Little Imp amazed me by independently labelling her own x-ray - she has been sounding out and writing words in English a lot over the last few months but this was the first time she had attempted it in French, a very proud Mummy moment!! :0)

If you want to try this activity yourself the vocabulary you will need is:

le bras = the arm

la main = the hand

le doigt = the finger

la pouce = the thumb

Here are our fabulous x-rays!

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Le corps week 1 - glove puppets

Last Friday we started our new topic "le corps" (the body).  Our songs for this topic are: tête, épaules, genoux, pieds (head, shoulders, knees and toes), alouette, nounours nounours (teddy bear teddy bear), le doigt la pouce ça bouge (1 finger, 1 thumb keep moving) and mains en l'air.

With the exception of mains en l'air all the others have featured on previous blog posts so if you are unsure of the lyrics then please search for the relevant post/s.

The lyrics and actions for mains en l'air are as follows:

Mains en l'air (put your hands up in the air)

Sur la tête  (put your hands on your head)

Aux épaules (put your hands on your shoulders)

Et en avant (stretch your arms out in front of you)

Bra croisés (cross your arms)

Sur la côté (put hands on your hips)

Moulinets (windmill your arms in front of you)

Et on se tait (put finger on lips)

We had lots of fun singing our new song selection especially as these are all action songs/rhymes :0)

For our first craft on this topic we made glove puppets.

I bought pre made felt glove puppets from a local craft store and the children had free choice from a variety of craft materials to make people.  We used pom-poms, ribbon, wool, felt, buttons, tissue paper, crepe paper, foam, pipe cleaners, etc. I think they did a great job and I love their creations!

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 5 - mon monstre!

Continuing with our body theme this week, I decided on a painting activity.  Should we do self-portraits or try to paint pictures of each other I wondered? Then I had a bit of inspiration - if we painted monsters we would be able to talk about the body parts and practice our numbers by deciding how many heads, arms and legs etc to give the monsters.

The children all enjoyed getting messy with the paints and created some fantastic monsters, here they are:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)

Le corps week 4 - biscuit faces

For our fourth week on the theme "le corps" I borrowed an activity from Little Imp's preschool. They have been learning about the body in English over the last few weeks and last week made fruity biscuit faces. 

The children had lots of fun deciding what fruit to use for eyes, noses and mouths and some even gave their biscuits hair.  The activity gave the opportunity to reinforce some face vocabulary (see last post for a list) and also fruits - we used: les raisins secs, les framboises and les mandarines for our faces :0)

Here are our rather yummy faces:

Happy singing and crafting! :0)