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)

On l'appelait Nez Rouge...

For our last pre-Christmas toddler session today, we enjoyed singing all our Christmas songs from the last few weeks and attempted a new addition - "On l'appelait Nez Rouge" or "Rudolf the red-nosed Reindeer".

I have to admit that it was not the easiest song for toddlers (or Mummys!) to sing - but we had fun trying.  We just sang the first couple of verses, if you want to have a go yourself the tune is the same as in English and the lyrics are as follows:

On l’appelait Nez Rouge,

Ah! Comme il était mignon!

Le petit renne au nez rouge

Rouge comme un lumignon!

Son petit nez faisait rire

Chacun s’en moquait beaucoup

On allait jusqu’à dire

Qu’il aimait prendre un petit coup!

Une fée qui l’éntendait

pleurer dans le noir
Pour le consoler lui dit
“Viens au paradis ce soir!
Comme un ange Nez Rouge
Tu conduiras dans le ciel
Avec ton petit nez rouge
Le chariot du Père Noël!”

Of course, a song about Rudolf required a craft about Rudolf, and today we made Christmas cards with a hand and footprint Rudolf on the front.  To make your own you will need a piece of A4 coloured card folded in half, brown construction paper (or similar), construction paper in a colour of your choice for the antlers, a red pom pom or felt, foam etc for the nose, googly eyes, and of course - glitter!!

First of all, draw around your toddler's foot - this will make Rudolf's face.  Then draw around each of their hands - these will become the antlers.

Cut these shapes out and glue to the folded card - antlers first with the face just covering the bottom of them.

Add the nose and eyes and draw on a smile and then decorate with glitter and any other embellishments you wish!

Finally, finish your card by writing "Joyeux Noël" on the inside.

Here are our fantastic Rudolf cards - what a great keepsake of tiny hands and feet!!

 

 

Little Imp and I wish you all a "Joyeux Noël et une bonne année" and we'll be back with more French songs and craft ideas in January! :o)