French Friday, Allons Danser! Review

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For a couple of months now, the kids and I have been listening to Allons Danser! – a CD with French music for kids, produced by Whistlefritz. It has been such a great tool for my French Play Group, not just for my children. We use the Bonjour, Les Amis song to start the meeting and Au Revoir to close.  Continue reading »


French Friday – Our First Play Group

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A few days ago, I ran our first French Play Group according to Lesson Plan Numéro 1.

We had five children ranging from one to ten, two girls and three boys. One family traveled 45 minutes to attend and said they would be back.

Everybody behaved well. All the kids showed great interest in learning French. They made an effort to sing and pronounce the words when I asked them to.  Continue reading »


French Friday – French Play Group Lesson Plan Numéro 1

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About two months ago, I had a burning desire to start a French Group. All the details have been worked out and, in a few days, we will have our first meeting. So, so exciting.

This is a post for all the parents bringing their children, but I thought it might inspire others, too.

 

Here’s the lesson plan for the first French Play Group:

1. Start with Bonjour, bonjour les amis, a song from the CD Whistlefritz, Allons Danser. I will have the kids sitting on the floor, girls on one side and boys on the other side. That’s to demonstrate the difference between masculine and feminine nouns and adjectives in French. Also, to be able to point at the girls when we say “copines” and to point at the boys when we say “copains.”

I will bring the CD and we will sing along twice. I am making up some hand motions.

You can listen to bits of the song on the Amazon link above, to get an idea. I have not found a youtube video for it. – 5 minutes

Whistlefritz French Learning Allons Danser CD

2. Read several books to them:  Continue reading »


L’Alliance Française de Knoxville

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About a month ago, I took a more intentional approach toward teaching my children French in our homeschool. I started gathering resources to teach my children French.

Books and language lessons lay the foundation of mastering another language. Immersion and interaction with other speakers of French continue the process and solidify the vocabulary.

So I joined L’Alliance Française of Knoxville.

We attended two get-togethers already:

(1) Picnic and petanque tournament (pique-nique et tournoi de pétanque) at the Cove at Concord Park

(2) Immersion meal (table française) at the French-Belgian restaurant called “Northshore Brasserie” in West Knoxville.

The window of Northshore Brasserie

The window of Northshore Brasserie

Through the Alliance Française, we met people from Québec, France, Iran, Switzerland and even the United States (ha!). The conversations cover a multitude of topics and we all enjoy the interaction in the language of Molière. We definitely plan to join them for Bastille Day, our next “réunion.”

Here are the details

During the first event, we met everybody and played pétanque. Then, we had a picnic. Most of the dialogue was in French, but some of our spouses spoke to each other in English because they do not speak French at all.

Pétanque is a game like its Italian cousin, bocce. The difference is that, in bocce, you run before tossing the ball. In pétanque, you don’t. You stand and toss your ball from the launching spot.

Even though the weather was cold and my children were not too sure about speaking French to any of our new friends, we had a good time.

To say that I was inspired by the fellowship in French would be an understatement. I went home and worked on some more resources for our homeschool, like subscribing to different TV5 Monde newsletters and reaching out via email to a French family living in Knoxville, who were recommended by the members of this group.

By the second meeting, the immersion table, my children had more courage to interact in French. I am surprised by how quickly they pick up a language, but I should not be. Children under 12 are biologically wired to pick up multiple languages.

Alliance Française of Knoxville members enjoying lunch and French conversations  at Northshore Brasserie

Alliance Française of Knoxville members enjoying lunch and French conversations at Northshore Brasserie

After one month of teaching them, they understand simple phrases (what is your name? how old are you? come here, look at me, please, thank you etc) and they can count to ten. My son already uses “Eh, voilà!” when he brings me something.

When asked how old he was during the immersion table, he answered he was six years old. He constructed his sentence half in English and half in French. Progress.

Here’s another observation: their third language, French, is pushing their mother tongue, Romanian, to the forefront.

I spoke Romanian with my children since birth, but they answer me in English 99% of the time.

Today, my son and I were watering the garden. My daughter came over and asked to help, too. We took turns. When she asked to go over her allotted time, my son said, “In nici un caz!” in Romanian, which means “No way!”

I had never heard my son say that phrase before. Ever.

I knew he knew what it meant when I said it, but I did not know he could pronounce it so well and use it in an appropriate context. So I am really, really encouraged to see a bit of the fruit of my labors.

À bientôt!


French Friday, 4 Calendar Vocabulary Games

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If you need a bit more fun in your homeschool, use the French calendar vocabulary flash cards I made a few weeks ago with the following four games:

1. Attach the French days of the week vocabulary cards to your calendar display. Cover the days of the week in English with your French cards. If the English words are bigger than the French cards, you can glue the French flash cards onto bigger paper, like construction paper.

Attach the cards with push pins or clothes pins onto your calendar board. Ask your students to recite the days of the week in French first. Then, reveal the English words.

French Days of the Week Calendar Games

2. If you have eight or more students, have seven students carry a day of the week flash card and another child arrange them in order. Take turns. If you have less than eight, you can have your students carry two cards each, in order.

Another variation: the students can arrange the flash cards in sequential order on the table. For kinesthetic learners, put the cards on the floor, on a hopscotch rug or on a hopscotch outline you made with pencils or popsicle sticks.

If the weather permits it, play the game outside, on a hopscotch drawn with chalk in your driveway. They can say the name of each day as they reach the respective square.

3. Have your students make up a song with the days of the week to the tune of an English song they know well. Try “Twinkle, Twinkle” or “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

4. To rehearse the names slowly, show them how to break the word into syllables, e.g. “mar-di.” Clapping the beats of the syllables is a great way to experience the pronunciation in slow repetition – essential for memorization.

Hope these games bring a bit more variety and fun to your homeschool learning. A bientôt!

For more French Friday posts, click here.


French Friday, Weather

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The weather outside is frightful, so we might as well talk about it, right? Here are some expressions to get you started with small talk in French. Please find a PDF link below, to use in your homeschool.

French Friday, Le temps, weather vocabulary

 

French Weather

For more French Friday posts, please click here.

 

 


French Friday, Thanksgiving Vocabulary

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In the United States, we just celebrated Thanksgiving – a harvest feast of giving thanks for all the bounty of the land and for the goodness of God toward us. You probably took a Thanksgiving break in your homeschool. We did.

Even though they do not celebrate Thanksgiving in France, imagine explaining to a Frenchman about this American holiday. You would need some specific terms, wouldn’t you? So let’s learn some Thanksgiving vocabulary in French. Click on the link below the picture to open a PDF with printable flash cards.

Thanksgiving vocabulary in French

French Thanksgiving

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving celebration!

For more posts in the French Friday series, please click here.

À bientôt!


French Friday, Colors

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Are you ready for another French lesson in your homeschool? Let’s learn the colors in French.

Colors are an important part of vocabulary in any new language. One can use colors to express so much beyond their literal meaning. For instance, our moods. One can be green with envy, red with anger, yellow with sickness, and white with fear. The ultimate color collection, the rainbow, spells hope and a new beginning.

French Friday Colors Flash Cards

I made flash cards for learning the colors in French. Please click below for a PDF file you can save and print.

French Colors

For more French lessons from Homeschool Ways, please click here. Happy homeschooling!


French Friday, Numbers 1-20

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Hope you had a good homeschooling week. My children have learned some new skills this week and I certainly have learned a few things myself. They say if you really want to learn something, teach it.

For today’s French lesson, I made flash cards with numbers 1-20.

Numbers 1 to 20 in French, French Friday

Click on the link below to open the PDF file or to save it to your computer.

French Numbers 1-20

Hope you find this useful! For more French Friday posts, please click here.

Please leave me a comment below. Happy homeschooling!


French Friday, To Be and To Have

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Homeschoolers, pay attention! This is by far the most important French lesson you will ever have. Without the present tense for être and avoir, the most used and most irregular verbs in French, you will not go anywhere. Period.

Without these two verbs, you cannot express anything like “I’m hungry” or “I am twelve.” Moreover, you cannot even come close to “I have eaten” or “I have gone.” You see, être and avoir play the role of auxilliary verbs to express le passé composé (the most common French past tense).

Sorry, no shortcuts to greatness. This one must be memorized. Take five minutes in your homeschool schedule and go through these daily.

Avoir et Etre - French Friday

ÊTRE

je suis [zhuh sew-ee]

tu es [tew eh]

il est / elle est [eel eh] / [ehl eh]

nous sommes [nooh sohm]

vous êtes [voohz-eht] – Notice how the s sounds like a z and it connects the two words. Most words ending in s in French will connect audibly as a z sound to the next word, if the latter begins with a vowel.

ils sont / elles sont [eel sohn] / [ehl sohn] In case you don’t know, n is a very nasal n sound.

 

AVOIR

j’ai [jeh]

tu as [tew ah]

il a / elle a [eel ah] / [ehl ah]

nous avons [nooz-avohn]

vous avez [vooz-aveh]

ils ont / elles ont [eelz-ohn] / [ehlz-ohn]

C’est tout. That’s it. Memorize these two verbs until you know them like the back of your hand. They will serve you well for the rest of your French lessons. The more you practice, the easier it will be to build on this foundation.

For other French Friday posts, click here. Happy homeschooling!