French Friday – French Play Group Lesson Plan Numéro 1

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: 

a. L’Été – for simple vocabulary about summer time; Reading A-Z is a great source of French leveled books; our e. selection below is also from the same website

b. Popi magazine article – for the story about Petit Ours Brun – Moi, j’ai un copain – in the May 2014 issue

c. Popi magazine article – for the story called Coucou, bébé – in the June 2014 issue – to learn another way to say hi

d. Madeleine – it’s a rather difficult book for them at this stage, but they must be challenged a bit. Plus, Madeleine will be one of our French friends throughout the year and we must introduce her. Our end-of-the-year party, in May, will have a Madeleine theme, definitely. Maybe.

e. Chaud, froid – to reinforce the words for hot, cold, which are also found in our Bonjour song

Reading should take 10-12 minutes. Our children are young, but I hope they can make it. I don’t know them very well, either. So I will adjust. If they get antsy, I will keep one or two books for another time.

 

3. Sing “Dans la forêt lointaine.” I will bring a felt nature background with a faraway forest and I made two puppets, a cuckoo and an owl, to go with the song. We will go through it twice. – 5 minutes

 

4. PetraLingua.com French Lesson nr. 1 – Woofy, the Petra Lingua mascot, will teach us, hopefully in person. This is our curriculum for the year and we will do one lesson per meeting. I am expecting a package from them (they are in Croatia), which will have an actual stuffed animal Woofy – it’s a hand puppet. If it does not arrive by next week, we will have to make do with admiring him online. It will increase the anticipation for next time.

Petra Lingua - online languages for kids

The plan is to connect my laptop to the TV screen in the room. I will ask an older child or several to come and do the exercises on the laptop and then all can see it. 10 minutes

 

5. Free play time – bring toys that do not require batteries to “work,” please. – 20 minutes

I will bring wooden blocks, a Madeleine puzzle, a Lincoln Logs set and similar things. No video games, 3D Angry Birds or toy guns, please.

The kids will speak to each other in English for now. Those of us who speak French can play with them and point out a French word here and there.

 

6. Clean up – 5 minutes

 

7. Sing Au Revoir – twice, from the same Whistlefritz CD – 5 minutes.

 

I have saved several documents on our Sevier County Homeschoolers Facebook page: guidelines for the group; a calendar showing the meeting dates and rooms we will be using at the library throughout the year; the titles of our lessons for the year; and lyrics and vocabulary for the songs.

 

À bientôt!

 

For other French Friday posts, please click here.

{This post contains affiliate links.}

Please follow and like us:

2 thoughts on “French Friday – French Play Group Lesson Plan Numéro 1

  1. Pingback: French Friday - Our First Play Group

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.