second storytime

Oh, our second French storytime on Oct. 29 also went well, probably better than the first one. Our theme was "farm animals," so here's what we did, along with our usual greeting and good-bye songs:

• invited each child to hold a stuffed animal puppet during the storytime


• looked at pictures of farm animals and called out their names, their babies' names, and the sounds they made


• read a book about a mole who gets pooped on and has to investigate which animal did the dirty deed (the kids loved this one!)


• read Droles de cochon (a translation of Pigs by Robert Munsch)


• sang two comptines about chickens: "Une poule sur un mur" and "Quand trois poules s'en vont aux champs"


• sang and danced in a round to "Savez-vous planter les choux"

We had 13 people, perhaps because it was the Friday afternoon before Halloween and a lot of schools were doing special afterschool activities, but they all stayed the entire time, and even the ten-year-old boy danced!

Our next storytime is this Friday--with an ocean theme--but I have to miss it, because I'm taking Griffin to see his 96-year-old great-grandmother in her nursing home in Indiana for a few days. Delphine has recruited two other moms (one French, one American married to a Frenchman) to do the singing and storytelling with her.

We have an exciting new development, though: the French children's book rental company, Les Petits Livres, has loaned us three fish books for the storytime!