Saturday, February 21, 2015

soirée à la française--for the kids!

How much do I want my children to meet other young native French speakers?  Enough that I convince my husband to leave work early on a Friday afternoon to drive our children to Denver so that they can attend "Parents' Night Out" at the Alliance Française, a three-hour immersion experience, even though it cost twice as much as similar events locally (and didn't include dinner, drinks, or a even a bowl of popcorn during the movie)!

Griffin's face fell when we walked in and he saw kids docilely doing simple crafts while listening to French music--he didn't want us to leave him there with his little sister while we went out for a leisurely dinner.  He was expecting fun and excitement, and he got coloring pages.  Very expensive coloring pages.

So I worried about him all evening, hoping that this experience wouldn't turn him off French, hoping that the teachers would stay in French the entire time, hoping that he would make a friend, hoping that there was more on the agenda than stickers and a movie.

And, as usual, I didn't need to be such a worrywart.  Both kids loved it and want to go back!

According to the teacher, Griffin spoke French with her and mostly English with the other kids.  When they played games like "1,2,3, Soleil," he did use French with everyone.  He immediately connected with another seven-year-old boy, as did Gwyneth with the boy's younger sister ("Her shared her sac de couchage with me during the film!"), so I'm now trying to get in touch with that family in hopes that they don't live too far away and would be interested in getting the kids together, or at least attending our library storytimes and playdates.

And now I have a better idea of why this evening was so pricey:


I think Gwyneth used $25 of foam stickers, glitter stickers, and plastic jewels for the craft projects alone!


My favorite Valentine card this year--because it says "je t'aime"!


8 comments:

  1. Nice! I looked into that but it seems like kids had to be older than mine or potty trained (and we are on our way with that!). So glad you had a great evening, can't wait to hear what you did!

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  2. Soon enough your little one will be able to join the big kids for parents' nights out! I

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  3. What a fantastic experience! Now I am wondering how much it costs......

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    1. It was $42 for the first child, $25 for siblings, for three hours. They had planned to have two teachers there but ended up with just one. I'm not sure how many children attended, but I'd guess ten or fewer.

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  4. Yay! I'm glad your kids had fun. My kids looked at me the same way when I dropped them off to Spanish school the first day, but my husband and I enjoyed a nice brunch and they met other children that speak Spanish. Now they associate Saturday mornings with Spanish and do not even think to speak in English with their friends there.

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    1. I'm so envious that you have access to a Spanish Saturday school! I'd love to hear more about your children's experience with it, what it covers, who teaches it, etc. Maybe you could write a blog post about it? Please leave a comment here if you do!

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  5. Those prices sound like what you would have in Japan for English, I think. I'll have to find out some time what currents rates are here for English. (I don't believe there are many French classes here for kids. Usually only older people here learn French.)

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    1. What made this evening activity different from traditional classes for kids is the childcare component of it--it was marketed as a "parents' night out"--but I don't know if that implies that the activity should be cheaper than a class or rather more expensive!

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