scavenger hunts, family trivia, playing with photos, and more!

My last article in the series "Family, Friends, and Francais" has just been published at Multilingual Living.  This one covers tactile and kinesthetic activities you can do with your kids on our theme of friends and family. 

I'm hoping to squeeze in one more series of language-learning activities before Unicorn arrives--probably on the theme of food!  Do you have any recommendations for children's books about food in French or activity suggestions?  (I'll start with the ones we read at French storytime last month, of course.)

lots to read!

It's carnival time! Coco over at Multilingual Mama has published the next edition of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, always one of my favorite things to visit online, and as always full of inspirational posts from amazing parents. Learn more about the Carnival here. Next, you might enjoy the fifth article in my "Family, Friends, and Francais" series for Multilingual Living. This one concerns literacy activities like simple games (le pendu, word finds), easy everyday writing tasks, and creating your own simple books, all in the target language (doesn't necessarily have to be French), all about the people your children love. And finally, I'm also participating in this month's French Obsession Party at Chateau des Fleurs. She's offering a collection of links to posts about all things France (and is also doing a giveaway of a sassy black-and-white ring).

recommended reading: books in French about family and friends

Multilingual Living has just published my article with an annotated list of children's books (in French) about love between parents and children, sibling relationships, and friendship. It's part of the series "Family, Friends, and Francais" and I'd love for you to come visit. Please leave comments there if you know of other books that belong on the list!

good stuff to read!

It's time for the monthly Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted by Solnushka of Verbosity. You're sure to find something that really resonates with you! (Learn more about the Carnival and sign up to receive announcements and calls to participate here.)

Also, my two most recent articles about language-learning activities to do with your young'uns have been published at Multilingual Living. These are part of the series "Family, Friends, and Français" and will (hopefully) give you lots of ideas of how to get your kids talking about friends and family in the target language (not necessarily French, especially if you look at the art activities in the second article):

Family, Friends, and Français: Music, Rhythm, and Rhyme

Family, Friends, and Français: Art and Drama

family, friends, and francais

I'm working on my next series of articles for Multilingual Living about activities you can do with young children learning French. In honor of Valentine's Day, this series is about family and friends. You can find the introduction and lots of vocabulary resources here.

hands-on French activities for the home and the computer

My final article for the "Maison" series at Multilingual Living has just been published: Tactile and Kinesthetic Activities.

Here's a recap of the others if you'd like to try them all:

• Overview and introducation of vocabulary
• Music, Rhythm, and Rhyme
• Art and Drama
• Literacy activities

My next series will debut in January with the theme of "friends and family." Any suggestions for songs, stories, or activities that could help kids learn and practice related vocabulary in French?

literacy activities around the maison

I seem to be pouring more creativity into my articles for Multilingual Living than into my blog of late...but I think it's worth it! I had so much fun coming up with reading and writing activities in French for my newest article in the "Learning French In and Around the Maison" series...check it out if you're interested in learning about any of the following:

• When you should call your toilet a réfrigérateur (and why)
• Who "Monsieur Bricolage" is and what he wants to sell you
• How Old MacDonald doesn't always need to have a ferme
• Which French translations of some classic children's books in English are any good
• And maybe a few other things you never thought you'd need to know!

art and drama around the maison!

The latest installment in my series for Multilingual Living about French language learning activities is posted; this one is about art projects and theatre games you can do with their kids to encourage them to speak French and practice home-themed vocabulary.

The next article is on literacy activities, and I'm also planning to give an annotated bibliography of kids' books (and poems, stories, fables, etc.) in French that focus on "home" as a central theme. If you can suggest any titles, please add them here in the comments! Thanks.

Learning French Around the Maison, Part I

Here they are, songs and nursery rhymes in French about houses and homes! This article is part of my regular column about teaching your children French for Multilingual Living.

sad songs, a big basement, and a challenging conference

I'm back from CALCON and ready to write! I've been absent from this blog for a couple of weeks because of Two Very Big Projects and One Smaller But Still Time-Consuming Task:

1. Researching and writing the next installment in my series for Multilingual Living, "Learning French In and Around the Maison," which, as it focuses on music, sent me scrambling to Griffin's CD collection, YouTube, and the vast expanses of the Internet to find songs about homes and houses. I discovered a surprising number of children's songs and nursery rhymes about appalling situations in one's home: bugs, rodents, fire, famine, and willful destruction of property. Stay tuned--the article should be published on Tuesday, barring any natural disasters.

2. Emptying out our 900-square-foot basement so that our contractor and his workers can transform one large, cold, concrete room used previously only for storage and ping-pong into a space that will--in December!--house a guest room, my home office, a bathroom, and a space that I can use for French classes for kids one day.

And if we can figure out the logistics, we'll have bookcases that slide to the side between my office and the playroom area, which will really open it up for those French classes (and make it very easy to, say, grab my stuffed Eiffel Tower and books and French games from my office when I want to show them to the kiddos).

3. Planning a three-hour workshop about Reading Buddies to present at the Colorado Association of Libraries conference. I called it "The Complete Works of Reading Buddies, Abridged: How to Create (or Expand!) a Reading Buddies Program at Your Library or School," and my goal was to give the attendees lots of ideas plus the materials they would need to start up their own program.

This involved a suitcase full of props, a briefcase full of handouts, my very first PowerPoint presentation created all by myself (I've been very resistant to that program so far), and five teen Reading Buddy volunteers for the panel discussion. Whew. After getting all that ready, I was pooped.

(Curious? You can access some of my handouts and materials online.)

What was really exciting about the CAL Conference, though, turned out to be meeting the keynote speaker afterwards: Dr. Stephen Krashen, a language-teaching researcher whose work I studied throughout grad school! I'll write about what exactly he was doing at a librarians' conference, what we talked about, and what he called me in my next post.

Oh, all right. I won't leave you hanging on the edge of your seat (who knows when I'll make time to write here again): he called me "kid." Kid! This language guru called me "kid"! And me 36 years old this year. Sheesh!

a new series: Learning French Around the Maison

I'm pleased to introduce the next series of my articles about activities to teach your children French, published at Multilingual Living!

My first series for Multilingual Living was called "Learning French In and Around the Garden." This next series takes place right at home: "Learning French Around the Maison." In this multi-part series, we will explore music, rhythm, and rhyme, with songs and comptines about what goes on in the house; art and drama; literacy activities; and tactile and kinesthetic activities. We'll also explore ways to learn vocabulary such as prepositions and names of furniture and rooms of the house all while using French in a meaningful context.

The first part of the series here is a round-up of relevant vocabulary as presented via lists, interactive pictures, audio files, and video clips.

The next part, to appear in two weeks, will cover songs and comptines. However, I'm stuck: I have not found a lot of songs or rhymes in French that related directly to houses and homes! If any come to mind, please please please share them in your comments.

Who knew you could play online Peter Rabbit games in French?!

Worms, scavenger hunts, interactive Peter Rabbit games, "Jacques a dit," online cooking, comptines....you'll find all this (and more!) in my fourth (and final!) installment of the series "Learning French In and Around the Garden" over at Multilingual Living, all about hands-on, kinesthetic activities you can do to help your kids learn or practice French.

In fact, a lot of the activities I describe in the series will work regardless of what language you want your children to speak! Here are the first three articles if you want to see for yourself....

Part I: Music, rhythm, and rhyme

Part II: Art and drama activities

Part III: Literacy activities

take your kid into the backyard already!

In other words, part three of my series "Learning French In and Around the Garden" has just been published over at Multilingual Living. Please take a look--I hope it's helpful for those of you with little kids, regardless of what language you speak with them.

And now, a question: what topics would you recommend for future articles about language-learning activities? The editor and I anticipate keeping the same four-part format for each series (dividing the activities up according to their type: songs/rhymes/music, art/drama, literacy, and kinesthetic). But what should the content be?

It would probably be pretty easy to pick, say, seasons, or animals, or outer space, or food, and then find or develop activities around those themes. Or would you rather see lesson plans for something less commonly taught to little kids, like maybe geography or physics or mythology, or a topic less broad, such as a specific craft like weaving or a specific type of animal?

Please let me know if you have suggestions or requests! (Just keep in mind that the activities I write about are designed for younger children--kids Griffin's age through early elementary students, more or less.)

Learning French In and Around the Garden, part 2

Read about garden-related art and drama activities over at Multilingual Living! (This is the second of a four-part series I have been commissioned to write. It's so much fun to brainstorm what Griffin and I can do do in French in the jardin!)

my new gig

I am now officially a regular (paid!) columnist for Multilingual Living. Right now the editor and I are planning one four-part article every two months with French activities for children. July/August's theme, inspired by Griffin's nascent obsession with earthworms, is "gardening." Each post will deal with one area--songs and rhymes, art and drama, literacy, and kinesthetic activities (though they'll all be hands-on in one way or another).

And the first part of the article is right here!