how to get a seven-year-old to pay attention during French storytime

Ask him if he wants to read one of the books to the little kids!  Here's Griffin with T'choupi au cirque, about the beloved penguin's trip to the circus with his grandfather.

French storytime: le vert

After day after uncharacteristically rainy day here along Colorado's Front Range, our lawns are lush and weedy, our skies cloudy, and we are all rolling our eyes about the fact that for the second year in a row, it snowed on Mother's Day.  So in honor of our soggy springtime, I picked GREEN as the theme for my most recent library storytime.

After "Dans la forêt lointaine," our usual opening song (which happens to be about birds in the woods, so, green), we read and discussed a nonfiction board book about the seasons, Au fil des saisons.  Well, as much discussion as you can get from toddlers and preschoolers.  In other words, we named the seasons with help from the grown-ups; exclaimed about how pretty the tree in the book was; established that the apples were red, the leaves started out green but turned to red and orange and brown; and waved bye-bye to the baby birds as they left their nest.

To transition, we sang and danced to "Savez-vous planter les choux," a traditional song about planting cabbages with different parts of one's body.  Perfect for this time of year, and very much in keeping with the green theme.

And what else happens in the spring?  The caterpillars transform into butterflies, which means I had to read the French translation of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, prosaically titled La chenille qui fait des trous (the caterpillar that makes holes).  Everybody loves that little caterpillar!

And once you've spent time with a little green caterpillar, it just makes sense to move on to a little green mouse, so then we sang the vaguely psychodelic song "Une souris verte," in which the narrator catches said little green mouse by its tail, shows it to some gentlemen (who tell him to dip the mouse in oil and water in order to turn it into a hot snail--wtf, right?), and then tries to resettle it in cozy new homes (his drawer, his hat, and his--ew--underpants), each of which it objects to.  The song closes on the indelible and cringe-worthy image of the souris verte leaving trois petites crottes in the singer's shorts.

In other words, the children loooooooved it.  And not just the boys!

We concluded with another French translation of a familiar picture book, Ed Emberley's Go Away, Big Green Monster (thanks, Carol, for showing me the French version!).  This one is such a favorite for storytimes because the kiddos get to yell "Va-t-en!" (go away!) at the monster a lot.  (Go on, try it yourself!  Feels good, doesn't it?)

After our good-bye song ("Ainsi font font font"), we did a petit bricolage to close our green afternoon--a craft project that involved gluing torn pieces of brown and green construction paper onto a black-line drawing of a tree (copied onto card stock).  I also printed out some cute little clip art pictures related to trees--apple blossoms, apples, bird nests, owls, beehives, and squirrels.  (I am very fond of craft projects that require no artistic ability and very little prep on my part, especially since I do these storytimes on a volunteer basis!)

Gwyneth got tired of gluing before she finished her tree.  Oh well, she's three.

So, happy spring, all.  Hope you've got lots of vert where you are, too.

Legos make everything better

Wouldn't his would be a fun project for French playdates?

So my storytimes at the Lafayette Public Library are back, and so far successful at bringing in a fun mix of toddlers and preschoolers, Americans and native Francophones, people familiar with some of the stories and songs while others are eager to learn new ones (one maman even recorded me on her phone--"All we know are lullabies in French and I desperately need some new songs!").

I do want to get back in the habit of posting about storytimes in greater detail, but first I have more urgent--but related--business to cover:

French Playdates at the Library!

Gwyneth investigates a French trivia game called Voyage en France which features questions about culture, vocabulary, and grammar.  It's pretty dry, but Griffin enjoys it, especially the "which word doesn't belong?" cards.  I keep meaning to make new cards with easier questions that are more relevant to a seven-year-old boy and which address facts and ideas that he has already been exposed to, such as the areas we visited in France last year.

The Powers That Be gave me permission to offer a monthly playdate for older kids (ages 5-10) in addition to the storytime; it meets the fourth Sunday of the month from 2:00-4:00.  We have a nice medium-sized room with tables, a white board, computers, and even a sink and fridge.  

Ever since the Parenting Place--a nonprofit parenting support center in Boulder that offered classes, counseling, a food and diaper bank, and a lots of playgroups for various groups--closed, the French-speaking community in Boulder County has not had a regular, low-stress, drop-in playgroup that meets in a public place!

Ah, le bon vieux temps....

For nearly five years,  Griffin and I (and then Gwyneth, Griffin, and I) trekked to downtown Boulder every Monday morning so the kids could play on bikes, scooters, slides, sandbox, and other equipment in the enclosed courtyard, or engage with the dollhouse, puzzles, dinosaurs, cars, and craft supplies in the playroom, while anywhere between two and ten moms (and occasionally a dad) juggled juice boxes and breastfeeding babies and puzzle pieces and sun hats while sitting in chairs designed for tiny toddler tushies and sharing stories and advice in French.

I knew I couldn't recapture exactly that with my library playdate--the space is too different, many families have moved away, and the kiddos who were learning to walk and talk then are now in elementary school and have quite different needs and interests.

here's Griffin playing one of many games that can be conducted in any language at all--I need to bring this sort of thing to our playdates--checkers, Chinese checkers, Connect Four, Sorry….

But kids still need to play, and parents still need to commiserate and swap success stories, and I wanted a way to make this happen, regularly, in French (without having to clean my house, plan formal activities, or figure out how to include people I've never met).  Hence my new Meetup group, Boulder County Fun with French (join us!), whose calendar boasts a new playdate en français every month till the end of the year!

Our first playdate en français took place during the fifth day of a February snowstorm, and in the hours leading up to it I watched the list of oui RSVPs change to nons, so I was genuinely taken aback when three families showed up despite the weather!

I had made a pot of coffee just in case, and brought along four games in French, all of which require reading (or at least recognition of the alphabet) to play, which I thought would be okay, since the minimum age to attend was five.  

the French version of Spot It! is a great choice for encouraging kids to speak French, because it only requires saying individual words, not expressing complex ideas, and it's quick and fun

So I was genuinely taken aback a second time when it turned out that all the attendees were five and under!  (One toddler never even woke up from his car seat.)  But I was thrilled to see that all of them were from Francophone families.

this reading game has several different game boards and activities,  but it feels very educational, and I think the children were glad when it was over

Griffin and a five-year-old girl grudgingly played a French alphabet game until the little kids showed up, at which point I swept my games off the tables, fetched a tub of Legos, a tub of Duplos, and a tub of crayons, and printed a dozen French-themed coloring pages from the Internet (Petit Ours Brun, Kirikou, Babar…).  The kiddos happily fell upon the toys while we parents did our best to chat in French despite the near-constant attention and redirection that the children needed.  (At one point a French papa apologized for pulling someone else's toddler off a table, because he was afraid that Legos were about to be ingested.)

Ultimately, I can call it a successful event--just not quite what I was expecting (or hoping for).  So now with the second one coming up this weekend, what advice or suggestions do you have on providing kids (of all ages, apparently) with activities that will encourage them to speak French???  Please help!

It didn't occur to me to bring this last time--a handmade French "Go Fish" game that Griffin illustrated--but I'll try it next time.  I also have a"Old Maid" and "Go Fish" from the Dollar Store; I just crossed out the words in English with a Sharpie and wrote in the French translations.

teaching tots and telling tales

So there we were, my friend Carol and I, in front of our brand new class--French for ages 0-5--relieved that five students signed up and the course was actually going to happen.  There we were with our contextualized lesson plans, props, puppets, songs, and stories.  And there in front of us, sprawled on the mat, clinging to a parent, snoozing, or nursing, were our distracted, drooling, diapered students.

Ages 0-5?  All of these kids are either 0 or 1!  We actually have seven-month-olds in our class!

So this population brings a fun challenge: how to teach an interactive language class to children who don't talk yet?!

(Here's a hint: that means no arts and crafts this semester.  Babies plus scissors and glue equals very unhappy parents.)

Fortunately, Carol and I both have years of experience engaging babies while speaking French, so we'll manage just fine.  Mais quelle surprise!

This week was bookended by French: our new class on Monday morning, my new storytime on Friday afternoon.  Or rather, my resurrected French storytime at the Lafayette Public Library.  After over a year's sabbatical, it was time to bring it back, warts and all.

(What warts?  Oh, like how it started with a group of us taking turns leading storytime, and ended up with me, just me, every time, and how I'm not a native speaker, and how my voice was not made for leading songs, and my kids didn't always cooperate, and attendance was spotty.  Those warts.)

Anyway, I'm making two major changes this time around: instead of a twice-a-month storytime, it will happen just once (the second Friday afternoon of the month at 4:00), but now I'm bringing in an additional activity for older kids.  We're going to try a playdate in French!  Kids ages 5-10 (and their grown-ups) can drop in on the fourth Sunday afternoon from 2:00-4:00 to play board games, do crafts, build Legos, and so forth.  

Selfishly, I'm thinking that this sort of event will really appeal to Griffin, but mostly I just want to create an environment for kids where their focus is on what they're playing or creating together, not the fact that their moms want them to speak French to each other.  This will hopefully make everyone less self-conscious.  And hopefully the parents will be happy to hang out and supervise while they sip coffee and chat.  In French!  (Cue Sarah's gleeful squeal.)

So many books...

So storytime today went remarkably well.  Despite not much publicity, nine families attended, and all of them understood well enough that the moms were able to sing along to some of our songs, they laughed  at the right places in the funny story, and I didn't have to translate or explain anything in English.  It is such a treat to work with kids who have already been exposed to French!   

introducing…Boulder County Fun with French!

Carol (of A French American Life fame) and I have been asked to teach our immersion class at the toy shop in Boulder again this term, and I am restarting my library French storytimes and adding a French playdate for older kids as well!

Because attendance has always been our biggest challenge with the storytimes, we decided to take advantage of social media for promotional purposes.  We are very pleased to announce the birth of:

The Boulder County Fun with French Meetup Group

and

The Boulder County Fun with French Facebook Page!

And in case you're local and interested in our upcoming class, you can register here.

A bientôt !

it takes un village...

...to raise children in more than one language, especially when only one parent speaks the minority language, and--especially!-- when that parent is a non-native speaker.

A lot of circles have to intersect for me to succeed in this quest, and I'm so grateful to be a part of all of them:

My education: High school, college, and grad school teachers who made French language, literature, and linguistics come alive for me; summer camp counselors at Lac du Bois (one of the fabulous Concordia Language Villages) who helped me interact in French outside of a formal classroom; my professeurs at the Universite de Savoie who tolerated this terrified but enthusiastic American exchange student in their classes, evaluated my halting literary analyses, and graciously conducted oral exams with me as if I were any other student; Rachel, my co-locataire in Chambery, who with her friends and family taught me how real French people speak outside of the classroom; and the school year I spent in Mulhouse as an assistante d'anglais, where, truth be told, I learned much more than I actually taught to my high school students.

My family: In particular my Francophile mother, whose renditions of French folk songs made up a large part of the background music of my childhood; but also my extended family, who served as  cheerleaders as I studied abroad and went on to become a French teacher; and my in-laws, who never question my passion (or my ability, or the point) of raising the children bilingually (heck, my sister-in-law and her husband even offered me their son as my first guinea pig!); and, most importantly, Ed, the love of my life, whose "hopeless monolingualism" (his words) doesn't prevent him from enthusiastically supporting my efforts to raise our children bilingually, even though he doesn't always understand our dinner conversation and doesn't know what to do with the steady stream of books entering our home.

The Internet: Providing forums for me to connect with other multilingual families and teachers all over the world; offering used French books at bargain prices from eBay Canada; serving up French music and videos via YouTube, streaming radio stations, and more; tempting me with educational (and also uneducational) apps and games in French for the iPad; and giving me free access to French stories and books, lesson plans, and more Pins than I'll ever be able to read, much less implement!

The local community: The public library that let us use their space to offer a regular French storytime; the now-defunct Parenting Place who hosted a regular French playgroup; the parents from that playgroup who became my friends and whose children spoke French to my kids over countless puzzles, dump trucks full of sand, and crayons worn down to nubbins every Monday morning for years; CCFLT, the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers, which puts me in touch with nearby teachers and parents and creates a yearly convention where I can share what I know and learn lots more; the Alliance Francaise de Denver, which offers classes, cultural and social events, and most importantly to me, a library that includes lots of children's books, CDs, and even games; the area universities plus major local industries such as aerospace, atmospheric science, and Internet companies that draw students and employees from all over the world, thus making it a non-issue if strangers overhear me speaking French to my kids in the grocery store; and even our very own Pioneer Elementary, my son's dual-language immersion school (English and Spanish), which reinforces for him the importance of knowing more than one language.

Merci, mon village.  I owe you big.

stumbling through storytime

Gwyneth chooses a chapter book in our newly-renovated library

Regular readers of "Bringing up Baby Bilingual" might have noticed that I haven't mentioned our French storytime at the public library for a loooooong time.  This can be attributed to the following factors:

1.  For quite a few months after Gwyneth's arrival, I lost the ability to carefully plan storytimes in my second language, carry them out, take photos of all the books, find links to all the song lyrics, and then write about them at length.  I was proud of myself simply for reading some stories and singing some songs in French in front of other people!

2.  Two mamans who took turns leading the storytime with me moved away last summer, and another one's work schedule changed.  Lately it's been just moi.  (More work = less blogging!)

3.  The library was closed for nearly two months in fall 2012 for major renovations, and then storytimes didn't start up again right away, so we lost momentum (and I lost the habit of blogging about them).

Here's the biggest change:

Our storytime is now an official part of the library's offerings (rather than a word-of-mouth gathering), which, don't get me wrong, is exciting and empowering--but this also means we're seeing new faces, most of whom don't actually speak French!  After a couple of sessions where Griffin was the only one answering my questions and singing the songs, where I had to revise my "lesson plan" on the fly since none of the other children would understand much of the stories, I have realized that I need to simplify, simplify, simplify, and also make sure to alternate every book with a physical activity to keep the kids from getting bored.

Typically, librarians interact with the children at storytimes by asking questions about the books, asking kids questions about themselves, encouraging them to join in by reciting words or phrases that are repeated in the books, or by making the appropriate animal sounds and vehicle noises, or by filling in the rhyming words at the end of sentences.

I'm discovering, though, that this sort of interaction between the reader and the listeners requires that the listeners be able to follow the story, and if most of the listeners and their parents don't understand French, then they give me blank stares instead of "cocorico"s and "vroum"s!

So now, the books are short, the puppets numerous, and we get up and dance to French songs instead of singing them ourselves!

a typical French storytime (2011)

I'm also doing my very best not to take it personally that few of our regulars come any more.  As children grow up, the older siblings get bored at storytime, so the families plan other activities that everyone can enjoy.  As new babies join the families, their nap routines become paramount--and their afternoon naps tend to fall right in the middle of storytime.  As children start attending school, the parents have to work around the school and bus schedule, which makes it hard for some to get to storytime on time, especially if they're coming from Boulder (20+ minute drive).

So yes, things change, which is what's supposed to happen, yes.  But I do miss my friends who moved away; I miss being able to attend French storytime--watching and listening and learning and holding my children on my lap--instead of leading it all the time.

my favorite kind of storytime

notre storytime est de retour!

After a summer break and time off to have babies, the French mamans and I are back into the routine of French story times at the Lafayette library.  What fun!  Now I just have to find time to write about them....

Local francophone readers, please join us on the first and third Fridays of the month at 4:00 at the library, 775 W. Baseline Road!

les histoires qui font peur (mais pas trop)

Delphine and Jenny led our 12th French storytime at the end of April, with the titillating theme of les histoires qui font peur (mais pas trop) [stories that scare you (but not too much)].  Along with a couple of fairy tales like Le petit chaperon rouge [Little Red Riding Hood], they shared a book about a child who was apprehensive about going down a big slide at the playgroup.

The story spinners even found a cute song about something a little scary: "Les squelettes" [skeletons], from Ana Lomba and Marcela Summerville's Play and Learn French.  All of the songs in this book accompanied by CD are originals designed for anglophones learning French, but they are sung in French with English translations and explanations in the book.

And for a craft after the formal storytime, Delphine had prepared an activity from Tête à modeler, a French website about arts and crafts for kids: we made simple cone-shaped finger puppets shaped like the animals who had appeared in the stories, like le loup [the wolf]!

Another great immersion experience for the francophones in our community!

So you want to start a second-language storytime?

Yes!  It's possible!  And you don't even have to do it by yourself!

Ever since I started posting about the French storytime that I co-founded at my local library, readers have been emailing me to ask for advice on starting up something similar where they live.  And as our storytime is still in existence--even flourishing!--after six months, we must be doing something right. 

So here's my advice to other would-be story spinners, both as a storytime volunteer and as 3+ year employee of that same library....

Location:

While your local public library seems a logical choice, you could also look into a space at a college or university (like meeting rooms at the student center or in the foreign language department), an indoor play gym, a community center, a parenting support center, a daycare or elementary school, a bookstore, a toy store, or a city recreation center/YMCA.

How to decide?  I would start with a place to which you already have a connection so that you can speak with administrators or owners who already know you there and a place that already offers regular programming for children.  Independent bookstores or toy stores, for example, are probably more approachable than big chains for whom you are just another nameless shopper.

Here's what you might not know about public libraries, at least in the US: right now is probably not a good time to propose anything new.  The three or four months leading up to the launch of their Summer Reading Program is an intense period of planning--deciding on themes, creating handouts and flyers, arranging special programs and performances that fit the theme and will appeal to the various age groups that the library serves, recruiting and training extra volunteers, scrounging up prizes to award, ordering and labeling thousands of prize books....

Let's just say that if you approach a harried children's librarian in May about starting a brand-new program right away, she'll probably shake her head no, horrified, if not chase you out of the library.  And once the Summer Reading Program starts, the pace gets even more manic, as children of all ages descend on the library en masse to check out more books than usual, attend the programs, and redeem their prizes.

"Then why are you writing this blog post now?" I hear you asking yourself.  Well, 'cause this is what I felt like writing about.  Besides, this gives you a couple of months to pull together a proposal for your local library (if that's what you're going to try first).  And if you don't know the children's librarian personally, this gives you time to schmooze, make yourself and your kiddos known to her, let her hear you speaking the minority language in the library, and so forth.

Also, if you are not a regular storytime attendee, I really recommend that you visit as many different storytimes as possible to get a feel for how they can be presented, what can be included, what techniques the storyteller uses, what resources are available, and what you yourself would be comfortable with.

Planning:
If I were you, I would recruit at least one other person to co-found the storytime with you.  That way, you won't be responsible for carrying out every single storytime by yourself.  (This came in very handy when Griffin and I had to miss a storytime due to an emergency doctor's appointment.)  Our group now has four or five mamans who work together two at a time to plan and present.  Two of us are Americans, the other three native speakers.  We see each other regularly at a weekly French playgroup, where we often bounce ideas off each other and brainstorm songs and comptines that we could pepper our storytime with.

To choose a day and time, we checked out the library's regular storytime schedule to ascertain when nothing was scheduled: Fridays.  Because the French playgroup meets in the mornings when the older siblings are in school, we wanted an afternoon session.  Because the little kids still nap in the afternoon, we wanted to meet a bit later.  And because the library closes at 5:00 on Friday, we chose 4:00, and are pretty happy with that decision.

We meet every two weeks, which works well: every week would be too big of a commitment, while once a month seems not often enough to feel like a regular part of your schedule.

Format:
Our storytimes tend to run about 30 minutes, which is maybe a little long for the younger kids there.  (But we always have so much we want to squeeze in!)  And sometimes we plan an activity for afterwards, like eating crepes (the food-themed storytime), doing puzzles about trucks and trains (the transportation-themed storytime), coloring pictures, or making finger puppets.  (Other times we just sit around and chat while the kids play and run around.)

We do pick a theme for each session to provide some structure and to recycle vocabulary and ideas throughout.  We scour our kids' rooms to find books and magazine stories that address the theme, then narrow it down to three or four, generally starting with the longest one first (when the little ones are more willing to sit still).  We often end up with one nonfiction title that we use to introduce the concept.  For example, with seasons, I showed a book with illustrations of a cherry tree throughout the year and asked the kids questions about the colors of the leaves, the state of the bird's nest, and the weather. 

As our storytime has developed, we have seen that the books that encourage the children to interact work the best.  So as we go along, we ask questions about the book, help the kids make connections between the book and their lives, trail off at the end of a sentence to they can yell out the rhyming word (in books where the final words rhyme, that is), and make patently false statements about the topic that the kids can refute (and feel proud for catching a grown-up saying something wrong when they're done laughing about our idiotic comments).

We also try to include one book that is genuinely fun or funny or silly, because that so appeals to the children.  On the other hand, our selections can be somewhat eclectic, since we don't have a library full of French books to draw from.  A lot of my children's books were purchased from eBay Canada, so they're in French, but it's rare that my colleagues from Europe have ever heard of them.  Some of the storytellers take books in English and render them in French, but I'm not comfortable enough as a non-native speaker to do that myself.

What I do like is that we always read the book as it was written (more or less, occasionally shortening one that will take too long to read otherwise).  I have attended some storytimes (both English and French) where the leader simply talks about what's going on in the picture.  And books and their authors deserve more respect than that!

After choosing the theme and the books, we move on to the songs and nursery rhymes.  We like to alternate them--one book, then a song, then another book--to break it up and encourage the attendees to sing along.  Because half an hour is a long time for the toddlers and preschoolers to sit, we endeavor to plan something for the middle that will get them up and moving around, like singing a song with an accompanying dance, shaking jingle bells, moving around the room like a train or animals (or whatever fits the theme for that day), or a leading an activity I learned from Griffin's French teacher: when we pick a song that isn't traditional or commonly known, we play it on the CD player and direct the attendees to do different movements along with the song (jumping, hopping, swimming, flying, etc.), rather than singing something unfamiliar.

Speaking of song lyrics, when we started out, I typed up a handout with all the words to distribute to the attendees, but now we just write them on the white board in the storytime room.  And when I'm at a loss for one more song, I use the tune of "Ten Little Indians" and change the lyrics.  For instance, during the love-themed session, we sang "Un petit, deux petits, trois petits bisous, quatre petits, cinq petits, six petits bisous, sept petits, huit petits, neuf petits bisous, dix petits bisous pour toi" (counting kisses).

Finally, we also feel it is important to start with the same song each time and end with the same song, which the librarians always do at the official storytimes.  This helps the kiddos transition into and out of French storytime, and it means that after a month or two, each child will know at least two songs each time.  Our opening song is "Dans la foret lointaine," which features a cuckoo bird who sings coucou, which also means "hi" in French.  To close, we finish with "Ainsi font font font les petites marionnettes," because it includes the line "trois petits tours et puis s'en vont" (they turn three times and then go away).  We vary them up, asking the attendees to sing them very fast, very slow, very softly, etc.

Publicity:
This may sound odd, but the library doesn't actually do any publicity for our storytime.  If a patron asks if something like that exists, the librarians will tell them, of course, but as we are a group of volunteers and not supervised by a librarian, it is not considered an official library storytime.  Also, the most commonly spoken minority language in our community is Spanish, and our library doesn't currently have the resources to offer a Spanish storytime (though we often do some bilingual sessions), so it could be seen as insensitive to promote the French one while not providing anything exclusively in Spanish.  The library also does something similar with a baby sign language group.

As you might expect, most of the attendees come from the French playgroup where we do lots of publicity.  I also send emails to former members (whose children are now older), other Francophones in the area that I (or the other leaders) have met, other parents in Griffin's French class, and a handful of French teachers.  I also post the information on a wiki for French teachers in Colorado (the local chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French) and a listserv for language teachers in Colorado.  If we needed to recruit from an even broader audience, I would advertise the storytime on the local meetup.com groups for French speakers, but so far we have had enough participants.  (You could always start a meetup.com group specifically for the minority language storytime, though.)

We tend to see 10-20 people at each session; more than that would be unwieldy.  So far they have almost all been families who speak (at least some) French at home, rather than Americans who are interested in having their kids hear some French.  This means that we can conduct the entire session in the minority language with no translation or explanations necessary.  (I like being part of this immersion experience!)

In conclusion, I heartily encourage you to create a minority-language storytime in your community!  I'd love to hear about your experiences….

This post was written for inclusion in the April edition of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism.

vroom vroom to storytime!

Our eleventh (!) French storytime zoomed into the library last week with a boatload of songs and books about transportation, to the delight of many little boys (and the little girls didn't seem to mind them either).  As usual, our selections tended towards the eccentric, because we're limited by what we own (or are willing to translate into French), which means that we neglected to include any books about trains as none of us had any!  Oh well--the little boys forgave us.

After our traditional opening song, I showed pictures from Les transports by Nathalie Bélineau and Emilie Beaumont, part of a delightful series of board books for the very young, Imagérie des bébés, which feature detailed and whimsical photos of clay creations.  I tried to engage les enfants by asking lots of questions about each vehicle ("Qu'est-ce qui est plus grand, la moto ou la bicyclette?") and by making deliberately false statements ("Voici un bateau qui vole dans le ciel!").

As an introduction to our next book about a bus, we sang "Les roues du bus," a collaborative translation of "The Wheels on the Bus," which we had prepared at French playgroup earlier that week.  Of course, this bus had the expected portes, essuie-glaces, enfants, and conducteur, but we also ended up with a few animals when we asked for suggestions from the kiddos.

That worked as a lovely transition to our next tome, Le petit autobus by Sandrine Chambéry, which features a normal city bus with some very unusual passengers--le pêcheur de mauvais temps (the man who fishes for bad weather), le dresseur des cauchemars (the nightmare tamer), le moulineur de devoirs (the man who grinds up homework), le jongleur de mots (the word juggler), la tricoteuse d'histoires (the story knitter), and Marius, the schoolboy who observes them all.  (These eccentric characters sailed right over the children's têtes and brought some puzzled looks to their parents' faces, but at least it was a book about a bus, right?!)

Next, while we didn't have a train book, we did share a train song, "Dans le pré s'en va le train," which instructs the singers line up, place their hands on the shoulders of the person in front, and hang on while they choo-choo-choo through the countryside.

Our final selections concerned fire trucks, always a perennial favorite for the fascinated little boys.  We sang "Au feu les pompiers"

and then read Pompier by Amanda Askew, a book about a day in the life of a firefighter, which concludes with the firefighters rushing to a school to put out a cafeteria fire (which made a nice parallel to the preceding song, in which two cooks blame each other for a kitchen fire).

Then after our usual farewell song, we handed out puzzles with trains, cars, buses, and so forth for the kids to play with while the parents chatted.  All aboard!

miam, miam, storytime!

Two more French storytimes have come and gone since the last time I posted about them! I love that other moms are helping out--now there are five of us (three native speakers, two non-natives) who co-lead each session. It helps that we see each other regularly at French playgroup to brainstorm ideas for topics, books, and songs.

A maman named Brigitte and I did the ninth storytime, la nourriture (food), and last week was the tenth, les animaux de la ferme. The latter was similar to our storytime last fall on the same topic, which is of course fine, because repetition is the best way to learn language.

This time the leaders, Delphine and Mathilde, read a story from the magazine Histoires pour les petits (June 2010 edition) called "Soprano a perdu son cocorico" by Mireille Saver. It's a fun, long-ish story about a rooster who all of a sudden doesn't know how to crow any more. It includes a cute original song about the chickens ("Le rock'n'roll des gallinaces"), which the storytellers were able to share thanks to the CD that accompanied the magazine. We sang it several times, cot-cot-codec-ing like French chickens!

Mathilde also showed pictures of farm animals and barnyards, asking the kids questions about the animals. (She had a very engaging introduction: using an English book that had two-page illustrated spreads of animal habitats, she would say, "Les animaux de la ferme, comme cela!" but then show a picture of, say, undersea creatures or a zoo. The children would roar, "Noooon!" They loved it!)

Delphine once again shared the enormously popular and scatological De la petite taupe qui voulait savoir qui lui a fait sur la tête, a picture book about a mole who has been pooped upon and who interrogates his fellow barnyard residents to figure out whose caca matches the caca on his head. The kids loved this one and laughed a lot.

The final book from the farm animals storytime was the very cute Il etait dix petites poules by Sylvia Dupuis, a board book illustrating a song about where some hens of all colors were going to lay their eggs. Because it rhymed, the children were (usually) able to chime in on the last word of each line by looking at the illustrations. Below, for example, it says "L'etait une petite poule blue/Qu'allait pondre dans un pneu" (there was a little blue hen who was going to lay her egg in a tire).

And now for the storytime that I helped with!

Brigitte and I had a lot of fun with the food storytime; the hard part was narrowing our focus to just a few books and songs. (We have enough left over that we could do a second storytime right away if we wanted to.)

We started with a puppet show of La chenille qui fait des trous by Eric Carle (a translation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar), using these puppets that I had made for a tutoring session several years ago. (I love, love, love using drama as a language teaching technique!)

Our songs included: "Pomme de reinette et pomme d'api", Y, and "En voici, en voila" by Alain Le Lait, a very fun tune about different types of food in French. Because the last one has a lot of verses and is not a traditional song, we played it in the background while the children danced around.

To introduce the final book, Les crêpes, collaboratively written and illustrated by Sophie Ledesma, we sang "J'aime la galette" (a traditional song).

In the book, different animals explain what type of crêpe they want; as you can see above, the bird wants one with earthworms! Just adorable.

After the storytime, Brigitte and I served crêpes to everyone, insisting that the children tell us if they wanted Nutella or confiture on theirs. (Griffin was the oddball American--he asked for beurre de cacahuete, peanut butter, which we weren't even offering as a choice!)

New to this blog? Read about our French storytime history here:

• Why we started our own storytime


• Making plans for our storytime


• Storytime #1: Autumn and forests


• Storytime #2: Farm animals


• Storytime #3: Under the sea


• Storytime #4: Africa


• Storytime #5: Christmas


• Storytime #6: Dinosaurs


• Storytimes #7 (Bugs) and #8 (Love)

storytime: ah, l'amour

French storytime at the Lafayette Public Library continues to be great fun to attend as well as to organize! I was out of town during the bug-themed storytime (our seventh one so far), so I can't tell you much about that one, but native-speaker maman Brigitte and I co-led the session around Valentine's Day. In honor of the holiday, we picked books and songs about love.

We started with a puppet show about the nature of love--yes, that may sound very philosophical and very French, but the text came straight out of a children's magazine called Pomme d'api which always has a comic-strip-inspired discussion among animals about an abstract topic. This one wasn't too intense, since the animals were debating whether or not you could say you "love" your favorite cheese (yes, very French!) the way you love your parents or other people. Brigitte and I used the library's animal puppets and little puppet theatre to act out the conversation, and we also asked the kids whom they loved.

The books we featured included this gorgeously illustrated tome about fathers and their children all over the world, J'aime mon papa by Marie-Pierre Emorine and Karine Quesada:

"I love my daddy when all of a sudden he becomes a musician. Cradled by the notes, I am so comfortable." (The text rhymes in French--it's lovely!)

"I love my daddy when I snuggle up beside him, I'm not afraid of the night."

We also looked at friendship via the very short paperback Petit Ours Brun se fait un copain, starring the popular "Little Brown Bear" from the children's magazines Popi and Pomme d'api, in which he makes a new friend at the lake when they share their toys.

"Little Brown Bear asks him, 'Do you want to be my pal?'"

Our third storybook is a translation of I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rosetti-Shustak, which is rendered Je t'aime de la tete aux pieds in French. Here the original rhyming text also rhymes in French, which always appeals to young listeners. Told in the voice of a parent and illustrated with whimsical drawings, the story shows us what is so loveable about toddlers. (My translations that follow are of the French text, which does not always follow exactly the original English, perhaps to make the French text rhyme and rhythm work.)

"I love the crazy little things you do and your angry moments."

"I love you when you're teasing and when you're sad."

We alternated the stories with the following songs:

• J'aime papa, j'aime maman
• Ma petite maman cherie
• Un petit, deux petits, trois petits bisous (to the tune of "Ten Little Indians," but about kisses!)
• A la claire fontaine

We wrote the lyrics for the first two, plus our traditional opening and closing songs, on the white board in the storytime room. But we had figured that the last song, about losing one's lover, had too many verses to expect the little kids to actually sing this one (the Francophone moms we had consulted confessed to not knowing all the verses themselves).

So instead of doing it as a sing-along, we played the song on a CD and invited the children to dance along. We gave different directions for each verse. For example, with the line "Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait" (on the highest branch a nightingale sang), we told them to flap their arms and fly around the room like a bird. (Thank you to Griffin's French teacher Veronique for this idea!) An added benefit of this activity is it provided the kids with a chance to get their wiggles out halfway through the storytime.

Griffin, as usual, seemed to enjoy the storytime, and of course I love that he hears me and some native speakers of French reading to a group of kids who react and interact in French!

New to this blog? Read about our French storytime history here:

• Why we started our own storytime
• Making plans for our storytime
• Storytime #1: Autumn and forests
• Storytime #2: Farm animals
• Storytime #3: Under the sea
• Storytime #4: Africa
• Storytime #5: Christmas
• Storytime #6: Dinosaurs

And see my annotated list of other children's books about family and friends in French here!

dinosaures dans la bibliothèque!

Griffin and I missed out on the January French storytime session because he had an emergency visit to the pediatrician (don't ask). Fortunately, this didn't mean I left Delphine, my co-storytime-leader, in the lurch, because we had decided to structure the program differently this semester!

To make it easier on us two, we asked for other volunteers to help lead the storytimes. Two other friends volunteered, one non-native speaker like me and one native speaker. So now there are four of us to share the prep work, which means that I only need to co-present once a month (our storytimes take place twice a month)! I am truly looking forward to attending with Griffin and being able to relax and listen and enjoy.

While I didn't attend the most recent storytime, I was at French playgroup when Delphine and Jenny were planning it, so at least I can relate what they covered here on the blog.

With dinosaurs as the theme, they had a topic that definitely appealed to the kids, but they struggled to find materials in French to share. They ended up taking a book or two in English and translating them into French, along with a song about dinosaurs marching. They also had a physical activity planned where the children tromped around the room like dinosaurs. And of course, everyone also sang the songs we traditionally use to open and close the storytimes.

Afterwards, the families adjourned to the arts and crafts area of the library, where they found crayons and coloring pages featuring dinosaurs. While the kids decorated their dinos, the parents were able to chat in French!

Everyone says it was a very fun session and that the kids loved it. I know Griffin would have! (You see, he still asks, hopefully, if we'll see dinosaurs the next time we go to the zoo.)

too late to tell you about Christmas storytime?

I know, I know, it's February, but I'd been planning to blog about every French storytime that we offer at the library where I work!

New to this blog? Read about our storytime history here:

• Why we started our own storytime


• Making plans for our storytime


• Storytime #1: Autumn and forests


• Storytime #2: Farm animals


• Storytime #3: Under the sea


• Storytime #4: Africa

Our last storytime in December presented books about Christmas and songs about winter (because that's what we know and those were the books we had access to--thanks, Les Petits Livres, for loaning us more books for this storytime!) Belated apologies to anyone attending who doesn't celebrate Christmas. We're volunteers and doing the best that we can!

We read a cloth book about a little rabbit preparing for Père Noël's visit on Christmas Eve,

which featured cute manipulatives (a stuffed rabbit to tuck onto a sled or under the covers, doors to open, ornaments to velcro onto a tree, and so forth)

and the charming Cher Père Noël by Jeanne Ashbé.
(I think we read one other book, but I didn't take notes because, of course, I was going to write a post about it right away!)

In addition to our regular opening song ("Dans la forêt lointaine") and closing song ("Ainsi font font font les petites marionnettes"), we also sang "Vive le vent" and "Clic clac dans les mains" (here are all the words, which I couldn't find on a website):

Refrain: Clic clac
Dans les mains
Ça les réchauffe,
Ça les réchauffe
Clic clac
Dans les mains
Ça les réchauffe bien.

C'est l'hiver,
C'est l'hiver,
Chantent les flocons.
C'est l'hiver,
Bonhomme de neige
Faisons une ronde.

Refrain

C'est Noël,
C'est Noël,
La fête la plus belle.
C'est Noël,
Petit Père Noël,
Je t'attends dans le ciel.

Refrain

For this one, we encouraged the kids to clap their hands and rub their hands together to warm them as directed by the song. For "Vive le vent," since it's to the tune of "Jingle Bells," we passed out the library's bells-on-sticks for the children to shake in rhythm to the music. (Yeah, the French version isn't about bells. At all. But hey, we're volunteers and we're doing the best that we can! Besides, every kid loves to ring bells.)

Our next storytime, "l'amour" (in honor of the upcoming Valentine's Day), is coming up soon, which means I had better blog in the next couple of days about our January storytime (les dinosaures)! Stay tuned....

fun with français in the Boulder area

Since co-founding a French storytime at the Lafayette Public Library, I have been gathering information about other French activities for kids in the area. Eve at Blogging on Bilingualism asked me to publish all the details in one place so she can Tweet about it (merci, Eve!), so here goes:

"Il Etait Une Fois" (Once upon a time) Storytime

A storytime in French at Lafayette Public Library
Books, stories, songs, rhymes, and fingerplays
With a different theme each time
Led by Francophone (and Francophile) parents
Everyone is welcome!

The 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month from 4:00-4:30:

January 28: Dinosaurs
February 11: Love
February 25: Bugs
March 11: Food
March 25
April 8
April 22
May 13
May 27

Other French activities for children:

NEW! French storytime at the Louisville Library, second Friday of the month at 10:30

French playgroup at Parenting Place (Boulder), Mondays 10:00 am-12:00 pm

"French with Véronique," French class for kids at WOW! Museum (Lafayette)

"The French Mommies and Me" Meetup (Lone Tree), stories and crafts,

The Language of Food (French cooking classes for kids in Boulder)

French storytelling at the Main Boulder Public Library, first and third Tuesdays of the month, 10:15-11:00

And of course, the Alliance Francaise in Denver offers classes for children and teens.

Others? Email me or add them in the comments!

a trip to storytime = a trip to Africa

Our fourth storytime session took us to Africa--only we could barely scratch the surface! But in our half hour, we managed to read three books, do our regular greeting and goodbye rhymes, and sing a few songs.

It was important to me that we read books that truly look like they take place in Africa, as opposed to the myriad picture books that feature animals like elephants and monkeys but tell a bland story about the importance of, say, going to bed or avoiding dangers. Anne-Marie from Les Petits Livres, an online French children's book rental company, kindly lent us five books to choose among for storytime:

In Tibili le petit garcon qui ne voulait pas aller à l'ecole by Marie Leonard, a little boy who loves to play outside hates the idea of having to start school. He doesn't see the point: "Il préfère lire, comme son grand-père--pas sur du papier--mais dans le ciel, où le soleil chante le jour et où la lune danse la nuit" ("He prefers to read, like his grandfather--not on paper--but in the sky, where the sun sings during the day and the moon dances at night.") Tibili doesn't want to wear a school uniform instead of his pagne and wishes he could keep fishing for barracuda in the river and swinging from the vines with the monkeys. In a clever twist at the end, he does find a good reason for needing to learn to read and eagerly starts school after all.

Ironically, my friend Delphine, who co-leads the storytime with me, says that this is the first book that her younger sister learned to read by herself!

It's a lovely book with colorful illustrations and very rich culturally; it clearly takes place in Africa, given the rich details about the animals and the habitat and Tibili's daily life. We ended up not using it in storytime because we just didn't have time!

Delphine and I both liked Comment les girafes disent-elles maman ? by Willi Glasauer, also a book about the first day of school. In this sweet story, the teacher (a woman with a baby tied to her back) runs through roll call for all her new students (baby animals). Everyone is so concerned when the baby giraffe doesn't speak up that they tramp off to various experts who should be able to help the giraffe learn to talk.

Finally, a mother elephant explains to the group that giraffes have no vocal cords because their necks are so long, but that giraffes manage to communicate quite well among themselves nonetheless: "'Madame Girafe, montrez donc comment vous vous faites comprendre de votre girafon.' Alors, très tendrement, Maman girafe dit à son petit girafon qu'elle l'aime."

We then see a drawing of the mother and baby rubbing their necks together, their heads side by side. This then inspires all the other mothers to show their babies how much they love them, so the next page shows all the animals cuddling, playing, and kissing--including the teacher with her own naked baby! It's charming.

Delphine and I opted not to share this book during storytime because we didn't trust ourselves being able to perform all the animal noises and voices dramatically enough. Highly recommended, though!

Another book that really appealed to me, and to my surprise, my son Griffin, was Baobonbon by Satomi Ichikawa.

I say "surprised" because this book and most of its concepts are so foreign to my American toddler! A little boy who can run fast like a gazelle is taking bananas to market for his mother (a walk that takes hours and hours) when he stops to rest under a tree. But it's not just any tree--it's a talking baobob who confesses to being just as hot and tired and thirsty as the little boy. Generously, he offers to go fetch water for the tree.

(Griffin had heard of baobobs before, thanks to the Le petit prince board books that I picked up at a conference.)

He finds villagers willing to bring water--in exchange for half of his mother's precious bananas. But when they return to the baobob, naughty baboons have eaten them all up. The baobob then gives its fruits to the other children and tells the boy a secret recipe for making candy out of the seeds of the fruit.

When he sells the special candy at the market, he makes more money than he would have selling bananas, and is able to bring home many more supplies for his family. It's a story about the value of perserverance and generosity--but it's so well told with such engaging illustrations that you just get swept up and don't think about the "moral" until afterwards.

We decided not to read this one to the group either because it was quite long (and we already had another long one planned). (But I'm glad to be able to share it here on the blog, at least!)

I chose to read Zékéyé et la toute petite musique by Nathalie Dieterlé because I knew it would be fun and interactive for our listeners. It's 30-some pages long, but the pages are big with simple, cheerful illustrations, so I felt sure it would keep the children's attention.

Apparently this little boy appears in an entire series of books. He is very little and clever (though not as small or as smart as Kirikou, another tiny, precocious African boy). Poor kid, he is too little to help play music to bring the rains to his village, so he makes his own flute-like instrument. When the grown-ups' music ends up causing all sorts of problems, Zékéyé remedies the situation by playing his homemade flute. Everyone dances for joy, and this time, he is invited to join them in the celebration.

Throughout the book, we hear the grown-ups' music ("et Ta et Ta et Tam Tam Tam") and Zékéyé's "toute petite" music ("et Zi et Zi et Zou et Zou") like a drumming in the background and a whistle in the foreground. Each time the music appeared in the book, the listeners pounded on the floor like a drum or ZZZed through their teeth like a clay flute. I think the grown-ups enjoyed it as much as the kids!

(And there were a lot of grown-ups there this time; this storytime took place the day after Thanksgiving, when a lot of adults have the day off work, so most of the kids brought their papas along. Even my monolingual husband attended. Seventeen people attended, which was more than we expected for a holiday.)

Our final book selection was quite short and quite silly: Chtok-Chtok le chameau by Edouard Manceau (also one of a series):

It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling's Just So stories, except much, much, much shorter, in that each book in the series explains the origin of some aspect of the animal. For Chtok-Chtok, it was his humps. Very cute and a great choice for storytime because it was so quick.

Reading about this camel meant that we could play a fun song called "La danse du desert." Unfortunately no link to the entire song exists--it's an original from the Canadian company Kidzup, whose French CDs for children are fantastic--but you can at least hear a clip here (number seven). Also unfortunately, while it's got a great beat and evocative Eastern flute-y music, it's not easy to sing along to when you've only heard it once or twice. (So that's why I said we "played" the song, not "sung" it.)

The other song we did sing, and even dance around to, was "Y'avait des gros crocodiles," a French version of Shel Silverstein's poem "The Unicorn" about Noah's Ark, which was made into a song by the Irish Rovers. (I remember singing the French version at Lac du Bois, French camp with Concordia Language Villages, when I was 16!) At storytime, we played a version of the song that was just the chorus, repeated several times, with some fantastic upbeat African music before and after each chorus. We showed some movements that imitate the animals in the song and then made the kids get up and dance! It was such fun we played the song a second time so we could all dance some more.

The other piece that I wanted to share didn't work out because the wifi connection kept dropping--but I can do it here! I found on YouTube the opening sequence from the award-winning Broadway music The Lion King--in French! This play blows me away--the costumes and set and music are so creative and captivating. Watch it. Now!

See? Doesn't it give you chills? Here are the French lyrics for the song, "Le cercle de la vie." (Although probably half of the words are in an African language--but it doesn't even matter that I can't understand everything they're singing.)

This storytime was my favorite one so far! Only one more left this year. My supervisors at the library will let me know if we can continue them in 2011.

Curious about our French storytimes? Read more here:

• Why we started our own storytime
• Making plans for our storytime
• Storytime #1: Autumn and forests
• Storytime #2: Farm animals
• Storytime #3: Under the sea