We are all proud of our beautiful nation, Canada, and its two official languages: English and French. On January 16, 2013, the momstown Milton moms and tots were bursting with pride and excitement as they headed over to the Indigo bookstore for an interactive French Tales for Tots: Contes pour les bouts d'choux story time sponsored by Scholastic Canada!
The featured book this month was Mon Ami Henri by Philippe Beha and the theme for the session was body parts (les parties du corps). Upon arriving to the bright and colourful Indigo store, the little ones were put to the creative test by making face puppets inspired by one of their real-life friends or by the delightful whim of their imaginations of what exactly Henri might look like?
To help the tots become comfortable with French vocabulary, Madame Liz, would ask them repeat body part names and associate them back to their own puppet creations. They took to the task with gleeful enthusiasm. "Le nez!" they'd exclaim with excitement while gesturing at the noses on their puppets or their own face.
The tots then assembled in a circle on the floor to sing a "hello my friends" (bonjour mes amis) song. Their young but strong voices filled the air with happiness. Passers-by stopped with their children and grandchildren to find out what all of the buzz was about and then of course, they just had to join in on the fun too!
After the rousing rendition of the bonjour mes amis song, we moved on to a body parts song (to the tune of head and shoulders, knees and toes). "Tête, épaule, genoux et pieds!" Little hands and feet got busy grooving to the beat.
Then it was time to settle down for a story. The group gathered close together as Madame Liz read the featured book Mon Ami Henri. (With each page read, an English translation was provided). In the story, a young boy describes his best friend, Henri, and the children were mesmerized by the description of Henri: petit (small), frisé (curly hair), deux grands yeux noirs (two large black eyes), des tâches de rousseur sur le nez (freckles on the nose) and une sourire jusqu'aux oreilles (a smile that reaches to his ears). They happily followed along with the story using their puppet or own body parts for emphasis.
Once the reading aloud of the story was done, the children then bounced off the floor and back to the craft station to review their colours in French. Each child was given a sheet with the colours in French and crayons so they could fill in the circles on the sheet with the appropriate colour. Little hands scribbled furiously to get the job done! We then reviewed all that we had learned together to gather a complete description of their friends - blue eyes, black hair, white teeth, etc..
After the review was completed, it was time for a few final songs. We sang "Alouette" and shrieked with delight and practically did a little dance showing off all of our body parts as they were announced in french.
Our fun French time didn't end before our special Scholastic Books draw. Our lucky winner who funnily enough bore a strong resemblance to Henri (the character in the book) was delighted to take home the book to add to his own personal library!
It was over all far too soon and as we bid au revoir to our amis, we weren't sad as we knew that we'll all be back next month for another exciting Contes pour les bouts d'choux.
We would love to have you join us for French Tales for Tots/Contes pour les bouts d'choux sponsored by Scholastic Books next month at Indigo - Milton. A fun way for kiddies to learn and practice French in a group! Register here for your 6 week FREE trial.
Written by Liz Marques Kogan, a mother of two girls, and momstown Milton member. You can check out her blog at: www.orchidaforever.blogspot.ca
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