momstown Milton families got together at the Indigo bookstore on February 13, 2013, for a fun and educational French Tales for Tots: Contes pour les bouts d'choux story time sponsored by Scholastic Canada.
The featured book this month was Bienvenue Bébé (Welcome, Baby) by Barbara Reid and the theme for the session was family (la famille). As the little ones (looking adorable in their winter wear!) and the families made their way over to the story time section; momstown Milton mama, owner Sam Kassam-Macfie, showed the children the craft that they were about to make.
Since the focus was on family, the children were each given a little doll whereby they could model after a family member:
- mother-mère
- father-père
- brother-frère
- sister-sœur
- grandmother-grandmère
- grandfather-grandpère
- aunt-tante
- uncle-oncle
Much fun was had in the crafting of the family members and they showed off their well-adorned family creations with immense pride!
Taking their crafts with them, we all settled down together for circle time and began with our "hello my friends" (bonjour mes amis) song. Waving excitedly and with big smiles, the children sang out a friendly bonjour to their amis.
When Madame Liz showed the children the Bienvenue Bébé book, there were lots of giggles in the room as there was indeed a little baby joining the circle time. The petit bébé received a very warm and enthusiastic welcome from the children.
As we went through the story, we extended our arms out wide to show how a family welcomes a new baby, and paused through the reading of the story to talk about the children's own family members such as a grandmother or uncle.
Following the story, the children were each given a family tree (l'arbe de famille) sheet and as Madame Liz held up flashcards showing the titles of family members (mère, père, frère, sœur, etc.), the children would colour in the faces on the l'abre de famille and write down the names of their family members.
Afterwards, we read another story selected from the French section at Indigo entitled: " Ah! les papas (Some Dads) "by Nick Bland. The children loved hearing about the story about all of the different types of dads (some sporty; some loud; but all are proud of their little ones!). They shared about activities that their own fathers do (skating, skiing, running) and even described what their own fathers looked like (tall, big arms).
We then sang some fun family-themed songs and the children did an incredible job! They really followed along with great interest and eagerness. They gestured with their arms, they pointed at people in the group who represented the family members we were singing about (mère, père, bébé). They shook their little imaginary maracas in the air during "Voici ma grande famille" (Here's My Big Family...to the tune of Cuckaracha). And we couldn't forget a group favourite: Petit poisson (little fish).
Finally, before waving au revoir to our amis, we drew for the prize of the book and the lucky winner was very fittingly, the little bebe of the group!
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 momstown Milton member and mother of two children. You can check out her blog at: www.orchidaforever.blogspot.ca
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