Done making the French workbooks--gathering up the pieces

Relief--the French curriculum is ready for this year!

Why is our French curriculum costing so little? Because I'm using and re-using almost everything I can find on our shelves to meet the grade 4 and grade 8 Ontario standards. The public library is helping too--I found several kids' books about bugs in French, and some of them were even Canadian. (I don't usually worry about the provincial curriculum, but in this case it was most useful for setting reasonable limits on what to include.)

Here are some of the bits and pieces we're using:

Apprendre à écrire sans faute, 1993 edition. I just found this at the thrift shop and it would be a great supplement for around grade 8, since it does something completely different than the "regular" curriculum. Meant for French-speaking students, it's a workbook where you fill in word endings or a choice of two or three words--the sorts of things French students might mix up. Think homophones. Is this where you use ses or where you use ces? (they sound the same but mean something quite different). It would also be very good for encouraging dictionary skills, since you wouldn't expect English-speaking students to know all the vocabulary that's included.

The Kids Can Press French & English Word Book (pulled apart for vocabulary pages)

Ma vie de mouche. Translation of Diary of a Fly. Very silly but fairly easy to read. Borrowed from the library.

French is Fun: Lively Lessons for Beginners, Book A. 1987 edition we bought used about ten years ago. The Apprentice used it for a year and it's pretty worn. Ponytails can use it to save me from having to write out some of the grammar explanations.

Online edition of of the Louis Segond Bible

Je Veux Chanter, by Carole Silvera and Marianne Petit-Clerc. A really long story around this little book of praise choruses...I bought it from a church in Quebec in 1984, where they used it regularly for evening worship.

Collins Robert French School Dictionary (this is our little dictionary)

Collins Robert French English English French Dictionary, 1984 printing (this is our big dictionary). Won in high school as a book prize.

Bescherelle Complete Guide to Conjugating 12000 French Verbs--bought used who knows how long ago, probably at a yard sale. If you don't know what a Bescherelle is, I can only compare it to the Strong's Concordance of French verbs. According to Wikipedia you can get them in other languages as well.

Ma grammaire d'observation 4e, by Daniel Poulin and Claude Simard (1984 edition). Bought from the same big booksale where I found Les Insectes. Just charts of verbs and endings, but meant for younger (French-speaking) school kids.

Several copies of Enfants Québec magazine from the library discard rack. We can ignore the pregnancy stories and use the bits about children's clothes, toys and food. The ads are also very helpful for learning current expressions.

Les Insectes: texte de Marie-Claude Ouellet. As I've mentioned before, this was my main source of ideas for our lesson binders.

Prières Dans L'Arche, by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold. A classic, available in English as well (Prayers from the Ark, translated by Rumer Godden). And there are bugs in it! Oh, and check these out on You-tube--the prayers come to life!

How to Draw Bugs, by Michelle Petty Just an add-on.

And...two bug sticker/activity books I bought on sale at the bookstore. Whoah, something bought new! They're not in French either--just for fun and bug familiarity. As I mentioned before, I also took some very old unused bug stickers to make flash cards, and the Apprentice also contributed some bug stickers from her stash.