A Christmas carol for French class:
Voici Noël, ô douce nuit!
L'étoile est là, qui nous conduit:
Allons donc tous, avec les mages,
Porter à Jésus nos hommages
Car l'enfant nous est né,
Le Fils nous est donné!
Voici Noël, ô quel beau jour!
Jésus est né! quel grand amour!
C'est pour nous qu'il vient sur la terre,
Qu'il prend sur lui notre misère.
Un Sauveur nous est né,
Le Fils nous est donné!
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2014
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
The Twelve Days of French Lessons
We have three weeks of school in December, and out of fifteen school days we will probably get to French lessons on about twelve of them. So: the twelve days of French. Workbook pages refer to Complete French Smart 7 (Popular Book Company (Canada) Ltd.); supplements are online resources or books we have on hand.
Day 1 Page 40 Party vocabulary: food, amusements
1. Read the birthday party deal at the Mont Cascades Waterpark. Pretend the brochure is available only in French and your parent does not read French. Explain what is included in the package.
2. In the workbook, copy out the food words. How do you say "a slice of pizza?"
3. Use the white Larousse picture dictionary, page 40, the large illustration of a party. Locate the person wearing un chapeau de fête. Count les ballons (in French). Count les cadeaux. What are they planning to use for la musique? What are the words for birthday and party? How do you say "we are going to the party?" How do you say "throw a party," "let's start the party!" and "a surprise party?" (workbook page 44) How do you say "happy birthday?"
4. In the workbook, copy the party words.
For fun: L'anniversaire d'Arthur, part 1 (French version of a CD-Rom we used to have)
Day 2 Page 41 Party vocabulary: supplies
1. Collect a pile of real objects: plates, cutlery, napkins, glasses. Play a sort of Simon Says with them: touche les assiettes, etc. (Notice that these are all plural forms.) Be able to name each object, then add the word "jetable" (disposable) to each one. Then add a camera, batteries, and candles to the mix. Practice the vocabulary.
2. In the workbook, copy the supply list. Review the meaning of "des."
3. Review: On the Mont Cascades website (from yesterday), find the menu page for school groups. You need to choose the lunch option for your class trip. Which one do you think most of the students will like?
Day 3 Page 42 Ce, cet, cette, ces
1. Read through the explanation of these words. Go back through the food list, adding "I like this --" or "I like these --" each time. Repeat, using "Do you like this --?"
2. Do the written exercises in the workbook.
3. Extra vocabulary: learn the expressions for "this year," "we can." Make up sentences in this pattern: "This year we can send a card (envoyer une carte) to Grandmother." "This Christmas we can send a present to Cousin Suzanne."
4. Begin learning the song "Voici Noël."
Day 4 Page 43 Using ci and là
1. Review the work with ce, cette etc. Say that you would like that dress, those games, those disposable forks, that pizza.
2. Read through the use of ci and là (these ones here are mine, those ones there are yours). Do the workbook exercise.
3. Read the completed exercise out loud for pronunciation practice.
4. Practice "Voici Noël."
Day 5 Page 44 Fill in the blanks story (about a party) based on grammar lessons
1. Review expressions "à moi," "à toi." (mine, yours). Practice saying things like "This dress is mine," "That balloon is yours." There is another way to say "mine" (le mien): explanation here.
2. Add colour words to sentences, to say things like "This yellow dress is mine," "That blue balloon is yours."
3. Review ci and là, using the expressions for "these () are mine, these () are yours."
4. Review the pronunciation and meanings of the following list: ses; ces; sa; son; ce; c'est; cet; se; cent; sept; cette; ça. Some of them sound the same, but they mean different things.
5. Start working through the story, filling in the blanks.
Day 6 Page 45 Sentences to translate
1. Finish the exercise on page 44 if necessary, or go through the answers as a review.
2. Treat page 45 as a mini test: can you do it on your own? 3. Practice "Voici Noël."
Day 7 Page 46 Time adverbs; next, last
1. Practice the time adverbs by answering questions such as "How often do you eat candy?" "How often do you brush your teeth?" Answer with "never," "rarely," sometimes," "often," "always."
Allez-vous souvent à la piscine? (Are you often going to the swimming pool?)
Oui, régulièrement (Yes, regularly)
Ah oui? À quelle fréquence? (Really? How often?)
Deux fois par semaine (Twice a week)
2. That little section at the bottom of the page: these are adjectives, not adverbs. Practice combining them with words for week, year: last year, etc.
3. Chorus to sing: "Hier, aujourd'hui, demain." (Chorus book p.4--French version of "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow")
Day 8 Page 47 Place adverbs, manner adverbs
1. Study the vocabulary on page 47. Review expressions "Comment ça va?" "Ça va bien." "Ça va mal." 2. Make up sentences with "He plays, "I play," We play," plus the adverbs for together, alone, badly, slowly, etc.
3. Play a game: One person sings a song (O Canada, or "Voici Noël"). The other person directs in French: "Sing quickly." "Sing slowly." "Sing badly." "Let's sing together." "Sing alone."
Day 9 Page 48 Using place adverbs correctly
Fill in the blanks!
Day 10 Page 49 Answering questions with adverbs
Day 11 Page 50 Time agreement of verbs with adverbs (present or near future)
1. Verb review first! Present tense of -er and -re verbs, and irregular verbs, especially aller. Use aller to indicate futur proche.
2. Go through the exercise, noting only which sentences require present tense and which ones require futur proche.
3. Go through the sentences again, conjugating the verbs.
Day 12 Page 51 Using near future when expressing an upcoming event with "dans"
1. Review present tense of aller
2. Practice these types of sentences orally. When are you going to send your Christmas cards? I am going to send my cards in a week. When are you going to telephone your grandmother? I am going to phone her in an hour. When are we going to open our gifts? We are going to open them on Christmas day.
3. Do the workbook page.
4. Watch Sol and the Christmas Tree: OR Choose an episode of Arthur to watch in French on Youtube.(search for Arthur and Diminou--Diminou is D.W.)
Day 1 Page 40 Party vocabulary: food, amusements
1. Read the birthday party deal at the Mont Cascades Waterpark. Pretend the brochure is available only in French and your parent does not read French. Explain what is included in the package.
2. In the workbook, copy out the food words. How do you say "a slice of pizza?"
3. Use the white Larousse picture dictionary, page 40, the large illustration of a party. Locate the person wearing un chapeau de fête. Count les ballons (in French). Count les cadeaux. What are they planning to use for la musique? What are the words for birthday and party? How do you say "we are going to the party?" How do you say "throw a party," "let's start the party!" and "a surprise party?" (workbook page 44) How do you say "happy birthday?"
4. In the workbook, copy the party words.
For fun: L'anniversaire d'Arthur, part 1 (French version of a CD-Rom we used to have)
Day 2 Page 41 Party vocabulary: supplies
1. Collect a pile of real objects: plates, cutlery, napkins, glasses. Play a sort of Simon Says with them: touche les assiettes, etc. (Notice that these are all plural forms.) Be able to name each object, then add the word "jetable" (disposable) to each one. Then add a camera, batteries, and candles to the mix. Practice the vocabulary.
2. In the workbook, copy the supply list. Review the meaning of "des."
3. Review: On the Mont Cascades website (from yesterday), find the menu page for school groups. You need to choose the lunch option for your class trip. Which one do you think most of the students will like?
Day 3 Page 42 Ce, cet, cette, ces
1. Read through the explanation of these words. Go back through the food list, adding "I like this --" or "I like these --" each time. Repeat, using "Do you like this --?"
2. Do the written exercises in the workbook.
3. Extra vocabulary: learn the expressions for "this year," "we can." Make up sentences in this pattern: "This year we can send a card (envoyer une carte) to Grandmother." "This Christmas we can send a present to Cousin Suzanne."
4. Begin learning the song "Voici Noël."
Day 4 Page 43 Using ci and là
1. Review the work with ce, cette etc. Say that you would like that dress, those games, those disposable forks, that pizza.
2. Read through the use of ci and là (these ones here are mine, those ones there are yours). Do the workbook exercise.
3. Read the completed exercise out loud for pronunciation practice.
4. Practice "Voici Noël."
Day 5 Page 44 Fill in the blanks story (about a party) based on grammar lessons
1. Review expressions "à moi," "à toi." (mine, yours). Practice saying things like "This dress is mine," "That balloon is yours." There is another way to say "mine" (le mien): explanation here.
2. Add colour words to sentences, to say things like "This yellow dress is mine," "That blue balloon is yours."
3. Review ci and là, using the expressions for "these () are mine, these () are yours."
4. Review the pronunciation and meanings of the following list: ses; ces; sa; son; ce; c'est; cet; se; cent; sept; cette; ça. Some of them sound the same, but they mean different things.
5. Start working through the story, filling in the blanks.
Day 6 Page 45 Sentences to translate
1. Finish the exercise on page 44 if necessary, or go through the answers as a review.
2. Treat page 45 as a mini test: can you do it on your own? 3. Practice "Voici Noël."
Day 7 Page 46 Time adverbs; next, last
1. Practice the time adverbs by answering questions such as "How often do you eat candy?" "How often do you brush your teeth?" Answer with "never," "rarely," sometimes," "often," "always."
Allez-vous souvent à la piscine? (Are you often going to the swimming pool?)
Oui, régulièrement (Yes, regularly)
Ah oui? À quelle fréquence? (Really? How often?)
Deux fois par semaine (Twice a week)
2. That little section at the bottom of the page: these are adjectives, not adverbs. Practice combining them with words for week, year: last year, etc.
3. Chorus to sing: "Hier, aujourd'hui, demain." (Chorus book p.4--French version of "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow")
Day 8 Page 47 Place adverbs, manner adverbs
1. Study the vocabulary on page 47. Review expressions "Comment ça va?" "Ça va bien." "Ça va mal." 2. Make up sentences with "He plays, "I play," We play," plus the adverbs for together, alone, badly, slowly, etc.
3. Play a game: One person sings a song (O Canada, or "Voici Noël"). The other person directs in French: "Sing quickly." "Sing slowly." "Sing badly." "Let's sing together." "Sing alone."
Day 9 Page 48 Using place adverbs correctly
Fill in the blanks!
Day 10 Page 49 Answering questions with adverbs
Day 11 Page 50 Time agreement of verbs with adverbs (present or near future)
1. Verb review first! Present tense of -er and -re verbs, and irregular verbs, especially aller. Use aller to indicate futur proche.
2. Go through the exercise, noting only which sentences require present tense and which ones require futur proche.
3. Go through the sentences again, conjugating the verbs.
Day 12 Page 51 Using near future when expressing an upcoming event with "dans"
1. Review present tense of aller
2. Practice these types of sentences orally. When are you going to send your Christmas cards? I am going to send my cards in a week. When are you going to telephone your grandmother? I am going to phone her in an hour. When are we going to open our gifts? We are going to open them on Christmas day.
3. Do the workbook page.
4. Watch Sol and the Christmas Tree: OR Choose an episode of Arthur to watch in French on Youtube.(search for Arthur and Diminou--Diminou is D.W.)
Friday, May 09, 2014
Quote for the Day: St. Louis on Food, Drink, and Clothing
"He said that men ought to clothe and arm their bodies in such wise that men of worth and age would never say, this man has done too much, nor young men say, this man has done too little. And I repeated this saying to the father of the king that now is [Philip], when speaking of the embroidered coats of arms that are made nowadays; and I told him that never, during our voyage oversea, had I seen embroidered coats, either belonging to the king or to any one else. And the king that now is told me that he had such suits, with arms embroidered, as had cost him eight hundred pounds parisis. And I told him he would have employed the money to better purpose if he had given it to God, and had had his suits made of good taffeta (satin) ornamented with his arms, as his father had done." ~~ Sieur de Joinville, Memoirs of the Crusades
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
A preposition funny (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)
And there I was stuck. "A côté de" means beside something. I could not remember how the last line ended and what we were supposed to be beside. I assumed it rhymed with derrière, so that gave me a choice of "le père," (the father), "ma mère," (my mother), un ver (a worm), la terre (the earth), or la mer (the sea). I figured that being beside the sea was logical, so we went with that. We sang "beside the sea" for two days.
Then we got back online and I thought it wouldn't hurt to check. Do you know what the last line is? ""A côté de." That's it, that's all. You stretch it out. How unimaginative. I prefer the sea, or even the worm.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Dollygirl's Grade Six: homeschool things we're doing
Things we've done already this week:
Basic Bible Studies: completed study 2, about God's sovereignty
Hymns
Mensa puzzle cards
French: continuing Monsieur Perrichon, we're up to the introduction of The Commandant (another traveller along with the Perrichon family and two possible suitors for their daughter), but we still haven't gotten everyone on the train yet.
Math: measured another tree outside and played with cubes
Nature study: brought a big garden spider inside (in a magnifying jar) to get a closer look. (And let it go again.)
Monday night swim class
Citizenship: read Uncle Eric chapters 2 and 3, about the importance of having good models in place before you load up with facts, and of having a high standard of proof for things that matter a lot to you. (Don't just take my word for it...)
Poetry: read two chapters of the Robert Frost biography, and listened to him read "Birches."
The Hobbit: rescued Bilbo and the dwarves from the Wargs and gotten them up into an eagle's nest.
Science: we finished a chapter from The Great Motion Mission, and got a spoon out to prove that when you look at yourself in a convex surface, you turn upside down.
A few pages of geography
Canadian history: read a bit about life in the 1920's, about bush pilots and Emily Murphy (women are persons).
World history: read about the Long March in China.
Cymbeline: Iachimo's first meeting with Imogen.
God's Smuggler: Brother Andrew's early days as a Christian and his "missionary post" in a chocolate factory. (For anyone reading this with a Year Six, I recommend some parental editing for this chapter.)
In the midst of:
reading chapter two of the Einstein biography and doing a written narration
sorting through some embroidery floss
getting ready to go spend the afternoon at the thrift store
Next things to do:
The Aeneid of Virgil: still need to finish the chapter we're on.
Bible study: start study 3, "God and Man." "What does it mean that man is made in God's image? Well, among other things it certainly means this: man is moral...Also, man is rational...It also means that man is creative...It is also the reason why man loves."--Francis Schaeffer.
Copywork and dictation
More poetry
Folk songs
Math: review questions on page 53
Read about the Depression in the Canadian history book; compare this description with what you already know of the 1930's from American sources such as Kit's Story Collection.
A few more pages of geography
Read Story of the World Volume 4, the part about Black Tuesday etc. and the rise of Hitler.
Continue with French
Probably more of The Hobbit
Crafts: actually START the felt doughnuts--we've only talked about them so far
Picture study and art project (Emily Carr)
Natural history: read a few pages from School of the Woods
Read a magazine article about light, then play a board game
Go to the library and do some activities on the Dewey Decimal System
Work on the personality notebooking pages already started, start a couple of new ones
Work on ideas for the history term project (designing a historical doll)
Friday afternoon drama class
Make a grapefruit globe, when we can get a grapefruit (or maybe we could try an orange)
Basic Bible Studies: completed study 2, about God's sovereignty
Hymns
Mensa puzzle cards
French: continuing Monsieur Perrichon, we're up to the introduction of The Commandant (another traveller along with the Perrichon family and two possible suitors for their daughter), but we still haven't gotten everyone on the train yet.
Math: measured another tree outside and played with cubes
Nature study: brought a big garden spider inside (in a magnifying jar) to get a closer look. (And let it go again.)
Monday night swim class
Citizenship: read Uncle Eric chapters 2 and 3, about the importance of having good models in place before you load up with facts, and of having a high standard of proof for things that matter a lot to you. (Don't just take my word for it...)
Poetry: read two chapters of the Robert Frost biography, and listened to him read "Birches."
The Hobbit: rescued Bilbo and the dwarves from the Wargs and gotten them up into an eagle's nest.
Science: we finished a chapter from The Great Motion Mission, and got a spoon out to prove that when you look at yourself in a convex surface, you turn upside down.
A few pages of geography
Canadian history: read a bit about life in the 1920's, about bush pilots and Emily Murphy (women are persons).
World history: read about the Long March in China.
Cymbeline: Iachimo's first meeting with Imogen.
God's Smuggler: Brother Andrew's early days as a Christian and his "missionary post" in a chocolate factory. (For anyone reading this with a Year Six, I recommend some parental editing for this chapter.)
In the midst of:
reading chapter two of the Einstein biography and doing a written narration
sorting through some embroidery floss
getting ready to go spend the afternoon at the thrift store
Next things to do:
The Aeneid of Virgil: still need to finish the chapter we're on.
Bible study: start study 3, "God and Man." "What does it mean that man is made in God's image? Well, among other things it certainly means this: man is moral...Also, man is rational...It also means that man is creative...It is also the reason why man loves."--Francis Schaeffer.
Copywork and dictation
More poetry
Folk songs
Math: review questions on page 53
Read about the Depression in the Canadian history book; compare this description with what you already know of the 1930's from American sources such as Kit's Story Collection.
A few more pages of geography
Read Story of the World Volume 4, the part about Black Tuesday etc. and the rise of Hitler.
Continue with French
Probably more of The Hobbit
Crafts: actually START the felt doughnuts--we've only talked about them so far
Picture study and art project (Emily Carr)
Natural history: read a few pages from School of the Woods
Read a magazine article about light, then play a board game
Go to the library and do some activities on the Dewey Decimal System
Work on the personality notebooking pages already started, start a couple of new ones
Work on ideas for the history term project (designing a historical doll)
Friday afternoon drama class
Make a grapefruit globe, when we can get a grapefruit (or maybe we could try an orange)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
More on this fall's homeschooling (Part 3)
MATHEMATICS
I already mentioned briefly what we're doing: Ponytails is finishing off Key to Geometry and Key to Decimals, and then will be starting Key to Algebra, and probably doing practice Gauss competition tests at the grade 8 level. She's planning on doing most of her math with Mr. Fixit again this year.
Crayons will be finishing Math Mammoth Light Blue Grade 3, because we got into it late in the year, and then we'll download Grade 4. I've been very interested to see where/how the Miquon Math she'd always used fit in to this newer curriculum; where we can go fast because we've already covered a topic, and where we have to slow down for math potholes. Not surprisingly (if you know Miquon), she has a very good sense of place value; she has a good understanding of how numbers work, and she's probably a bit ahead in multiplication, since Miquon starts that early. She's great at money math, not so good at telling time, but we'll keep working on that.
We'll be doing a weekly joint math time--I'm still working out the details on that. Some of what we'll be doing will be coming out of Critical Thinking's Math Detective book (the gr 5-6 level), since we have it on hand; but I don't want to do exactly the same format every time...the goal is to get a bigger sense of mathematics, to learn about the really interesting parts of it, not just "what you get in school." (If you've never checked out the Living Math website, there's lots of inspiration there.)
GRACIOUS ARTS
Otherwise known as Home Economics or Family Studies...but it's more than that. We are going to read through The Hidden Art of Homemaking (maybe just parts of some chapters), and supplement that with Marmee's Sugar N Spice Studies (nice around the holidays), a book on teatimes, a book on making basket gifts for people, and other books on crafts and creativity. We'll also read Louisa May Alcott's novel Jack and Jill, since a lot of that book is about "brightening the corner where you are" and finding the beauty around you.
CITIZENSHIP
A catch-all category. Whatever Happened to Justice? could fit in here, but I'm counting that under history this year. We'll be reading Plutarch's Lives (probably just Ponytails the first term), some of Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, and Noel Streatfeild's book The Fearless Treasure. (We've never used that last one yet, so it will be an experiment.)
FINE ARTS
We'll probably follow the Ambleside rotation for picture studies and composer studies, except that I want to include Tom Thomson in this year's studies...it's a good year to do this since at least one museum within reach will be hosting a Thomson exhibit.
Art instruction: this is pretty much open. Crayons, although she loves to craft, is going through a spell of thinking that she can't draw, so it's not something I'm going to push right now. Ponytails has her own artistic interests she's working on. We will incorporate narration drawings and other activities into the year's work and leave it at that. (I was pretty happy, though, to find tins of watercolour pencils and charcoal pencils at Dollarama this weekend for $1.25 each.)
LATIN
We'll be following the lessons in Our Roman Roots, probably three times a week.
FRENCH
I had planned to have Ponytails start one of the Mission Monde levels, and work something out myself for Crayons. When I got started working on Crayons' curriculum, I realized that we could probably do at least the first half of the year together, and then maybe get MM for Ponytails after Christmas. I looked at the Ontario ministry guidelines for grade 4 and grade 8 French, and they're really not that complicated...no offense to anyone who might be offended by that, I just mean that, for a ministry of education outline, it's pretty simple and clear what's supposed to be taught, and we can cover that with our own books. Our theme is going to be Les Insectes, based on a Canadian activity book (from a used book sale) called Les Insectes (surprise). We'll learn bugs along with verbs.
I think that's it for now...
I already mentioned briefly what we're doing: Ponytails is finishing off Key to Geometry and Key to Decimals, and then will be starting Key to Algebra, and probably doing practice Gauss competition tests at the grade 8 level. She's planning on doing most of her math with Mr. Fixit again this year.
Crayons will be finishing Math Mammoth Light Blue Grade 3, because we got into it late in the year, and then we'll download Grade 4. I've been very interested to see where/how the Miquon Math she'd always used fit in to this newer curriculum; where we can go fast because we've already covered a topic, and where we have to slow down for math potholes. Not surprisingly (if you know Miquon), she has a very good sense of place value; she has a good understanding of how numbers work, and she's probably a bit ahead in multiplication, since Miquon starts that early. She's great at money math, not so good at telling time, but we'll keep working on that.
We'll be doing a weekly joint math time--I'm still working out the details on that. Some of what we'll be doing will be coming out of Critical Thinking's Math Detective book (the gr 5-6 level), since we have it on hand; but I don't want to do exactly the same format every time...the goal is to get a bigger sense of mathematics, to learn about the really interesting parts of it, not just "what you get in school." (If you've never checked out the Living Math website, there's lots of inspiration there.)
GRACIOUS ARTS
Otherwise known as Home Economics or Family Studies...but it's more than that. We are going to read through The Hidden Art of Homemaking (maybe just parts of some chapters), and supplement that with Marmee's Sugar N Spice Studies (nice around the holidays), a book on teatimes, a book on making basket gifts for people, and other books on crafts and creativity. We'll also read Louisa May Alcott's novel Jack and Jill, since a lot of that book is about "brightening the corner where you are" and finding the beauty around you.
CITIZENSHIP
A catch-all category. Whatever Happened to Justice? could fit in here, but I'm counting that under history this year. We'll be reading Plutarch's Lives (probably just Ponytails the first term), some of Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, and Noel Streatfeild's book The Fearless Treasure. (We've never used that last one yet, so it will be an experiment.)
FINE ARTS
We'll probably follow the Ambleside rotation for picture studies and composer studies, except that I want to include Tom Thomson in this year's studies...it's a good year to do this since at least one museum within reach will be hosting a Thomson exhibit.
Art instruction: this is pretty much open. Crayons, although she loves to craft, is going through a spell of thinking that she can't draw, so it's not something I'm going to push right now. Ponytails has her own artistic interests she's working on. We will incorporate narration drawings and other activities into the year's work and leave it at that. (I was pretty happy, though, to find tins of watercolour pencils and charcoal pencils at Dollarama this weekend for $1.25 each.)
LATIN
We'll be following the lessons in Our Roman Roots, probably three times a week.
FRENCH
I had planned to have Ponytails start one of the Mission Monde levels, and work something out myself for Crayons. When I got started working on Crayons' curriculum, I realized that we could probably do at least the first half of the year together, and then maybe get MM for Ponytails after Christmas. I looked at the Ontario ministry guidelines for grade 4 and grade 8 French, and they're really not that complicated...no offense to anyone who might be offended by that, I just mean that, for a ministry of education outline, it's pretty simple and clear what's supposed to be taught, and we can cover that with our own books. Our theme is going to be Les Insectes, based on a Canadian activity book (from a used book sale) called Les Insectes (surprise). We'll learn bugs along with verbs.
I think that's it for now...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Crayons' Grade Two: French (and frugal felt-board tips)
I posted a detailed look at the book we're using here. Because Aux Yeux des Enfants is so seasonally-oriented (pumpkins in October, Christmas trees in December, baby animals in spring), it was hard to get into it last year after we got off track for awhile. However, that's one thing that made it perfect for this year's special days and seasons focus.
On my to-do list: make some new felt-board dolls for the family in the story, because the ones I used with Ponytails got worn out or thrown out. We have a package of felt-board backing paper (paper with flocked ribs on the back) that was given to us by a Sunday School teacher and that has come in handy many times. But if you ever need to make felt-board shapes and don't have any felt or sandpaper, try construction paper--it clings very well too, especially if your felt board isn't sitting absolutely vertical. (I read that interfacing works too.)
Our felt board--I've probably said this somewhere before--is a big piece of felt pinned over the top of an old TV tray. (The safety pins are across the back, as if we had wrapped it for a present.) The felt tends to get grimy and pilled after awhile, which meansyou buy more felt you unpin the felt and turn it upside down until that side is finished too. THEN you go buy more felt. One piece (both sides) usually lasts us a couple of years. Here's another idea: sticky-backed felt.
Related Posts:
Crayons' Grade Two: Bible
On my to-do list: make some new felt-board dolls for the family in the story, because the ones I used with Ponytails got worn out or thrown out. We have a package of felt-board backing paper (paper with flocked ribs on the back) that was given to us by a Sunday School teacher and that has come in handy many times. But if you ever need to make felt-board shapes and don't have any felt or sandpaper, try construction paper--it clings very well too, especially if your felt board isn't sitting absolutely vertical. (I read that interfacing works too.)
Our felt board--I've probably said this somewhere before--is a big piece of felt pinned over the top of an old TV tray. (The safety pins are across the back, as if we had wrapped it for a present.) The felt tends to get grimy and pilled after awhile, which means
Related Posts:
Crayons' Grade Two: Bible
Monday, September 03, 2007
Grade One French
(For a more general look at what we do for French, see Teaching French in the Treehouse.)
I promised to describe our Grade One French text, so here it is: "Le français partout: AUX YEUX DES PETITS, Teacher's Text (Revised Edition)," by Marthe G. Laurin, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada Ltd., distributed in the U.S. by Winston Press (Minneapolis), copyright 1971, 1972. I can tell by the price inside the cover that I must have picked this up at the downtown thrift shop, probably about eight years ago. I used parts of it with the Apprentice when she was in about the fourth grade; I went through the whole thing with Ponytails when she was in grade one; and I'm planning on using a large part of it with Crayons this coming year.
This book came out of the heyday of Trudeau-era bilingual fervour in the early 1970's.
Inevitably, the teacher's book itself was supposed to be packaged with a whole lot of other stuff that I've never seen (the items are pictured inside the book): felt board cutouts and backgrounds, posters, and cassette tapes. (There are no illustrations in the book; it's strictly for the teacher to follow.) We've always improvised our own cutouts to go along with the story, which follows a family with three children through the seasons. A lot of the vocabulary is repeated through the year in different contexts: for instance, you teach a few colours early on with real objects, and later name the colours of the balls on a Christmas tree. The children are encouraged to answer simple questions or to point to objects, but aren't expected to repeat everything back.
The seasonal emphasis works well as long as you can work through the program from September to June; otherwise it would be awkward since you'd be doing Halloween lessons (parts of a pumpkin face) in February or whatever. Some of the lessons are very Canadian (and I can sympathize with Denise in this story):
"Il fait froid. (It's cold.)
C'est l'hiver. (It's winter.)
Antoine et Alain jouent au hockey. (Antoine and Alain are playing hockey.)
Denise regarde Antoine et Alain. (Denise watches Antoine and Alain.)
Denise a froid. (Denise is cold.)
Elle a froid aux mains. (Her hands are cold.)
Elle a froid aux pieds. (Her feet are cold.)
Elle a froid aux oreilles. (Her ears are cold.)
Elle a froid au nez. (Her nose is cold.)
Denise entre dans la maison. (Denise goes in the house.)"--Chapter 5, Week 4, Day 3 (translations mine)
The fact that this particular book is almost impossible to find shouldn't deter anyone from making up similar lessons; we've made up a few of our own as well. We had a lesson once with bananas that went something like "Crayons, give Ponytails the banana. Ponytails has the banana. Apprentice takes the banana from Ponytails. Apprentice, give the banana to Mom" and so on.
"Tourne, tourne, mon moulin; Tap'! Tap'! Tap'! les petites mains."
The actions for this and other songs are given in the lessons--this one is about a mill turning around, so you act that out and then clap your hands. From our own experience, these are a lot of fun and a good way to practice "sounding French" even if all the words aren't understood.
My only wish is that I could find followup books in the same series--if they exist-- and that they'd be as good! Apparently there is a 1967 book called "Le français partout 1," but I haven't seen it--there's a copy out in B.C. though, so maybe I'll send for it to see what it's like.
So anyway, that's how we get started with French.
[Embarrassing-Oversight Update: I neglected to mention that this book would be less than useful if you can't pronounce French or decipher the phrases used in the lessons. There are no translations given--you're on your own, especially since you don't have the benefit of the long-vanished cassette tapes.]
I promised to describe our Grade One French text, so here it is: "Le français partout: AUX YEUX DES PETITS, Teacher's Text (Revised Edition)," by Marthe G. Laurin, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada Ltd., distributed in the U.S. by Winston Press (Minneapolis), copyright 1971, 1972. I can tell by the price inside the cover that I must have picked this up at the downtown thrift shop, probably about eight years ago. I used parts of it with the Apprentice when she was in about the fourth grade; I went through the whole thing with Ponytails when she was in grade one; and I'm planning on using a large part of it with Crayons this coming year.
This book came out of the heyday of Trudeau-era bilingual fervour in the early 1970's.
"'[Sophie] may even teach your children some French,' Mrs. Thurstone put in slyly. 'Isn't that the latest thing for parents to want in this bilingual country? Ha!'Well, for once the textbook makers seem to have gotten it right, because this course, aimed at kindergarten or grade one children, is fun and very sensible. The daily lessons are short and all scripted out--fifteen minutes or less, including time for greetings, a short script using a felt board and/or real objects, and a song or a short game.
"Emily could not decide what the 'Ha!' meant, but she did know the old lady was right. She had heard her parents talk of how little French they knew, how much they hoped Emily would learn to speak it fluently. It was an important part of being a Canadian, her father had said."--Jean Little, Look Through My Window, 1970
Inevitably, the teacher's book itself was supposed to be packaged with a whole lot of other stuff that I've never seen (the items are pictured inside the book): felt board cutouts and backgrounds, posters, and cassette tapes. (There are no illustrations in the book; it's strictly for the teacher to follow.) We've always improvised our own cutouts to go along with the story, which follows a family with three children through the seasons. A lot of the vocabulary is repeated through the year in different contexts: for instance, you teach a few colours early on with real objects, and later name the colours of the balls on a Christmas tree. The children are encouraged to answer simple questions or to point to objects, but aren't expected to repeat everything back.
The seasonal emphasis works well as long as you can work through the program from September to June; otherwise it would be awkward since you'd be doing Halloween lessons (parts of a pumpkin face) in February or whatever. Some of the lessons are very Canadian (and I can sympathize with Denise in this story):
"Il fait froid. (It's cold.)
C'est l'hiver. (It's winter.)
Antoine et Alain jouent au hockey. (Antoine and Alain are playing hockey.)
Denise regarde Antoine et Alain. (Denise watches Antoine and Alain.)
Denise a froid. (Denise is cold.)
Elle a froid aux mains. (Her hands are cold.)
Elle a froid aux pieds. (Her feet are cold.)
Elle a froid aux oreilles. (Her ears are cold.)
Elle a froid au nez. (Her nose is cold.)
Denise entre dans la maison. (Denise goes in the house.)"--Chapter 5, Week 4, Day 3 (translations mine)
The fact that this particular book is almost impossible to find shouldn't deter anyone from making up similar lessons; we've made up a few of our own as well. We had a lesson once with bananas that went something like "Crayons, give Ponytails the banana. Ponytails has the banana. Apprentice takes the banana from Ponytails. Apprentice, give the banana to Mom" and so on.
"She tried asking Sophie to teach her some French. But Sophie did not want to speak French. She insisted Emily give her lessons in English instead. [Three-year-old] Ann was the only one who was learning any French, much to the disappointment of the adults....As the days passed, she learned to say in perfect French 'I am so slow!' 'I have the head of a cabbage!' and 'How stupid I am!'...."--Look Through My WindowThe back part of the book contains several "comptines" (little chants) and folk songs, mostly short ones like this:
"Tourne, tourne, mon moulin; Tap'! Tap'! Tap'! les petites mains."
The actions for this and other songs are given in the lessons--this one is about a mill turning around, so you act that out and then clap your hands. From our own experience, these are a lot of fun and a good way to practice "sounding French" even if all the words aren't understood.
My only wish is that I could find followup books in the same series--if they exist-- and that they'd be as good! Apparently there is a 1967 book called "Le français partout 1," but I haven't seen it--there's a copy out in B.C. though, so maybe I'll send for it to see what it's like.
So anyway, that's how we get started with French.
[Embarrassing-Oversight Update: I neglected to mention that this book would be less than useful if you can't pronounce French or decipher the phrases used in the lessons. There are no translations given--you're on your own, especially since you don't have the benefit of the long-vanished cassette tapes.]
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Teaching French in the Treehouse
French is one of those subjects where I have needed as many teachers' helpers as I could get. We haven't bought a whole lot of commercial curriculum, though; most of what's out there, I can't afford.
I took French through high school and into university, and even won a dictionary once in a competition. My grammar isn't bad, although it could use a good review; my accent isn't bad (I think I pronounce French better than a few politicians I've heard); but I'll be the first to admit I am nowhere near bilingual. I can browse through Lettres de mon moulin without looking up too many words (hey, I even figured out what a chèvre was just by thinking about cheese), but French commercials throw me completely.
Still, somehow The Apprentice managed--either under her own power or because of her marvellous French tutor, moi--not only to succeed in first-year high school French but to elicit a question from her teacher as to whether she'd been enrolled in French Immersion. (Choke, sputter.) So I guess whatever we did wasn't that bad.
Um--what did we do?
Well, starting from the end...she had been doing an older version of Powerglide, mostly on her own...we had gone through one beginning grammar textbook, although I was doubtful about whether she'd retained much...she had read some Snoopy cartoons and some of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in French...she memorized one of the Fables de la Fontaine...we had sung quite a few folk songs and church choruses, read quite a few French easy-reader books (I sometimes made up my own Ruth Beechick-style lessons to go with those)...we had gone through some of the old grade one Aux Yeux curriculum I have (which I'm still going to post about later, since Crayons will be using it this year)...used several little tape sets from the public library...read some of an online story about Christians in Romania...made a poster showing Arthur the aardvark and his different feelings (Arthur says J'ai mal (I feel sick), J'ai faim (I'm hungry) and so on)...used a couple of Usborne-type illustrated French/English word books...used an old workbook about learning French with a kangaroo...did some copywork...used some online fun French sites that aren't around anymore. Occasionally even watched T.V. Oh, and one year when she was six she did "J'étudie avec Mimi" with a group, although I don't think she learned a whole lot from that.
Mainly, I think, we just kept working at it...never too heavy on the grammar, she picked more of that up this year at school.
This past year with Ponytails, I mostly used one of two storybooks we have that were written in English and translated into French--100 contes familiers des bonnes soirées, and 100 contes familiers des jours heureux. Bedtime stories and happy-day stories. OK, they don't sound too challenging, but that's the whole idea: they're just one-or-two-page stories about this and that: birds who try to paint their feathers different colours, children who go to the zoo and get their lollipops eaten by a hungry elephant, a stuffed dog that gets lost, and so on. Not great literature, but great for vocabulary and hearing how sentences get put together. We're going to continue with the other book this year. What do we do with them? Sometimes I pre-teach a bit of vocabulary, especially if it's really important to the story. Then I read; sometimes I use toys or pictures to help show what's going on. I try not to translate into English if I can help it; I want her to understand the word in French, not just translate it.
I usually have Ponytails narrate, but not always in French. Usually I ask her to tell what happened in English but encourage her to use any French words she can remember.
Sometimes I'll make up a phonics lesson to go with the story; for example, if there are several words in the story that have the vowel sound used in "le" and "de," I'll list them and we'll practice reading them; then when I read the story again I'll point out those words or have her read them too. Sometimes, if we extend the story over a few days, I'll make up a worksheet--usually it's a page divided into about six empty boxes, each box with a word or phrase at the top, and she illustrates each box. I might also just give her the empty boxes and have her copy the words in herself before she draws the picture.
Sometimes I copy out some of the story, cut up the sentences, and we make new sentences.
Or I might ask her questions, have her point to things in the room or in an illustration. Where is...show me...touch something that is....
And we sing too. This year I'm figuring on one folk song and one Christian song per month. If we can find tapes or CDs to go with the songs, I like to use those because sometimes (even for me) the phrasing on a song is a little tricky, and we might as well learn to sing them "right." Even though, just as in English, there are many different versions of some songs--so the CD might not always match up with our book. But we've usually worked it out.
Oh--and the other thing I have to look into is the free-with-library-card version of Rosetta Stone. We have an old demo CD of Rosetta Stone, so I know how it works, but I would like to see how well the free version works. In my mind that would be a great program to alternate with the Mom-lessons.
I have the stories and songs figured out through March--not exactly what we're going to do with each one, but the general idea. After March I'm not sure, because early in April we have a local conference here and I might look at investing in a commercial program that I can use with both Crayons and Ponytails, starting in the spring. I like the sound of the one that Coffeemamma has been using. But until then we're going to do our "chez nous" version.
I took French through high school and into university, and even won a dictionary once in a competition. My grammar isn't bad, although it could use a good review; my accent isn't bad (I think I pronounce French better than a few politicians I've heard); but I'll be the first to admit I am nowhere near bilingual. I can browse through Lettres de mon moulin without looking up too many words (hey, I even figured out what a chèvre was just by thinking about cheese), but French commercials throw me completely.
Still, somehow The Apprentice managed--either under her own power or because of her marvellous French tutor, moi--not only to succeed in first-year high school French but to elicit a question from her teacher as to whether she'd been enrolled in French Immersion. (Choke, sputter.) So I guess whatever we did wasn't that bad.
Um--what did we do?
Well, starting from the end...she had been doing an older version of Powerglide, mostly on her own...we had gone through one beginning grammar textbook, although I was doubtful about whether she'd retained much...she had read some Snoopy cartoons and some of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in French...she memorized one of the Fables de la Fontaine...we had sung quite a few folk songs and church choruses, read quite a few French easy-reader books (I sometimes made up my own Ruth Beechick-style lessons to go with those)...we had gone through some of the old grade one Aux Yeux curriculum I have (which I'm still going to post about later, since Crayons will be using it this year)...used several little tape sets from the public library...read some of an online story about Christians in Romania...made a poster showing Arthur the aardvark and his different feelings (Arthur says J'ai mal (I feel sick), J'ai faim (I'm hungry) and so on)...used a couple of Usborne-type illustrated French/English word books...used an old workbook about learning French with a kangaroo...did some copywork...used some online fun French sites that aren't around anymore. Occasionally even watched T.V. Oh, and one year when she was six she did "J'étudie avec Mimi" with a group, although I don't think she learned a whole lot from that.
Mainly, I think, we just kept working at it...never too heavy on the grammar, she picked more of that up this year at school.
This past year with Ponytails, I mostly used one of two storybooks we have that were written in English and translated into French--100 contes familiers des bonnes soirées, and 100 contes familiers des jours heureux. Bedtime stories and happy-day stories. OK, they don't sound too challenging, but that's the whole idea: they're just one-or-two-page stories about this and that: birds who try to paint their feathers different colours, children who go to the zoo and get their lollipops eaten by a hungry elephant, a stuffed dog that gets lost, and so on. Not great literature, but great for vocabulary and hearing how sentences get put together. We're going to continue with the other book this year. What do we do with them? Sometimes I pre-teach a bit of vocabulary, especially if it's really important to the story. Then I read; sometimes I use toys or pictures to help show what's going on. I try not to translate into English if I can help it; I want her to understand the word in French, not just translate it.
I usually have Ponytails narrate, but not always in French. Usually I ask her to tell what happened in English but encourage her to use any French words she can remember.
Sometimes I'll make up a phonics lesson to go with the story; for example, if there are several words in the story that have the vowel sound used in "le" and "de," I'll list them and we'll practice reading them; then when I read the story again I'll point out those words or have her read them too. Sometimes, if we extend the story over a few days, I'll make up a worksheet--usually it's a page divided into about six empty boxes, each box with a word or phrase at the top, and she illustrates each box. I might also just give her the empty boxes and have her copy the words in herself before she draws the picture.
Sometimes I copy out some of the story, cut up the sentences, and we make new sentences.
Or I might ask her questions, have her point to things in the room or in an illustration. Where is...show me...touch something that is....
And we sing too. This year I'm figuring on one folk song and one Christian song per month. If we can find tapes or CDs to go with the songs, I like to use those because sometimes (even for me) the phrasing on a song is a little tricky, and we might as well learn to sing them "right." Even though, just as in English, there are many different versions of some songs--so the CD might not always match up with our book. But we've usually worked it out.
Oh--and the other thing I have to look into is the free-with-library-card version of Rosetta Stone. We have an old demo CD of Rosetta Stone, so I know how it works, but I would like to see how well the free version works. In my mind that would be a great program to alternate with the Mom-lessons.
I have the stories and songs figured out through March--not exactly what we're going to do with each one, but the general idea. After March I'm not sure, because early in April we have a local conference here and I might look at investing in a commercial program that I can use with both Crayons and Ponytails, starting in the spring. I like the sound of the one that Coffeemamma has been using. But until then we're going to do our "chez nous" version.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
A good morning for books. And strudel. And discount-store groceries.
We had a fun Saturday morning shopping around.
First stop was an estate sale with a lot of vintage books; the late owner of the house had been a French teacher and her collection went way back, maybe to her own school days. I picked up a few books just for interest, mostly vintage school editions:
Corneille: Le Cid (Hachette's French Classics)
Beaumarchais: Le Barbier de Seville
Daudet: Lettres de mon Moulin (Siepmann's French Texts)
Les 100 Plus Belles Chansons (a school songbook from the 1940's)
Notre Histoire, by Brown, Harman, and Jeanneret, translated by Charles Bilodeau. This is a real treasure: a French translation of George Brown's Story of Canada, which is an out-of-print textbook that some Canadian CM homeschoolers like to use. (Ponytails will be using our copy this year.) I didn't know a French version existed (I can find no mention of it online), and I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with it. I know a couple of bilingual CM mammas who might like to have it.
There were some books in English, too:
The Heart of Midlothian, by Sir Walter Scott
An Everyman's Library book of Modern Plays
The Little Minister, by J.M. Barrie
A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
Mr. Fixit took away a few records, too.
Second stop was a rent-a-table sale at the community centre. I found a small dolly for Crayons and a few somewhat tattered Scholastic paperbacks for a quarter apiece to add to our collection: Just Plain Maggie, Ghost Town Treasure, Snowbound in Hidden Valley, and Vicki and the Black Horse.
And a couple of the Squirrelings found earrings.
The community centre sale had a snacks table, but we weren't up for pop and hot dogs at 10:30 in the morning. So we all got back in the 2000 Rav4 (yeah, that's what we're driving right now) and drove to a cafe we had been wanting to try out that opens and closes at weird hours and keeps being closed every time we go there. This morning it was open. Grandpa Squirrel (that's Mr. Fixit's Dad Squirrel, not my map-collecting Dad Squirrel) was in the neighbourhood so he joined us for some coffee, juice and homemade strudel.
Last stop of the morning was Giant Tiger, which sounds like a funny place to pick up groceries, but we only needed bread, milk and a few boxes and cans, and we were planning a trip to the farm stand later to pick up the fresh stuff.
So...phew. That was our Saturday morning. How about yours?
Monday, January 08, 2007
Paper and scissors rock
I started a post about some new things I wanted to use this term, things we already had that I wanted to start using or make better use of. A hands-on math book, a set of notecards, an explorer biography, a craft book. And I said there were other things on the list--not books.
I wanted to finish the post, and tried to name those other things that I was going to use to zip up our winter homeschool. The list went something like this: Tape. String. Paper. Bible. Markers.
Not exactly earth-shattering!
But it struck me that sometimes we're looking for poprocks in our school shopping bags, and overlooking things that are less explosive but just as useful.
For instance, we have an ancient history timeline in the kitchen. It's been there all this school year, and it's been looked at (it's agreed that Cleopatra is beautiful and that Nero and Socrates are ugly). But the print on the events is pretty small and I thought the fourth-grader needed a boost in making sense of what's on it. So this term we are going to add construction paper tags, not right on the timeline but above and below it, attached with string. (Tape to hold the strings on the back of the tags, and stick-tack to hold the other ends to the timeline.) And not one but two colours: one colour tags for Bible events (we're reviewing David and Solomon and then going through some of the kings of Judah), and another for the stories from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World (we're moving through the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Persians and will be getting to the Persian Wars and the golden age of Greece). When the two colours cross over, so much the better!
We have two books of French stories--actually very short English stories that were translated into French. They are useful for teaching vocabulary and a bit of grammar. We've acted out the stories with toys, printed out sentences from them, and made up our own version of worksheets to go with them--usually drawing things from the story or illustrating new sentences we've made up with the story vocabulary. This term we'll probably only get through three stories, two short and one a bit longer, but that's all right. The first one is about a snowbear (not a polar bear, a bear made of snow) and has lots of body-parts vocabulary (She rolled a head. She put on a nose, etc.). So I'm going to dig out the felt board (homemade a long time ago) and make some construction-paper snowbear pieces to help tell the story. (Construction paper works as well as felt does, and it's much easier to cut.) Then on other days I'll ask Ponytails (and maybe Crayons too) to draw her own snowbear and label the parts in French. (Maybe Crayons will do it in English.) One day we'll practice some French phonics from the story (the difference between vit, petit and vite, petite). We'll play Simon dit (Simon says) to help with body parts, and sing the French version of Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. And that's it--no CD-Roms in this program, but it seems to work.
I'm going to have Ponytails (the fourth grader) make a Stick Book of Area, Perimeter and Circumference (topics from Janice van Cleave's Math for Every Kid). I'm not sure if Stick Books appear online anywhere; I got the instructions from The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook by Tammy Duby and Cyndy Regeling. Better than stapled books, better than Duotangs: all you need are pages made from cardstock (we have some already from the dollar store), a hole punch, a rubber band, and a popsicle stick. The book is held together by a rubber band threaded through two holes punched in the pages, and that's held down by a popsicle stick. Revolutionary!
Paper. String. Imagination. You can't lose.
I wanted to finish the post, and tried to name those other things that I was going to use to zip up our winter homeschool. The list went something like this: Tape. String. Paper. Bible. Markers.
Not exactly earth-shattering!
But it struck me that sometimes we're looking for poprocks in our school shopping bags, and overlooking things that are less explosive but just as useful.
For instance, we have an ancient history timeline in the kitchen. It's been there all this school year, and it's been looked at (it's agreed that Cleopatra is beautiful and that Nero and Socrates are ugly). But the print on the events is pretty small and I thought the fourth-grader needed a boost in making sense of what's on it. So this term we are going to add construction paper tags, not right on the timeline but above and below it, attached with string. (Tape to hold the strings on the back of the tags, and stick-tack to hold the other ends to the timeline.) And not one but two colours: one colour tags for Bible events (we're reviewing David and Solomon and then going through some of the kings of Judah), and another for the stories from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World (we're moving through the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Persians and will be getting to the Persian Wars and the golden age of Greece). When the two colours cross over, so much the better!
We have two books of French stories--actually very short English stories that were translated into French. They are useful for teaching vocabulary and a bit of grammar. We've acted out the stories with toys, printed out sentences from them, and made up our own version of worksheets to go with them--usually drawing things from the story or illustrating new sentences we've made up with the story vocabulary. This term we'll probably only get through three stories, two short and one a bit longer, but that's all right. The first one is about a snowbear (not a polar bear, a bear made of snow) and has lots of body-parts vocabulary (She rolled a head. She put on a nose, etc.). So I'm going to dig out the felt board (homemade a long time ago) and make some construction-paper snowbear pieces to help tell the story. (Construction paper works as well as felt does, and it's much easier to cut.) Then on other days I'll ask Ponytails (and maybe Crayons too) to draw her own snowbear and label the parts in French. (Maybe Crayons will do it in English.) One day we'll practice some French phonics from the story (the difference between vit, petit and vite, petite). We'll play Simon dit (Simon says) to help with body parts, and sing the French version of Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. And that's it--no CD-Roms in this program, but it seems to work.
I'm going to have Ponytails (the fourth grader) make a Stick Book of Area, Perimeter and Circumference (topics from Janice van Cleave's Math for Every Kid). I'm not sure if Stick Books appear online anywhere; I got the instructions from The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook by Tammy Duby and Cyndy Regeling. Better than stapled books, better than Duotangs: all you need are pages made from cardstock (we have some already from the dollar store), a hole punch, a rubber band, and a popsicle stick. The book is held together by a rubber band threaded through two holes punched in the pages, and that's held down by a popsicle stick. Revolutionary!
Paper. String. Imagination. You can't lose.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Homemade worksheets
I forgot to add this to the post about busywork: sometimes we make up our own worksheets. Crayons' favourite kind is one that I make on the computer, but it could just as easily be done with a pen or a marker--it just looks more "official" when it's printed out. I open up a file, set the page to landscape (turn it sideways), and make a table four blocks across and two down. (In other words, I divide the page into eight blocks.) At the top of each block, I type something for her to read and draw. Today's eight blocks were:
a big Christmas tree
a nice cup of tea
3 men with hats
a cat in a hat
2 candy canes
a little red star
lots of winter snow
a new little baby.
Crayons decided she did not like "3 men with hats" so we crossed out "men" and printed in "ladies." She worked on that while I helped Ponytails with her table work...then Ponytails did a copy of the same page too, just for fun.
We've also done these as a French reading activity. They can be really simple like "two red circles" and "a big black square", but I usually throw in a couple of silly ones for fun.
These sheets have a side benefit as a reading activity...we usually end up sticking them to the kitchen wall to show off the drawings, which gives Crayons extra opportunities to see and practice the words in the boxes. She likes looking at her artwork and I often hear her reading them again to herself. Painless practice!
a big Christmas tree
a nice cup of tea
3 men with hats
a cat in a hat
2 candy canes
a little red star
lots of winter snow
a new little baby.
Crayons decided she did not like "3 men with hats" so we crossed out "men" and printed in "ladies." She worked on that while I helped Ponytails with her table work...then Ponytails did a copy of the same page too, just for fun.
We've also done these as a French reading activity. They can be really simple like "two red circles" and "a big black square", but I usually throw in a couple of silly ones for fun.
These sheets have a side benefit as a reading activity...we usually end up sticking them to the kitchen wall to show off the drawings, which gives Crayons extra opportunities to see and practice the words in the boxes. She likes looking at her artwork and I often hear her reading them again to herself. Painless practice!
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