French Resources

[CadenceSophia]

Here are just some of the resources I have used with my children. As you can tell from the skew, my kids are still young. There isn't really anything here past the age of learning to read. I'd love to see what you have used for your children (especially if it will help me plan for next year haha!). I am especially interested in early elementary history and geography if you have any reviews of products -- whether you liked them or not!

 

Early Fluency -

 

• Un Deux Trois: First French Rhymes -- rhymes to train the non-native tongue and ear. My kids really liked these. They are very pleasant to chant and have  a nice way of getting the brain switched over into “French modeâ€

 

• Mama Lisa’s World Songs and Rhymes in French. Especially helpful if the non-fluent parent is teaching as everything is translated.

http://www.mamalisa.com/?p=22&t=ec&c=22

 

• Il était une histoire  Songs and poems in French. You need to register but it is free.

http://www.iletaitunehistoire.com/

 

• Radio Ouistiti - streaming internet radio for children. Watch the timezone. After French children go to bed it plays music for parents.

 

• Radio Pomme d’Api - Children’s radio. Listen streaming online or via their free app for android or in itunes store. Children’s night time music repeats in the off peak hours.

 

• Music

The music of Steve Waring - La Baleine Bleu and Le Retour de Matou are both avail for MP3 download on Amazon.com as well as CD

Songs In French for Children -- classic children’s songs from the 50’s. This was the only CD in my car for over a year and my children still begged me to play it every car ride.

Un trésor dans mon jardin  

Le petit chein de laine - book and audio CD. I am including this because the work of Lionel Daunais is famous and I bought it for my children for cultural exposure, but they actually found the pictures in the book disturbing so it sits on a shelf. Maybe in a few years?

Petit Ours Brun albums - Modern upbeat children’s music. Easy to sing along with so I have found them good for vocabulary aquisition. Avail. on Amazon com as CD or MP3 download

 

• Books -- A topic for another thread but here are two of my favorite series

Drôles de Petites Bêtes - Antoon Krings. I adore these. There is also a cartoon  based on them.

Clac La Tortue -- and all the rest by Edouard Manceau. Short enough for very young children or children who don’t have enough French for a longer story. They are also written in French script <<en attaché>> so they are great for my 7 year old who is learning to read this year both french and cursive.

• Movies and cartoons

The Studio Ghibli films all have a French audio track. Ponyo and Arriety are our favorites

Cartoons to look for (roughly age order): Peppa Cochon, TroTro, Milo le Lapin, Mimi la souris, T’Choupi, Petit Ours Brun,Bali (search “Bali dessin animeâ€), SamSam, Les Barbapapas, Marsupliami, Ariole, Petit Nicholas

 

Language Arts

 

• Apprendre à lire

Pre and early reading games sorted by individual letters and sounds. Also great for kids who are not quite at grade level fluency as there are many pictures with pronunciation. http://apprendrealire.net/

 

• Méthode Boscher

Classic program to teach french speaking children to read. All the books are available online to download. I believe they are out of copyright but since I am not positive, I will not link to the file downloads. They are also available on Amazon.fr and Amazon.com  Some of the titles are:

Methode Boscher ou La Journee des Tout Petits J'apprends a tracer les lettres minuscules J'apprends a tracer les lettres majuscules cursives Cahier d’écriture Cahier de Graphisme Cahier des Sons

 

• Tatou le Matou

Two levels available. Teacher’s guide (only in French) is available on the site free to print. Lots of fun for pre-k and kindergarten age. Designed to be taught in French only as an FLE program.

 

• Alex et Zoé

Three levels available. Begins in 1st grade or at writing readiness. This is intended for children who do not yet speak French (FLE program). This is designed for instruction to be both in English (or mother tongue) and in French. Teacher’s guide is in French.

 

• La bonne méthode de dictée : Méthode Cuissart Dictées for a school year. Books available for CP, CE1 and CE2.

• Petits Homeschoolers -- nice blog with downloads. I have laminated many of her files. My daughter especially likes the ballerina unit study. http://petitshomeschoolers.blogspot.com/

 

Math -

• Khan Academy can be done in French

https://fr.khanacademy.org/

 

• La Librairie des Ecoles prints a math course that is a translation and adaptation of the Singapore Method. I have not tried them

 

• Défi Mathématique - free logic based math curriculum in 5 books for homeschoolers. Looks like a strong supplement.   http://defimath.ca/ecole-maison/

 

Handwriting -

• Finger stretches for better handwriting.

 

• Modèles d'écriture en ligne   Page that generates handwriting sheets in french script. You can select the line size and what you’d like each line to say.

http://cursivecole.fr/ecriture1.php

 

• French standard school font that you can download and type your own copy work.  [Thank you Monica_in_Switzerland]    http://www.dafont.com/cursive-standard.font

 

• Graphilettre -- Handwriting workbooks. My kids really like them.

 

• Bout de Gomme -- There is so much on this site it doesn’t belong tucked away with handwriting but so far that is all I have explored. There are large letters to print and laminate that you are then supposed to have the children roll clay worms to shape their letters. http://boutdegomme.fr/rituels-cp-et-ce1-ecriture-a100178147

http://boutdegomme.fr/  [Thank you Monica_in_Switzerland]

 

 

 

I know there is more if I go through my Pinterest account. I will try and update another time with that and perhaps we can start a book review thread.
 

[madteaparty]

What an awesome post. The radio info is especially appreciated.

[Loesje22000]

The Tatou le Matou guide for teachers is also available in Dutch ;)

http://www.averbode.be/Pub/catalogusvl/Volgens-reeks/Volgens-reeks-Initiatie-Frans.html?r=5849

Filou is geared before Tatou le Matou

[visitor]

Thanks Sophia this is perfect !

Edited January 27, 2016 by visitor

[bibiche]

Many of those are very familiar and bring back happy memories. 😊

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

The Bout de Gomme "rituels" are wonderful- we used all the grammar ones through CE2 and all the conjugation ones as well.  They are short exercises at a rate of about one per day to create a sort of constant review in just a few minutes a day.  To teach the material in the first place, she has an excellent "work text" with explanations followed by exercises.  

 

I have also used many of her writing prompts that involve a bande dessiné image and word bank.  These are very similar to the exercises given here on standardized tests, so I went through all of hers as part of prep.  

 

I love her printouts for Entree en Grammar with the little robot/alien things for each part of speech.  We used these a lot!  

 

The only bad thing is that I find the website somewhat difficult to navigate.  I have reorganized many of her materials into one pdf to make my life easier.  You can PM me with your email address if you'd like those.

 

 

 

For dictées, we have been using La Bonne Methode, though I recently switched my son to a correspondence course for French (Sainte Anne, in Paris) as I found my own ability to teach the dictee was not adequate at the CE2 level.  Now that I've had some "teacher training", I could probably go back to it with more success!  

 

 

For history and Science, I really, really like these books by Hachette: Lectures Thematiques .  These are actually level CM1-2, but I have been using them successfully with my ds (CE2).  The history books match closely to the 4 year SOTW cycle.  The science books can be used in any order, and the art one I haven't used yet.  If you'd like more detail on how I use these, I can give that info.  

 

For fictional reading, we like the series "La veritable histoire de..." - book series starring children living in various historical periods.  We also read a lot of Cabane Magique and Bus Magique from the library.    

 

 

 

 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Also, what is your pinterest user name?  I'd love to follow your French hs board!  

[bibiche]

We used many things from the above links.  Others that DS loved but I don't think were mentioned:

 

baby: Fleurus Imageries des bebes

.

toddler: Gallimard Jeunesse has a lovely series of Imagiers with accompanying musical CDs

 

young :  Fleurus Imageries.  This is a great series of books. It includes "L'Imagerie de la lecture" if you are looking for another option for teaching reading. I bought it for that purpose, but it turns out that DS had already taught himself to read so while I don't know how it works for teaching reading, I can recommend it as being helpful for spelling. :)

 

medium: Mon Premier Larousse.  These books are for just slightly older children and continue in the same vein as the Fleurus books

 

older: Milan Jeunesse has a great series of books called "Les Encyclopes"  that DS still enjoys.  

 

For dictees we use Ladictee.fr.  I also highly recommend the books of Francoise Picot, particularly Faire de la grammaire and Je memorise ... et je sais ecrire des mots

Edited January 28, 2016 by bibiche