French curriculum?

[Marie131]

What is there in terms of French curriculum for young kids? I am considering beginning my older 2 boys next year when they are 6 and 8. I know a little French (i,e, not a lot), my dh is fluent however I'll be doing the lessons. Any suggestions?

[Roadrunner]

I own L'art de dire and First Start French. The first one is really an oral program each week focusing on different vocab (greetings, colors, days of week, animals...). If you speak some French, you could probably pull something like it together yourself. First Start has grammar instruction, but it is too dry for little kids. It's also a bit difficult explaining a 5 year old some grammar concepts. There is Skoldo program at Galore Park website. I didn't buy it, but it might be worth checking out. I gave up and put something together myself. We are using a textbook written for French kids (my DH's old book) to teach French phonics, memorizing irregular verbs, singing songs and drilling conversational phrases by heart along with themed vocab.

[Melissa B]

We use Skoldo French. You can see inside it on Amazon, but I buy it through Ray at Horrible Books.

[Tawlas]

I've just started with Avant Gaston. Its a newer program that preceeds Gaston which is for primary aged kids. My understanding is they use it in the UK. the teacher's guide is in french though, so you need to be able to read french at a pretty profficient level. It's . . .okay. I havent used anything else so i cant really compRe it. maybe nothing will really imoress me :-P. I speak French very well I just needed something to sort of point the way as far as what to do, so it's bee working that way for us and my son enjoys it. There is very, very little writing which was what i wanted at this age. My son is five. We're only on our third week though. Maybe it will blow my socks off at a later point lol?

 

I also looked into petite grenouille. I'm sort of kicking myself a little, although it was very expensive. A few different posters on here told me it was very good though. . . Something else for you to look into?

[Marie131]

Has anyone used the easy French?

[swellmomma]

We LOVE mission monde. It is a Canadian french program. The K-3 program is designed for once a week, levels 1+ are for 2-3 times a week. It is a combination of audio, reading, writing and verbal work based on Canadian french. It includes french culture as well which the kids like learning about. We plan to use it right through all of it's levels.

[MinivanMom]

We have used L'art de Dire, which is all oral and wonderful for younger children. If your husband is fluent, though, you may not need that kind of handholding for just doing a gentle, oral introduction to the language. We are currently using L'art de Lire. My oldest has just completed Level 3. It is in workbook format with an audio cd. It is geared toward elementary-age children and focuses on learning to read and write French. We have been happy with it, but it does require that you supplement with actual French conversation.

 

I have heard consistently good things about Galore Park's French Prep (which is for middle school level) and their new Skoldo (for elementary school level). You may want to check those out as well.

[KellyMama]

We just completed Switched on Schoolhouse Elementary French - the kids really enjoyed the story and always did well on the little quizzes. Not sure what we will do next so I'm watching your thread too! :)

[Esse Quam Videri]

We really like L'art de Lire as well. It's fairly inexpensive, great for 2nd or 3rd grade and up, and quite thorough IMO.

[Marie131]

How often do you do a french lesson? I can't see us having time for any more than once or twice a week. Would that be sufficient for an intro or should I put it off until we have more time to allocate to it?

[Laura Corin]

How often do you do a french lesson? I can't see us having time for any more than once or twice a week. Would that be sufficient for an intro or should I put it off until we have more time to allocate to it?

 

I think twice a week would be the minimum. Any less often than that and I don't think you would see much progress, which would be frustrating on both sides.

 

Laura

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Our co-op uses Mission Monde. I like the program but I must say it still has many typos in it :-(

But it's a great program

[Trez]

We use Breaking the Barrier French here and will continue on to use Galore Park once we are done. My kids were in a french immersion PS so it was hard to find a program which they could start in grade 6 without it being too simple.

[Jay3fer]

We use Alex et Zoe. The teacher's guide is in French but the whole curriculum is a really nice combination of book work, computer activities and hands-on games/crafts. We LOVE it!

 

 

I smiled when I read this. We're Canadian and I think this is the same curric. my dd17 used in school, like Grade 2. And even now, sometimes, I'll hear her break out into song at random... "Alex... Zoe... et compagnie!"

[anabelneri]

We used the Learnables for a while; it did a good job, but it really needs to be turned into a digital product (like a DVD or online program). It would be excellent then.

 

We're also using Alex et Zoe... dd has a teacher (dh and I don't speak French) and they do about a lesson every week/week-and-a-half. Dd really likes it.

 

I have Petite Grenouille and it's adorable; my younger daughter enjoys listening to the stories. But it would be too simple for your elder child.

 

:)

[JenniferLynn]

I used to be fluent and am still pretty conversant - enough to teach the first few years of French. I started with L'art de Dire when my kids were 3 & 5 and it worked well for instruction but we had trouble with practice. In theory, I thought we could just converse in the car and walking to school but everyone got bored with that. So I invested in Rosetta Stone and it has been great for DD now 6. I will start the others at age 5. I still do some white board work and oral testing on my own, but DD6 does Rosetta Stone for 10-15 minutes 4-5x / week and is retaining everything. This summer I do plan to try L'art de Lire though. I myself prefer a book to teach from but for daily practice Rosetta Stone has been worth the investment.

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

We use the Learnables. DS1 started it in first grade. He took almost an entire year off when he went back to school. I was amazed that he picked up right where he left off this year. I loaded the tracks into my amazon cloud and he listens to them on my kindle while looking at the book. FOr now, I like that it isn't a computer program we have enough screen time as it is. I bought it through the Homeschool Buyers co-op,. I probably have another two years of material before I'll need something else. He also studies the English from the roots up cards with MODG 3, and he sometimes recognizes words from French.