It’s the start of a new year, it’s 2016 and we have come a long way since 2005 with developing our unique and dynamic curriculum and teaching method.  Petits Poussins is different in many ways, and apart from our fun and enthusiasm for languages, we don’t speak any English to teach your child French.  We believe that if you are going to learn a language, total immersion is the key.  Each week we teach 100′s of children and if we are totally honest with you, there’s many emotions we feel; however, one of them is ‘blessed’ and the other is ‘amazement’.

To put that into context, when children and adults follow our ‘Making Languages Fun’ learning programme it is like watching little happy angels soaking up every bit of joy, laughter and language in our teaching sessions.  We are witnesses all day, every day to the saying ’children are like sponges’.

As many of you know we teach from birth in our Parent and Toddler sessions, in fact in any of our sessions we advocate that language acquisition of additional languages should be started from as early an age as possible. Just as you do with your child’s mother tongue, they are hard wired to absorb it all!

So have you ever wondered how we teach your child, or what your children learn in our sessions, or how you can get involved, please have fun watching our video, let us know what you think!  If you would like more, let us know and if you would like to see our teaching in our ‘live classes’ or training for your school or educational establishment, we would be happy to help!  After all, the more people who get involved the bigger our chances of realising our dream of creating that revolution in the way modern foreign languages are taught in the UK…or maybe even across the globe! Pourquoi pas!

There are a few versions of the song, as usual we have added a #MakingLanguagesFun twist to it and we have modified the end of the song. We shout “tombez!” which means “fall” and we all fall, ‘splash’ into ‘la rivière’ – the river.

It’s also great bath time song and all of our children and families love it.

Sit your child on your knee and ‘row’ your boat until you fall ‘splash’ in the ‘la rivière’

You could also say ‘vite’ [veet] – which means ‘quick or fast’ to reinforce every day commands whilst injecting our motto of #MakingLanguagesFun into your game!

Check out the link to the video clip, le camion de pompier- the fire engine.

Leo is a curious truck and he has parts loaded on his back.  What is he going to make with the parts?  Enjoy watching the videoclip with your Peits Poussins and dicuss the vocabulary with them.  Remember it’s all about Making Languages Fun!

le camion [leuh camee-ohn] the truck

la voiture [lah vwa-tewr] the car

le camion de pompier [leuh camee-ohn deuh pomp-ee-ay] the fire truck

un [uhn] – one

deuc [deuh] -two

trois [twra] – three

les sièges [lay see-ej] the seats

le volant [leuh voh-lohn] the steering wheel

une cabine rouge [oon cabeen rooj] – a red cabin

un pare-choc en avant [uhn par-shock ohn avahn] – the front bumper

trois roues [trwa roo]  three wheels

à côté [ah coat-ay] to the side

les ailes [layz elss] the wings

la citerne-d’eau [lah see-tern doh] – the water tank

l’échelle [lay shell] the ladder

le girophare [leuh geero-far] the flashing light

Comptines HD

Songs are a great way for your children to learn a language.  Our curriculum is developped in a clever way that ensures language is learned in a fun manner with lots of clever repetition, solely delivered in the target language.

This is a great app of traditional French ‘comptines’ - nursery songs, some with a twist on the French version.  Your children should be familiar with some them from our sessions too!  The wonderful thing, apart from the clear French, is that the words are displayed in karaoke style and the child can play a game to the rythmn of the music, a bit like a dance mat with their fingers!

The always win a ‘trophée’ regardless if they score any points or not!  We just love the vibrant graphics and catchy song style.

When we teach we like to use exciting songs that make the language experience fun for the children. As you know our motto is ‘Making Languages Fun!’

We often put a twist into songs or adapt them so that it reinforces our questions or the vocabulary that we have been covering.  When we sing Au Feu les Pompiers we replace the cantinier and the cantinière with the children’s names!  They really laugh a lot when we do this.  I hope they’ve been singing it at home with you.

We sometimes add extra songs to our lesson plans that may not be in your newsletter if the children enjoy a particular word.  The children have particularly enjoyed the word ‘le Pompier [leuh pomp-ee-ay] ‘, which means fireman…they may have even been singing pin-pon-pin-pon [pahn-pohn] around the house!  That’s the noise that the firetruck  ‘camion de pompier’ [cam-ee-ohn deuh pomp-ee-ay] makes!

Au feu les pompiers is all about the firemen being called to a fire…Here’s a translation to help you whilst you listen to the video clip.  These video clips are great as you can follow the words as they are sung.

Here is the link http://youtu.be/FfAvs3Dr3sI

Au feu les pompiers…to the fire firemen

V’là la maison qui brule…here’s the house burning

Au feu les pompiers…to the fire firemen

V’là la maison brulée…here’s the burnt house!

C’est pas moi qui l’ai brûlée - It wasn’t me who burnt it

C’est la cantinière – It was the woman from the canteen

C’est pas moi qui l’ai brûlée - It wasn’t me who burnt it

C’est le cantinier – It was the man from the canteen

Have fun!  It’s what makes language learning enjoyable and it’s the best way for your children to remember the vocabulary.

Merci beaucoup!

When we find him we shout coucou [coo-coo] – hiya/peek-a-boo

We just love the verb cacher [cashay].  Say it to you child and see what they do!

We use it often in the sessions with its variants…

Cache les yeux [cash layz yeuh] – hide your eyes

Cache, cache, cache [cash cash cash] hide, hide hide

Click on the video clip from our ami [am-ee] friend,  Pocoyo and check out our vocabulary guide below.

This time we find him playing at hide and seek, cache-cache [cash-cash].

Pocoyo Joue à cache-cache

Here’s the vocabulary from the video clip ‘Pocoyo Joue à Cache-Cache’

Bonjour [bohn-joor] – hello/good morning/good afternoon

Jouer à cache-cache –[joo-ay ah cash-cash] – to play hide and seek

Coucou – hi-ya/peek-a-boo

Où est Pocoyo? [oo ay Pocoyo]

Il est là/elle est là [eel ay la/el ay lah]- he/she is there

Que veux-tu faire ? [keuh veuh tew fayr] – what do you want to do ?

Jouer [joo-ay] – to play

Un jeu [uhn j-euh] – a  game

Un poisson [uhn poisson] – a fish

Dans la mer [dahn la mer] – in the sea

Des bras  [day bra] – some arms

Le fôret [leuh fo-ray] – the forest

La fleur [la fl-euhr] – the flower

L’arbre [lar-breuh] – the tree

Le pied – [leuh pee-ay]- the foot

Dormir [dor-meer] – to sleep

At the start of the session the Petits Poussins

Amusez-vous bien! I’d love to hear what you think too Merci Gill xx https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/joue-et-apprends-les-couleurs/id382272367?mt=8

Joue et apprends les couleurs avec T’choupi

itunes.apple.com

Get Joue et apprends les couleurs avec T’choupi on the App Store. See screenshots and ratings, and read customer reviews.

• How about you get some coloured objects and put them in a magic bag.
• Lay out different coloured paper on the floor.
• Remind your child of the colours in French.
• Ask your child to choose something from ‘le sac’ and get them to match it with the correct coloured sheet of paper.
• Ask your child ‘c’est de quelle couleur?’ [say deuh kel coo-leur] What colour is it?
• And then say the colour in French ‘c’est bleu’ [say bleuh] it’s blue!
• Check out your newsletter for all the other colours.
• Don’t worry if you don’t have any coloured paper just use different coloured objects from around the house to create your colour category or even better have some fun colouring or painting using different colours on several sheets of paper.

I bet you could have great fun this weekend practicing and bonding with you child.

Here’s some tips for encouraging your child to speak.

• Keep it fun!  Your child will engage so much more if we show fun and enthusiasm.
• Most of all and use lots of praise saying ‘bravo’ when they get it right and clap your hands!
• If your child says the correct colour in English say ‘bravo’ and then simply repeat the colour back in French, your child is corrrect and should never be told that they were wrong for saying the correct colour in English even if they are unsure of the French.
• Remember, children are so influenced by what we do as parents.  We are their rolemodels and if they see you speaking French and having lots of fun, they will too!

Please send us your pictures and Videoclips, we’d love to share them with you!

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