French Camp

Three years ago my daughter-in-law asked me to have a French Camp for Caleb and Emma.  They were home-schooled, so didn't have the opportunity to study French at school. The first year progress was slow because we were starting from scratch.  Here Emma is trying to smack the correct number with a fly swatter. We played the colour game this way, too.

Three years later I found the children were more solid in their dialogues, and seemed to learn new vocabulary  faster.  Caleb and Emma are having a conversation with their personalized salt and pepper shakers. These were from their Great-grandmother's collection; they each picked the pairs they wanted for their temporary family.  When it was time to go home, I said they could choose a pair to take with them.  Caleb made a beeline to his favourite pair, a set of pointy Indian brass shakers on a tray, and set about cleaning and polishing them.  Emma agonized over two choices, and finally settled on the kangaroo with its baby, whom she uses in the video. 

They added faces and expressions to any shakers that weren't people or animals, and gave them special names.  This was to compensate for the fact that we had only two students to practise with.  Every morning we would go to the collections, each on their own special spot, and "greet" a few of the shakers. Then

in a squeaky voice, they would answer back. 

The first year I told the children they could have a candy any time they attempted to say anything at all in French.  Caleb caught on quickly.  "Un, deux, trois..." and he would finish the rest of the sentence in English.  Gummy fruit and fish worked better this year, especially if they had worked hard in a game and used their vocabulary well.

Here I am holding up a flashcard with a picture of a certain feeling, like, "Je suis grincheux" (grumpy).  The person throwing the beanbag would first say the expression, and then would have three throws towards the indented cardboard that some soccer balls came in.  Caleb suggested we give each indentation a higher value, thereby practising lesser used numbers like vingt, trente, douze, and treize.  If the beanbag hit the edge and didn't actually go into the hole, it was no score, and we'd call out, "je regrette" .  The quilt is on the floor in case the occupants downstairs heard the loud "thumps", but actually I think they had gone to work, and we didn't hear any complaints.  This game was a lot of fun.

YouTube was a good source of a few simple French songs complete with catchy tunes and cartoon figures.  Last year I thought, "This is too hard; they're not getting it."  This year I found they thought it was normal to start our lesson with the "Bonjour, bonjour, comment ca va?" song, and imitate the moves on the screen.

After lunch we did other non French activities. The first year we baked and decorated cupcakes for Georges, the special guest dog puppet's birthday.

 This year, we decorated a cake for Canada Day.

And of course, can't have French Camp without our usual fondue lunch!  This was Emma's special request.  I think she was thinking of the chocolate dipped strawberries more than the cheese sauce. 

Au revoir, a l'annee prochaine!  (can't figure out how to put in the accents on this blog)