Kids French for going on holiday

[nunheadmum]

We're off to France in the summer and last year my daughter was enjoying trying little bits of French. Does anyone know of good resources for teaching kids (age 5 & 7) basic French that would work as a bit of fun at home? I can speak a little but not sure I'm good at making it fun for kids or knowing the bounds of how much they can take on.

Online stuff would work well to save her from my bad pronunciation - but not got an i-pad (which I suspect would make it easy) and don't want to pay a fortune for a major course like Muzzy.

[VALFR59]

Bonjour,

If you have an Ipad, you can download educationnal/funny games for kids. I've done it for my 3yrs old, to makes him practising his french ABC/counting/etc (with excercices books but fun for kids) as we are supposed to get back to France within 2 years, and he loves it.

"Hachette" (a french editor) is doing nice things for Iphone/Ipad . (ABC rigolo = funny ABC, etc)

You can go to a french/european bookshops : www.europeanbookshop.com (big store in Soho). There is also one store in South kens "librairie ? la page" really close to South Kens tube station.

I am used to go there for buying french business speaking methods... but I've saw some kids french learning methods for sale there as "la jolie ronde programm" etc).

Go on Amazon and buy some french books about " learning english for kids" . The vocabulary will be basic and you can use them on the opposite way, to learn french from the english words :)

Go on You tube , you can find nice ressources, kids songs with picutres of the sung words.

If you are good at entertainning kids, you can do it on your own for sure.

"Alouette" is great to learn the parts of the body. (but not nice for the poor bird!lol)

If you fear to teach them a bad pronounciation, you can buy some french cartoons/movies in french (their ears will catch the accent at such a young age). I have the same concern than you with my strong french accent when I have to speak in english to my son when we are with our english friends/outside the house. But at the end, it's great to speak a foreign language, so no complex with your accent! by the way, speaking french with a small english accent is cute for french ears :)

A clever/affordable solution (and usefull for parents in the same time) might be to have a french babysitter (London is the "8th biggest french city of France" according to Boris J and french ambassy...so full of students, looking for extra works). Ask her/him to speak only in french (or almost) with a routine of sentences at each meet.

Also, Wix bilingual school in clapham might be nice (not only tailor suited for french/half french kids). They have a class for english children who want to be bilingual (even if none of the parents are english).

Good luck!