We’re still working away at our French. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t pursue it at a level meeting my own expectations without help. However, we continue to persist as consistently as possible. Everyone (including me) has been doing their Rosetta Stone French lessons. We have the French radio station tuned in. Ben, in particular, likes to watch Youtube videos of how to say the alphabet and numbers. I like all the ones posted by imagiers. They all love the Pigloo videos. My personal favorite is Moi J’aime Skier. (Think “YMCA”) The tunes are catchy and as soon as I get a few spare moments I’m going to figure out and translate the lyrics. We’ll learn them and we’ll sing them.
The single most helpful thing for my French learning was having Annie live with us. So now, for that reason primarily and a host of others, we are considering getting another au pair. The trick right now is figuring out where we can sleep someone. If we can free up a bedroom it will work. I won’t put all the boys in one room again because of their waking patterns. Some are early risers and some are not and I don’t want the late risers grumpy because of the early risers waking them. Alternatively, we can’t put an au pair in the basement where the kids play and all the craft stuff is set up. No privacy! Anyway, I’m hoping to find a solution that everyone is happy with. Then I’ll be looking for an au pair who will speak only French to us for the first two hours of every day. I’d also like the pre-supper hour to be a French hour focused on Noah and Ben while I prepare the meal. I don’t want any sort of “program”. Just conversation. ”Oh, look, you found your stuffed puppy! He’s brown. Is he soft? Nice dog. Can you pet him? Don’t play with the garbage can.” All in French of course.
We went to a drop-in French program at the library. The group that does it is funded through the Ontario government (it is an Ontario Early Years Program). It was fabulous! The young girls that did it were dressed up kind of “Big Comfy Couch” style, but less clownish. I can’t think of a better example since we don’t have television. I’m out of touch. Anyway, they were very animated, lively, and used lots of actions and visuals to reenforce the language (which was entirely French). They kept the kids engaged for the entire hour.
Unfortunately, this program only runs for a few weeks. But I have been given some dates and times for other programs they are running.
Alright… so there is our little French update. Oh, next week’s theme for the library program is “farms” so we are going to focus on that throughout the week. Gabe is very eager. I think he was inspired by the program too. When we got home he drew a scene using Tux Paint and then asked me the French spelling of various things and labeled his picture.
