Non-Native Treasure Trove : L'oeil d'ailleurs

Poppette loves books.

Papa and I love books.

Little Man is surrounded by books and I hope to foster in him a similar passion for them too.

So... when I stumbled upon the wonderful blog l'oeil d'ailleurs, I literally jumped for joy :D

This little gem does an almost daily review of a wonderful array of children's books (including picture books, word books, classic fables and much much more) for children between the ages of 2 and 10.

I have found some amazing titles for Poppette and Little Man here. The next on my list is 'P'tit Biscuit ou l'histoire du bonhomme de pain d'épices qui ne voulut pas finir en miettes' [Little Biscuit or the story of the gingerbread man who didn't want to end up as crumbs]. You can read the L'oeil d'ailleurs review here.

Non-Native Treasure Trove : Il était une histoire

Il était une histore is a fantastic free resource overflowing with French stories, songs and nursery rhymes for children between the ages of 3 and 10.

It already boasts a catalogue of around 100 stories and a new story is added to the site every Friday.

An element that particularly appeals to me is the 'Documentaires' section which teaches children about different countries, the weather, various customs and much more.

To top it off, not only are the stories available to read, you can also opt to listen to them in MP3 format. Some even have a 'karaoke' option which allows children to read along.

A large part of the site is open for access to anyone. There's also a bonus section containing colouring pages, puzzles and printables if you register to the site.

For more information about how the site works, click here to see la visite guidée.

For those of you looking for English language activities to do with your children, you will also find an 'Anglais' section containing English stories and rhymes etc click here if you're interested.

Non-Native Treasure Trove - 50 Ways to Encourage Your Child in French

Thinking of ways to group together the constant stream of great new resources that I come across, I decided to create a Non-Native Treasure Trove.

Each time I add something new, I will attach a "Non-Native Treasure Trove" label to make it really easy to find here on my blog.

First into the treasure chest is this list of 50 ways to encourage your child in French.

Non-Native Thought for the Day #4

As I heard Poppette (25.5 months) "reading" out loud to herself in French recently, it struck me that there are ways in which her use of her minority language can be optimised. As you can imagine, this brought quite a smile to my face :D

When I say "reading", I mean that Poppette was telling herself the story from memory as she looked at the pages in her book. Toddler's memories are like sponges and Poppette has memorised loads of her favourite stories.

Some of Poppette and Little Man's books are in both languages, others are in just one. Where Poppette has only heard a story in French, naturally, when she "reads" it to herself, she does so in French.... and when I think about it, it's obviously the same for experiences that she has only experienced in French too such as un tour de manège [a ride on the merry go round] which she excitedly chatters about all the time at the moment.

So....my new non-native resolution is to try and step up the new experiences and language learning opportunities that we have and help Poppette to learn about these things in French first. I'm really hoping that this will help to keep the language as alive as possible, give Poppette a very good reason to continue to speak French and, hopefully, help to prevent the English immersion experience at nursery from overpowering our bilingual endeavour.

The Things They Say.....Hairy Noses :D

Poppette (25.5 months) is now talking in sentences using verbs, nouns and adjectives although she is not yet adding in the "he's, she's it's, the's or a's etc"....

Everyday she has me in stitches.

Everyday she makes my jaw drop with the words she knows.

Yesterday, I caught her tucking her Doudou into bed and saying saying "Fais [de] beaux rêves" [sweet dreams].

I've decided to start keeping a track of some of the classics so I don't forget. The children are growing and changing so quickly that it would be easy to forget some of these gems when others occur and take their place.

Yesterday morning, the first thing Poppette said to me when she woke was "X (name removed to protect the innocent :D ) poils nez, oui c'est ça" [X hairs nose, yes that's right]. The things they say !!! Honestly!!!

The background to this little phrase is that we had a visitor a few weeks ago and Poppette noticed the hairs in his nostrils. Being the curious little girl that she is this really caught her attention. The thing about Poppette is that she has a memory like an elephant. The hairs may be gone but the memory is deeply rooted :D

Guest Post for Ma Puce : Bilingualism and My Family

When an email dropped into my inbox recently from Luci McQuitty, the brains behind Ma Puce, asking me to do a guest post, I jumped at the chance.

Ma Puce is an online resource aimed at helping parents teach their 0 - 6 year old children French. It started out as Luci's way to focus her efforts on teaching her own daughter French and grew from there. It's a great place for non-native parents to get advice, resource ideas and honest product reviews and I hope that, by sharing my family's story, I can help Luci in her bid to help others find the confidence to take the plunge and speak French to their own children.

Head over to Ma Puce (by clicking here) to read my post about bilingualism and my family.

In the post, you will also find a link to a giveaway of Be Bilingual, a great new eguide on bilingualism which is due to be published shortly. 

The book is written by Annika  Bourgogne, a trilingual mother of two girls who is, like me, extremely passionate about bi/multilingualism. I recently read Annika's manuscript and it takes the top spot on the list of books that I have read on bilingualism (and i've read a few!!!). It summarises what the experts are saying and what actual bilingual families are saying and is packed full of tried and tested tips and resource ideas. You can read an excerpt of the book by clicking here.

Le soleil se cache derrière les nuages...The sun is hiding behind the clouds

Two weeks after her 2nd birthday, Poppette spoke her first gramatically correct four word sentence. She was happily drinking her milk first thing in the morning when Little Man started to grumble to let us know that he was also rather hungry....Poppette looked over to him and announced "Bébé boit milk too" i.e. Baby drinks milk too.

I was really pleased on two levels...obviously from a language perspective this is fab...she may have mixed up her languages but she did so perfectly!! and I was also chuffed to bits at the obvious care and concern Poppette has for her younger brother.

Poppette is now almost 25 months old and her language is coming on in leaps and bounds. Papa has actually said recently that Poppette now often says things in French that he cannot understand. This is not a problem for him as he feels it is a small price to pay in exchange for his children getting the gift of bilingualism. It does, however, indicate that Poppette is beggining to use more complex vocabulary.

Yesterday we were in the car when she exclaimed "soleil cache derrière nuages" i.e. le soleil se cache derrière les nuages [the sun is hiding behind the clouds]. To be honest, she couldn't have timed it better as I have been a little despondent about this whole bilingual endeavour over the past few weeks. It can be quite exhausting always trying to think around ways to chat about things that you may never have thought about before in your second language. It can feel like trying to cram for a test.....every day. Add to that the fact that research suggests that the more the majority language exposure increases at the expense of the minority language the more of an upward struggle you will have to maintain your child's bilingualism.....and, well, it can feel like you're onto a losing battle. Both Poppette and Little Man will be in nursery 5 days a week from January :(

Rather than wallow in the why it might not work blues.... I am writing this post as a reminder to myself of just how far we have come in the two short years since my daughter's birth.

Poppette can count to ten in both English and French and does so all the time. I'd love to peak inside her head to see what influences her decision to pick one language over the other when she is playing alone.

We are still working on colours in both languages.  She definitley knows rouge/red in both languages  - as for the other colours, some days she gets them right and other days she doesn't so sometimes I am unsure whether she may just have guessed really well :D. Her knowledge of colours is definitley stronger in English right now.

We have been having regular playdates with a really lovely little French girl (5 months Poppette's senior) over the past few months. They play so well together, running around holding hands and giggling. It's such a pleasure to watch their friendship blossom. I have been really happy to note that when this young girl's mum chats away in French with Poppette, she understands perfectly. A good friendship has blossomed between us mamans too. Unfortunately, a move back to France in on the cards for them next month so our get togethers will have to come to an end.

Poppette's favourite mot du jour since this weekend is d'accord [ok]. She just came out with it whilst we were chatting and has not stopped saying it since.... much better than her other favourite word "noooooooo"!!!

At the moment she vascilates between speaking loads of French with me (about 80/20) to speaking about 50/50. That said, she only seems to speak French to other people if she doesn't know a word in English or perhaps favours the French word. Her language with Papa in the main is English although, although she peppers her converstaions with him with French words and phrases...some of which Papa understands and others that he doesn't.

I am trying to lift my game as far as Little Man is concerned and try to speak to him exclusively in French now. It still feels a little alien at times but I know it felt just the same when Poppette was tiny too.