French curriculum

[mntnmom]

So, we might be moving to the French speaking area of Belgium. I would really like to start some basic conversational french with the kids (and brush up myself!) before then. Does anyone have a favorite program/curricula mostly for early and pre readers? I love the format of Rosetta Stone for myself, but my kids are 6, 5 and 3, so I don't know how well it would work.

[greenthumb3]

Hi! I have Sing and Learn at our house in French. It is a CD of songs, which are easy and fun to listen to/sing along with for me and the kids. It's really well done and the tunes are catchy.

There is a pamphlet that comes in the CD case with the French to English translation, lots of basics, like animals, colors, places, etc.

It's not a curriculum, but still good practice when in the car, as background music at home and for pre or early readers.
HTH

[AAK]

We have Muzzy and it is fun and geared for younger kids. My kids do the spanish, but all the languages come in the set now. There are DVDs, CDs of music, a story/vocab book and computer games.

Amy

[Savoir Faire]

I'm looking into Muzzy for my children (but for German). I've also known adults who have done Rosetta Stone...

[heatherdeg]

Originally Posted by AAK

We have Muzzy and it is fun and geared for younger kids. My kids do the spanish, but all the languages come in the set now. There are DVDs, CDs of music, a story/vocab book and computer games.

Amy

We have Muzzy French and I never use it. Wanna buy it? No, seriously, it sounds like they transferred it from an old, worn out VHS tape--so it's somewhat muffled and really, ds wasn't "into" it... so it did NOTHING for us. Seriously.

We DO have the "Bonjour, Les Amis" series (it's a 3 DVD series) and it's especially good if you have children that can also read because they do a lot of large subtitles to acclimate the kids to the written word--associating it with the spoken word. I really liked that.

You might also look into the bilingual story books and read them at bedtime. It's the "I Can Read French" series (here's a link to one of them) They are WONDERFUL for non-speaking parents because there's a full pronunciation guide in the back plus instructions on how to use the books. They're really short, too.

With these things plus my desperately trying to regain my fluency and using some basic everyday phrases/commands with my son ("Come here, please" or "That isn't yours" or "What are you doing?") I'm finding that he's starting to take an active interest in the language and wants to learn more (he'll be 6 in Jan). As a result, I'm carrying around a small dictionary to help ME.

Last, my library has (unbeknownst to most of the population) a free online "database" that is actually foreign language instruction. Check yours! It may not be great for the kids (or maybe it is) but it could help you so that you could incorporate the language a bit at home.