We're rowing Madeline :)

[JennyO]

I am so excited :hop: My kids are already familar with the book. But, it'll be so much fun to start tomorrow. I have our world map ready, along with the marker. I am going to print off a few flags of France...it's a good start.

[TonyaP]

We just finished rowing Madeleine. There's a link in the archives to a kids' health site with information about the appendix. I also did a google search and found a site that allowed us to listen to someone count in French. (I used our Rosetta stone online access too- but the kids weren't too interested in that.)

Have fun.

[JennyO]

Thanks Tonya! Our first day of rowing Madeline went so well!:clap: My 5 year old loved finding France on the world map and placing the marker there. AND...he colored a map of France. We talked about the Seine River...what it was used for, and we also talked about our own river that runs through our city. I think that they my dh would like to take our kids down to the river...kind of a little field trip. We also looked through the pages and pointed out what pages were monochromatic (sp?) and which pages had a full color.

Anyway...looking forward to tomorrow!

[Tami in IA]

Jenny,
What a wonderful start! :clap:
Something we did that was fun was to play at being the tiger at the zoo, & saying "pooh-pooh". This site has some great sound files of tigers roaring (http://junglewalk.com/sound/Tiger-sounds.htm). We talked about how hard it would be to be brave when you heard a sound like that.
We found out that tigers make a chuffing sound to "friends" when we went to the zoo on a field trip. It sounded a little like "puff-puff".

Anyway just thought I'd share one of the rabbit trails we took on our Madeline adventure!

Keep having fun!

[JennyO]

Thank you Tami!:kiss: When we went to the zoo in Sept. we saw and heard a tiger up close. We were all amazed at just how powerful the "voice" of a tiger is. It really did put my hairs on end!

[molly in cr]

I like the Puffin tape we checked out from the library (years ago). It had the story on one side, and songs and a little French on the other. I think it would be great for the ages of your kids. :)

[JennyO]

Thanks Molly...I'll be writing this stuff down! I still have 3 more kids that'll be going through FIAR :)

[AmandaW]

I thik the most fun activity we did with Madeline was holding a cheese tasting experience as a family. I got slices of different cheeses from the deli and we compared how we liked each one on a chart. We also ate toast with Nutella on it (by jelly and peanut butter). I was told a lot of kids in France eat this on toast, english muffins, or croisants for breakfast. My son and I are looking forward to taking a bus ride next week, too. I hope you have a fun week.

[Darcy]

I highly recommend the Madeline Walk at 1/2 past 9 a.m.....taking a walk outside and finding things to smile at, frown at, and be sad abt. (litter for example). We picked wildflowers on our walk and put them in a vase for our Madeline/French picnic. The kids loved helping prepare the meal and lounging back on pillows outside as I read the story to them after lunch. For our menu we had chicken salad sanwiches on croissants, sliced apples and peaches and grapes, various cheeses and crackers, sparkling grape juice in goblets, and some chocolate for dessert. See photo of our picnic below....

Another highlight was serving omlettes one night for dinner.

Darcy

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d113/dlittle4570/K-12Picnic0042.jpg

[Darcy]

Ooooh, another fun thing we did went a long with a go-along book called "Belinda in Paris" by Amy Young. Belinda is a prima ballerina who's pointe shoes do not make it on the airplane for her Paris performance so she runs all over the city trying to find a way to have pointe shoes made in time for her performance...her biggest issue is that she has HUGE feet. She finally finds two suitable objects to take to the shoe maker to serve as a form of her feet...she brings him to French bread baguettes.

We bought two long baguettes at the grocery store and practiced measuring the length and measured the kids' feet in comparison and made a chart. Then we baked the loaves and ate them for lunch. (We bought the kind that are slightly raw and you have to brown them in the oven...they were more tender than the pre-baked crusty baguettes which my kids don't prefer).

Darcy

[Kendall in GA]

Great ideas, ladies! I've planned to row Madeline next semester with my ds. I want to incorporate a couple of your ideas. I'm also gonna have my Parisian neighbor read it to my ds in French. (He did that for my dd several years ago and she really enjoyed it.)

Darcy --- I love the photo of your picnic. :thumb: Thanks for sharing. :)