When my oldest children, now 18 and 16, were 10 and 8, I also had a two year old and a newborn. I was trying to do Shakespeare and Plutarch with my 5th grader (and my 3rd grader liked to listen along), but putting this in the schedule only once or twice a week for a longer block of time was not working. I had recently read something by Cindy Rollins in which she referenced the poem by Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney. She was specifically quoting the first stanza but I like the whole poem, so here you go:
Little Things
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
So the little moments,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of Eternity.
So the little errors
Lead the soul away
From the paths of virtue
Far in sin to stray.
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Help to make earth happy
Like the Heaven above.
Cindy mentioned how she put everything that she didn't want slipping through the cracks into a special slot called Morning Time, or at least this is how I remember it. Inspired by this, I started scheduling Shakespeare and Plutarch as "little drops of water and little grains of sand" for 10 minutes each day in a new slot called Morning Time. In that baby year, we didn't even do both - we read an entire Shakespeare play - 10 minutes each day - and then after that play was finished, we switched to a life from Plutarch until that was done. It was liberating and we were actually getting through plays and Plutarch lives! Reading Shakespeare led to my daughter's love of Shakespeare and the start of her business of selling printable Shakespeare puppets!
This ten minute trick works for anything!
What if we did the same thing with French learning? I don't know about you, but my goal for all my students is fluency. I want them to delight in French, but also to be able to tell me all about their weekend and daily activities in French. I want to know what they thought of their favorite book, of their favorite character in that book, and I want them to also be able to think to themselves in French when they see an interesting thing on a hike. "C'est la première sanguinaire!" (It's the first bloodroot!)
Start small.
Ten minutes of French each day.
(But no guilt if you miss a day every now and then! There is a French police but it is in France, busy with other things!)
Here are some suggestions that are relatively easy to incorporate:
Add in Learning French with Paul Noble (You can listen to this every time you are in the car and have everyone including yourself participate. We are currently using this to learn German.)
Listen to Alice Ayel's beginner stories. Have your child narrate back the story using as many French words as possible. On the first listen, it might be that they just remember that "fille" means girl. Another day, listen again and see what else they are able to add in. Gain their motivation by giving them "un défi" (a challenge) to remember even more French words by the end of the second listen. Remember that understanding comes before speaking! Be patient, but encourage repeating and practicing.
Use the Everyday French Phrases to replace some of the things you already say to your kids. Click below for this free PDF that comes with an audio guide!
