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I have shared a couple of times lately that we finally settled on a foreign language to study in our homeschool, and it’s French. The only problem with deciding on a language like French is that there aren’t as many curriculum choices as there are for things like Spanish or Latin.
A couple of years ago, before we really cemented our language choice, we worked our way through the Hooked on French program from Hooked on Phonics (which they don’t sell anymore). Beyond that, however, I had a hard time finding something that would bridge us through to keep working on French until we hit more of a high school level.
So, in what has turned out to be my homeschool style, I just grabbed a lot of resources and decided to have us work for 15 – 2o minutes a day on three days a week. I also purchased enough items that it will actually carry us beyond this school year, which will be nice to not have to come up with more resources again so soon.
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Materials and Resources For Studying French in a Homeschool
1. Two different types of French flashcards: Berlitz French Flash Cards and 1000 French Vocabulary Flash Cards
2. A program with audio, written, and computer lessons: French in 10 Minutes a Day (book and audio CDs)
3. A French workbook with reproducible pages: 100+ Reproducible Activities in French. Although, I’ll add that I thought these were available for cheap enough that I bought one for each of the kids, rather than needing to make so many copies.
4. A picture dictionary: First Thousand Words in French
5. An activity book with lessons in it as well: The Everything Kids’ Learning French Book
6. A book with an audio CD that includes games, songs, and activities: Play and Learn in French
7. Quick Study Academic laminated sheets: French Vocabulary, French Verbs, French Grammar, French Conversation
Other things we’re not currently using, but may use…
8. Software: Rosetta Stone French, Instant Immersion French, Fluenz French, Mango Passport French
9. Familiar Children’s Books in French: Les Oeufs Verts au Jambon, Madeleine, Bonsoir Lune, Max et le Maximonstres, La Chenille Qui Fait Des Trous, Devine Combien Je t’aime (How many can you figure out the titles of?)
10. Apps: If you have a device that can use apps (such as an iPad), then you can probably find a variety of apps that will have some language learning activities. Some examples: French Words for Kids HD, Princesses Learn French, French Free 24/7 Language Learning.
If you want more ideas for teaching any foreign language at home, you can check out a post that I wrote about Foreign Language Activities for Homeschool at The Happy Housewife.
What types of resources have you used to teach (or learn) a foreign language?
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We have the Spanish version of #5 checked out of the library right now 🙂
We haven’t done the Berlitz flash cards, but I did use their audio lessons/workbooks in the past when we were trying to learn some Italian before we moved. I also like the Berlitz phrase books (small, pocket size with a mini dictionary) that come with a CD to work on pronunciation.
Enjoy the French lessons. We may move onto beginning French next year. While the Agents are so young we’re just introducing the basics of a few different languages until we figure out what they’d like to study. Hubby knows some French so I’m hoping he can help us. (I can pretty much say hello and thank you and I’m done 🙂
Is the last line a cliff hanger? Looks like the link is missing.
Thanks for the great post & for hosting the linkup, & God bless,
Laurie
Just linking up again and wanted to say hi. Have a great week!
“The only problem with deciding on a language like French is that there aren’t as many curriculum choices as there are for things like Spanish or Latin.” French and Spanish are the most common FL in the US! Latin and German resources are not as easy to find as French and Spanish, but they are definitely find-able. I have came across TONS of French resources. I’m trying to find curriculum for Modern Hebrew…which has been a challenge. We tried Rosetta Stone for Mandarin for an entire year and unfortunately, that was the biggest waste of our time. Mandarin is such a tonal language, and Rosetta Stone didn’t teach us the tones, or anything really useful. And since Chinese has thousands of characters, there was no way to look up to verify what we were learning.
Now, we get Mango Passport for free through our library and we love that. We’ve tried Pimsleur, and although it was great, we’re visual learners. We’ve supplemented with Hebrew books, movies, music, the Hebrew Bible, and other stuff like that.
Thanks for the post!
We also tried Rosetta Stone for a while after I wrote this, and my kids just weren’t picking up much from it at all. Recently, we tried Mango Languages free through our library and it’s much more what I was looking for. The kids are actually remembering it and don’t mind doing the lessons.