FIAR: 'Madeline' and our study of France

Learning about other people and places is something I feel strongly about. I want my kiddos to know about more than their own place. And so we threw ourselves into a study of France when we read 'Madeline' by Ludwig Bemelmans.

We visited:
A new French restaurant had conveniently opened near us. And so one night for supper we headed over to Le Town Talk Diner. I had recently interviewed the owner for the Longfellow/Nokomis Messenger and knew she was originally from France. Plus she spent years as a chef at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. How cool is that?!

We cooked:
- French onion soup
- Gluten-free crepes with ham and cheese

We watched:
- French Greeting Song for Children on YouTube
- Alloutte French Nursery Rhyme with Basho and Friends on YouTube
- Numbers in French with Basho and Friends on YouTube
- Inside Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris
- Paris with Kids - Eiffel Tower
- 10 best places to see in Paris
-  Learn French - French in 3 Minutes - Numbers 1 - 10
And other videos in French that I could find so we could practice learning the language, as well as travel videos on Paris.

PLUUUUSSSSS
We discovered you can find lots of tv episodes of Madeline on YouTube. The first ones follow the original 6 books pretty closely. The week we were sick, these episodes really came in handy.

We did:
We spent a bunch of time learning about France, using the both the France Lapbook and Madeline Lapbook over at Homeschool Share as our jumping off point. We also did the Family in French worksheet over at education.com. I dug up the French national anthem, but stopped reading the subtitles after a few minutes. It's rather bloody!

Using our laminated map, we figured out just where France is on the map. Then we figured out what time it is in Paris when it is 10:20 a.m. in Minnesota. The Girl colored a flag of France and then made a bracelet on her Rainbow Loom using the blue/white/red order combination. We discovered how the population of France compares to the USA and made a graph of the two numbers. We asked what the capital city and official language is and learned the answers. We also answered a number of questions about the geography of France. My favorite parts were doing the Sightseeing Guide (I printed off lots of photos of various parts of France) and the Tour de France accordion book. We also did the French Greetings handout and the Eiffel Tower Facts - The Girl practiced her handwriting with both.

We mixed and matched the Agricultural Products and Industries of France.

I write the words on the chalkboard and she copies them out.

We love painting! I put down painters tape on paper, the kiddos went crazy with colors and when we removed the tape it created a cool effect. These are treasures.