Last week we dove head first into our European Learning Adventure, starting with France (per Honeybun’s request..she thinks she’s French because she attended a French preschool in Dublin and learned two whole French words!). I have to admit it was a lot more fun than I expected and I was really happy to reintroduce Honeybun to the world she once saw in person since she doesn’t remember anything about our trip to Paris. I didn’t go into it with a lot of preparation or expectations but we did a lot of fun things and I think my girls even learned something about France and French Culture!
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I ended up making a lot of my own materials because there really isn’t a lot out there for my girls’ learning levels (currently 2nd grade and kindergarten), though I did find a few good resources on TeachersPayTeachers like this free Marie Antoinette mini-book with comprehension questions.
We really kicked off the week of learning by watching Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame for family movie night (which just happened to be the EXACT number of minutes the girls had earned that week, how convenient!)
I pulled out the books we have on traveling to France and Paris (which, unfortunately, wasn’t much) and midweek Honeybun and I went to the library for more books. This is what we ended up with for our French reading collection:
Reference Books (Affiliate links):
- France: Enchantment of the World by Liz Sonneborn
- Paris, Berlitz Pocket Guides
- France by Sarah Tieck
- Recipe and Craft Guide to France by Amelia LaRoche
Picture/Story Books (Affiliate links):
- Carnival of the Animals by John Lithgow
- Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
- Adele and Simon by Barbara McClintock
- The Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
Art Books (Affiliate links):
- Impressionism by Jude Welton/DK Eyewitness Books
- Louvre Visitor’s Guide
- Edgar Degas: Dance like a Butterfly by Prestel/Adventures in Art
The girls spent all week looking at and reading the books so while we didn’t do a full immersion of all things France, I’m still confident they picked up something!
The first real assignment I had Honeybun do was a France Facts sheet which she was able to complete with the help of her library reference books. She also completed an “Adding up Paris” sheet I made for her adding up all the stairs in the most popular Paris attractions and the telling time worksheets from this free Madeline unit (you can find the PDF link in the comments). And she filled in the blanks on a map of France I made her showing the most populous cities and biggest rivers. (You can download and print my entire France Curriculum Unit below).
But the most fun part of the week was all the projects we did together!
We started by creating the French flag for lunch. I asked them what color the flag was to which Honeybun was quick to respond red, white and blue. So before we headed to the store to pick up a few things, we came up with what healthy things we could buy to create the French flag for lunch. The girls decided we should get blueberries, white bread and red peppers. They were delighted to find French bread in the bakery and switched to purple globe grapes instead of blueberries. I added some disassembled pepperoni and mozzarella roll-ups we had leftover for a little protein and let the girls get to creating. We referenced a picture of the flag from one of our books to ensure the proper. order and the girls loved being able to play with their food (before gobbling it up and begging for more!)
Honeybun also found a project in the Art and Food book for making a stained glass window craft. The girls cut shapes out of folded black paper, snowflake style, (which was not as easy as it sounds for the two girls who both ended up with broken, pieced windows the first try!) I then applied the black frames to clear contact paper and the girls filled the “windows” with bright-colored tissue paper which I had cut into approximately 1″ squares. Even Doodle made his own version, doing just the tissue paper sticking part. We hung them in the windows by the front door and we love how the light streams through them, they really do look like stained glass!
We also learned about French Impressionist painters. Impressionism has been one of my favorite periods in art since I performed in a dance concert based all on impressionistic paintings in high school (Edgar Degas’ ballerina paintings help a lot too!) Honeybun read up on the Impressionists and then we worked together to figure out what made their art different from the artists before them. Once we pinpointed that they usually painted nature and outdoors; used bright, bold colors; and used dots; small strokes rather than the loooong strokes of previous generations; and fewer details, we decided to set up art camp outside. The girls told me the colors they saw and then painted their impressionistic versions of our front flowers. 
It seems Sugarplum got the concept of dots and less precise detail than Honeybun who couldn’t let go of her usual painting style (though I can’t say whether or not Sugarplum did it intentionally to be impressionistic!)
Our last project for our French week was to make crepes with chocolate. When Honeybun attended the French preschool in Dublin, they often had crepes (which she pronounced as “crap” and resulted in one of our most fond family moments of her recounting how her teacher burnt her finger on the “crap” one day) with Nutella so I thought it would be fun to revisit that part of her history. I wasn’t sure how the crepes would turn out as I’ve tried making them once before (in high school maybe?) and they came out terrible BUT, I was pleasantly surprised at how well they came out this time!
I gave each child their own bowl to mix their own crepe batter. Each child started with 1 egg and 1/2 cup of flour which they mixed together with a fork. I then slowly added 1/4 cup of milk (coconut milk for Doodle) and 1/4 cup of water plus a pinch of salt while they beat the batter until smooth. I then cooked the crepes in a small frying pan, using a dollop of butter for the girls’ crepes and just olive oil spray for Doodle’s. I was worried about flipping them but I found when they were ready to be flipped, they would easily slide off the pan onto my spatula and I could just flip it right back into the pan!
I coated the girls’ with chocolate/hazelnut spread and put some jelly on Doodle’s then folded them up. All of the kids gobbled it up and asked for more and we had so much fun making them!
The week with our curriculum unit on France was so much fun and definitely started our summer off for tons of fun learning ahead as we delve into all Europe has to offer!
Download my France Mini-Curriculum Unit:
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