Praise and Sounds

I heard nice things about both boys today. Sacha's teacher told me that although he is sometimes in a dream, he is smiling and pleasant all the time and very much loved by the other children. It will be hard for the class when he leaves at Christmas.

Louis' class are allowed to spend time in the school library, and choose a book to take home for the week. One of the pupils has a grandmother who comes in to help. She came up to congratulate me on Louis' polite behaviour, (he had apparently remembered to say s'il vous plaît and merci and au revoir Madame, )  and was gratified that Louis had chosen a French book to take home. It seems that other English speaking pupils tend to  choose books from the English section.

We tried a new game this evening, which worked well. It was a Sound Bingo. It is an old game of mine for teaching English to small children, but it works just as well in French. There is a cassette tape of various sounds, and we each had a card with pictures on it. If for example we heard chirping, then the person with a picture of a bird singing could cover it with a counter, as long as he had said what he could hear. Thank goodness that François was with us to tell us the different motor sounds - a lorry, a motor bike, a car, and a tractor (1980s models of course,) all sound extremely similar to me.