This fourth work sheet for my daughter’s minority language homework came about thanks to illustrator Kirsten Carlson’s wonderful Color & Draw Journal, which gives really easy instructions to draw, among other sea creatures, Adélie penguins.

Here is the third work sheet I made for my daughter for minority language homework. They have similar work sheets in class, where they label elements of a picture. I might have gone slightly overboard here.

Following up on my previous post, here is the second work sheet I made after my daughter told me the other week that they had moved on from spring flowers to blackbirds. Again, I thought of scanning it only after she had already filled it in and I had corrected it. Note: She pointed out […]

Adam Beck of Bilingual Monkeys and the Bilingual Zoo forum repeatedly insists on the importance of an effective homework routine in the minority language. I tried my hand at it when my daughter was still in preschool, but life got in the way. And it didn’t get any better when she started at her bilingual […]

My daughter has just started teaching herself to read (see my previous post), and they’ve worked on syllables and a bit of writing in French (the majority language) in preschool. On the first day of summer holiday daycare, she came home with a text she had sounded out and written down. In purple, her version, […]

I learned to read before I started school. With the preschool year ending and my daughter (who just turned 6) recognising letters and asking us to spell out words for her to write down, but not more, I expected she would learn to read in grade one. But she surprised me: On the last day […]

For her 6th birthday party (advanced due to the early start of the school holidays), my daughter invited six classmates – representing a stunning seven nationalities. I was prepared for that, witness the cake: What I was not prepared for was the guests singing Happy Birthday in not two,  not three, but four languages, thanks […]

One of the many things in France that are different from Germany are the Ferrero chocolate bars called Duplo™. I’ve always wondered why they made two so very different bars and gave them the same name. I don’t think I’ve ever bought the French ones; I’m not too fond of whole hazelnuts. The German ones, […]

Three years ago, almost to the day, I shared a video of my daughter making a speech on the steps of the high school near our house. For some reason, every time we came home from the park, she’d stop there, go up the steps, and hold a speech. That day, I had the camera […]

Today, we were on the Métro 7 on our way to school, when my daughter asked at which station we were. I told her, and we looked at the métro map, and I read the names of all the stations we had passed or would pass. One of them is called Place Monge. Her: “Das […]