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You are here: Home / Books & Reviews / French for Children, A Review by Carol Hudson

French for Children, A Review by Carol Hudson

At the beginning of last year, my nearly 11-year-old daughter started using French for Children, Primer A (FFCA) published by Classical Academic Press after a number of years of informal French study. It proved to be timely for her to commence learning this language using a more formal approach and we were both very happy with the material. I wrote about our experience here.  

French for Children Primer B (FFCB) was published late last year and Classical Academic Press kindly sent me a copy for review purposes. I really like this Curriculum and so my review is unabashedly positive, but it is my honest opinion.

My now just turned 12-year-old daughter started using FFCB in December last year and it followed on seamlessly from their previous text. It is recommended for Grades 5 to 7 and follows the same style and format as FFCA with a couple of new additions.

Overview of FFCB

  • 17 weekly chapters, including 3 review chapters and an end-of-book review                          
  • 258 pages                                                                                                                                     
  • 6 DVDs                                                                                                                                                 
  • 1 CD – contains chants, vocabulary, grammar, dialogues, Say it Aloud exercises and dictation exercises. (Also available as a downloadable audio file.)

New features include:

  • an alphabetical glossary or ‘mini dictionary’ of all vocabulary words from Primers A & B
  • Vocabulary also listed by chapter from which it first appeared in both Primers (12 pages)
  • Appendices condensed and organised into charts: e.g. prepositions, verbs & verb conjugations, past participles

 

Previous concepts learned throughout FFCA are referred to briefly before they are gone into more thoroughly e.g. FFCA covers the present tense and FFCB reviews this and then introduces the future tense in Chapter 9 and the past tense in Chapter 11.

FFCA teaches Irregular verbs, Part 1 and FFCB continues with part 2 & 3.

 

Some thoughts:

If you were coming from a different Curriculum and were thinking of starting with FFCB instead of FFCA, your child should be familiar with the following concepts first:

  • Infinitives
  • Negatives
  • Informal, formal forms
  • Definite & indefinite articles
  • Preposition ‘de’
  • Cognates
  • verb tenses (present)
  • Past participle – some knowledge required

The DVD’s by Joshua Kraut are excellent and contain some built-in review of the content covered in FFCA but they mostly concentrate on new material.

Speaking of DVD’s, some kids (notably mine) are put off by the tone, accent or attitude of some speakers (“Do we have to listen to him?“) but Mr Kraut gets the thumbs up from my lot. He is easy to listen to, has a sense of humour without being too obvious about it, and is generally very pleasant.

  “French is a very excitable language!” – my daughter’s comment after watching the first video of French For Children Primer B 

Below is the complete video for Chapter 1

As I mentioned in my review of FFCA, the only thing I’d add to this curriculum would be listening to French folksongs. I have a YouTube playlist of a variety of folksongs here that we’ve used previously and a newer playlist here of the songs we’re doing this year. 

Classical Academic Press is giving away two French for Children: Primer B bundles for USA residents. Enter via Raffelcopter at Expanding Wisdom and There’s No place Like Home!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway ends at midnight on February 20th. Winners will be contacted by email. Winners that do not respond by the deadline given in the winners’ email will be replaced by random drawing.

 

Thank you, Carol, for writing this giveaway. Get to know Carol and her work at Journey & Destination blog.  Thank you Classical Academic Press for sponsoring this Giveaway, you can learn more about Classical Academic Press on their website.

 

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Filed Under: Books & Reviews 15 Comments

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Comments

  1. Jennifer Lenhart says

    February 9, 2017 at 6:41 pm

    My daughter is eager to give French a try! We use CAP Latin for Children in our family and enjoy it thoroughly! Curious how we will work through the two language programs at the same time, but I’m sure we will figure it out. I’ve already got French for Children Primer A in my shopping cart, so it would such a blessing to win a set of the next materials in the series. Thanks for the opportunity to win!

    Reply
  2. Lindy Imranyi says

    February 9, 2017 at 10:16 pm

    We’re looking for a 5th grade language curriculum and this looks awesome!

    Reply
  3. Phoebe says

    February 10, 2017 at 1:27 am

    Thanks for the review! It’s always helpful to hear about other people’s experiences with language curricula.

    Reply
  4. Rachel says

    February 10, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    This looks wonderful. Thanks for the opportunity to win!

    Reply
  5. Rachael says

    February 11, 2017 at 10:13 am

    Very helpful review!

    Reply
  6. Nicole says

    February 11, 2017 at 10:46 am

    I’ve been interested in using this curriculum for my 11 year old daughter. Your review was very helpful. Thank you!

    Reply
  7. Angela B says

    February 11, 2017 at 11:40 am

    Thank you for the opportunity to win! This looks like a wonderful curriculum!

    Reply
  8. Lexi says

    February 11, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    We are using CAP’s Latin for Children and we really enjoy it. My daughter has expressed an interest in learning French next. This program looks wonderful and doable for someone who doesn’t know any French.

    Reply
  9. Stacey Hunter says

    February 11, 2017 at 7:37 pm

    Love CAP!! My daughter just asked for French…would be a great blessing to win.

    Reply
  10. Beverly T says

    February 11, 2017 at 11:26 pm

    We have French for Children A, and totally agree about the teacher’s tone and attitude. We love this series!

    Reply
  11. Robin says

    February 11, 2017 at 11:40 pm

    My daughter started French for Children A a few weeks ago and loves it. It would be great to have Primer B ready and waiting for next year.

    Reply
  12. Jami says

    February 12, 2017 at 7:04 am

    We love CAP products. We just started learning a little bit of French as a family (all 7 of us).

    Reply
  13. Christy B says

    February 12, 2017 at 9:25 am

    We have just started studying French in our homeschool and would love to win this! Looks amazing!

    Reply
  14. Susan Biddle says

    February 13, 2017 at 11:59 pm

    This looks like a really good primer!

    Reply
  15. Karen @ Living Unabridged says

    February 17, 2017 at 10:21 am

    French is such a beautiful language – thanks for the chance!

    Reply

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