French Saint Nicolas Day Shoe

French Saint Nicolas Day Shoe

by | Dec 1, 2022 | Craft Tutorials

Create a cute Saint Nicolas Day shoe with our FREE printable!  Saint Nicolas Day takes place each year on December 6th.  Especially in France, it is a tradition for children to put their shoes by the door on the evening of December 5th and to wake on December 6th to find a treat that Saint Nicolas brought.

Saint Nicolas Day French Shoe
Saint Nicolas Day French Shoe
Saint Nicolas Day French Shoe

This paper shoes has lines from the traditional French song, “Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas.”  “Venez, venez, Saint Nicolas” means “Come, come, Saint Nicholas.”  “Je serai toujours sage…” means “I’ll always be good…”  The back of the shoes says “Mon soulier” (my shoe), and has a space for the child to write his or her name.  

Though using a real shoe might be more traditional, it’s fun to make these paper shoes.  Paper shoes are especially helpful in a classroom setting so that the children don’t have to take off their real shoes.  Once the shoe is made, it can be filled with a treat… we like to use chocolate coins.

Saint Nicolas Day French Shoe

This sweet little song has become a joyful part of the Advent traditions in our home… we think you might like it too!  The images in the video help to illustrate the meaning of the words.

To add to your Saint Nicolas Day festivities, we love the book Saint Nicholas: The Story of the real Santa Claus, as well as the CCC animated movie about the life of Saint Nicholas.  Last year we added the French book, Je peux t’aider, Saint Nicolas? (Can I help you, Saint Nicolas?) to our collection. (Click on the images below to find our more about these Saint Nicholas stories.)

Ready to make your shoe?  Simply click on the image of the shoe cut-out to get the FREE download.  Directions to make the shoe are on the printable.  All you need is paper, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and ribbon (optional).

Joyeuse Fête de Saint Nicolas!

Looking for another way to get ready for Christmas and learn French?

Try our French Advent Calendar!

Simply download and print at home instantly.

 

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Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.

French Advent Calendar

French Advent Calendar

by | Nov 5, 2022 | Craft Tutorials

Join us to learn French Christmas words this Advent season!  We have a variety of activities prepared for you to learn Christmas words in French as we wait for Christmas – an Advent calendar, printable mini-books, fun vocabulary practice pages, and audio to hear the words!

We know Advent is a busy time, so everything is simple to use.  Just print and learn a French word each day.  Have fun!

Our printable Advent calendar is available on Etsy.  This calendar features a Christmas tree with spaces for 24 stickers that become the tree’s ornaments.  Each space on the tree has a word in French.  The printable sticker “ornaments” have adorable images of many Christmas related words.

You can find the Avery sticker sheets here.  The printable stickers are sized for 94500 Avery 1″ stickers.  If you prefer not to get the stickers, the ornament images can be printed on plain paper, cut out, and glued on the tree. To easily cut perfect circles from paper, you could use this ek 1″ circle punch.

If your family is brand new to French, keep scrolling down.  We have recordings of each of the Advent calendar words so that you can easily listen and repeat to learn the words.

 

French vocab Advent calendar

We also have several FREE printables to go along with our French Advent calendar!

4 FREE Mini books with all 24 Christmas words found on our Advent calendar.  Each book can be printed on one piece of paper and then easily folded into a mini book.  Watch our quick video to see how easy this is.  (The book with images comes with the Etsy Advent bundle.  The free book has only words, and is meant to be illustrated with your own creativity.) To learn the pronunciation of the words, check out the clickable audio files at the bottom of this post.

4 different FREE vocabulary practice activities to practice all of the Christmas words:  a tracing page, a word search, a matching page, and an illustration page.

French Advent Calendar

Click on the play button below the images to hear how to say the words in French.

le bébé Jésus

la Sainte Famille: Jésus, Marie, et Joseph

une étable

une étoile

un âne

les trois mages

le père Noël

un cadeau

un traîneau

un renne

un bas de Noël

une cheminée

un bonhomme de neige

la neige

un sapin

une boule de Noël

une couronne de Noël

une canne à sucre

un berger et son agneau

une église

un ange

une bougie

un chocolat chaud

un casse-noisette

Ready to get the Advent Calendar and start learning French for Christmas?  Click here.

Joyeux Noël!  Merry Christmas!

Would you like to celebrate other holidays French style too? Check out our posts for

Saint Nicholas Day, Santons de Provence, La Chandeleur (February 2), and Saint Valentine’s Day…

Saint Nicolas Day French Shoe

Saint Nicholas Day Shoe

Santons de Provence

French Nativity - Santons de Provence

light buckwheat crepe

Crêpes for La Chandeleur

french valentine garland

French Valentine Garland

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.

Fruits of the Holy Spirit – Multilingual Activities

Fruits of the Holy Spirit – Multilingual Activities

by | Jun 1, 2022 | Craft Tutorials

To celebrate the beginning of summer vacation, we have some fun fruit activities for you!  A “Fruits of the Holy Spirit” activity for Pentecost, a French and English fruit matching memory game, and some fun fruit play kitchen toy ideas!

Fruits of the Holy Spirit – Les Fruits de l’Esprit Saint

Pentecost is one of my favorite holidays, in part because I love the fact that on the first Pentecost everyone could understand each other, though they spoke different languages.  We have a “Fruits of the Spirit” activity you can do on Pentecost or any time of year.  We have a version in French, a version in English, and a blank version where you could write in the words in a language of your choice – all are totally FREE to download!  In this way, you can teach about both the Fruits of the Spirit and the words for these ideas in another language.

Fruits of the Holy Spirit French English Francais

Fruits of the Holy Sprit Printables

Simply print out the versions of your choice on white cardstock.  We find it works well to color them before cutting them.  You can use colored pencils, crayons, or markers.  While you color together it can be a great time to talk about the meanings of the fruits.

English Version

French Version

Blank Version (write in the words of the 12 Fruits in a language of your choice)

fruits of the holy spirit basket

Fruits of the Holy Spirit Basket or Bowl

You could simply place your cut out fruits in a basket or bowl.  Our 7-year-old thought it would be fun to pick one from the basket each day starting on Pentecost, and think especially about that fruit for the day.

fruits of the holy spirit tree

Fruits of the Spirit Fruit Tree

If you would like, you could draw a large tree on long piece of easel paper.  Then children can tape or glue the fruits onto the tree.  As they are placed on the tree, you could talk about the meanings of each Fruit (of course you would want to explain that really different types of fruit don’t grow on the same tree… this is just for fun, perhaps a bit like ornaments on a Christmas tree!).

fruits of the holy spirit esprit saint

French and English Fruit Matching Memory Game

To learn the names of fruits in French and English, try our fun memory game!  The fruit images used in this game are the same fruits (plus a few more) that we used in the Fruits of the Spirit printables; however, this time the idea is to learn the actual names of the fruits (for example, “a strawberry” is “une fraise”).  The printable is in full color.  The game has the names of 18 fruits in French and English, for a total of 36 memory cards.  You can find it in our Etsy shop by clicking here.

french fruit memory game

Print and cut the game squares

Simply print out the game printable on white cardstock.  Print it double-sided.  This way the polka dot print will appear on the backs of the fruit images.  It should be printed in color.  Once it is printed, cut out the 36 fruit squares.

french fruit memory game

Game set up

Once the squares are cut, place the fruit images face down on a flat surface.

french fruit memory game

Play the game

Follow typical memory game rules.  Take turns turning over 2 cards.  If they match, the player keeps the cards; if they do not match, the player turns the cards face down again.  Play continues until all cards have been matched.

french fruit memory game

Learn French!

Our 10-year-old had so much fun learning  the names of fruits in French with this game!  A rule could be added that in order to take a matching pair, the names of the fruits must be said in French, or even said each time that the cards are turned over.  Ready to play?  Get the download at our Etsy shop!

Let’s Play with Fruit!

For the littlest ones in your family, simply playing with play kitchen fruit might be a fun way to think about the Fruits of the Spirit, and also to practice naming the fruits in other languages.  Here are a few play kitchen fruits we think are fun…  Simply click on the images to be connected with an Amazon link.

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.