Le jeu des mimes!

We've always had a great deal of success using games to learn French. To Jemimah, a game is fun. It is friendly competition. It is enjoyable. It is certainly not school.

Our favourite is Jaques a dit, the French version of Simon says. We practice all sorts of things with this game.

«Jacques a dit pousses le livre. »
« Jacques a dit lèves le bras.»
« Jacques a dit prends le stylo. »
« Jacques a dit mets la main sur la tête. »
« Touches le nez.»

«Jacques a dit touches la souris.»
«Jaques a dit montres l'ordinateur.»
«Jacques a dit appuies doucement la barre d'espace de clavier.»
«Point à l'imprimeur dans la chambre.»

These are some great verbs for Jacques a dit:

Turn: Tourner tournes tournez
Follow: Suivre suis suivez
Put: Mettre mets mettez
Take: Prendre prends prenez
Push: Pousser pousses poussez
Choose: Choisir choisis choisissez
Stay: Rester restes restez
Raise: Lever lève levez
Go: Aller vas allez
Lower: Baisser baisses baissez
Continue: Continuer continues continuez
Touch: Toucher touches touchez

Our latest favourite game is charades or mime. Similar to Simon says, in le jeu de mimes, you must act out the word or phrase. We have had great fun acting out the French mime phrases here. We simply cut the sentences up and place them in a basket. I pick out a phrase and read it out to Jemimah in French. She acts it out. The results are generally très drôles.

Marche comme un pingouin.

Tape des mains comme un phoque.

Saute comme une grenouille.

As she begins to read French, we will be able to play the game properly, with each of us picking a phrase in turn and acting it out for the other to guess. Now that should be amusing!!

Tu es prête? Commençons!

As an aside, you can get a list of the Windows Alt Codes for typing French accents at Kim's blog, Learning in the Little Nest. Very, very useful. Thanks Kim!