France Unit Theme for Kindergarteners
France is a great country to introduce to kids. With this hands-on, Montessori friendly unit theme, introduce preschoolers, kindergarteners, and lower primary students. to the beauty of France.
And be sure to scroll to the end for a free downloadable choice board!
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Magic Postcards: A Postcard from France
I love these books so much. The premise is simple- a brother and sister get to travel to different places around the world by holding a magical postcard.
There’s nothing fancy and there’s nothing over the top about it, but it is a fun way to introduce different places in France to kids. My daughter loves these.
(Also, many of the places they visit match the places in the geography activity I created.)
It’s available on Amazon here.
Language Activity: Learning Three French Words
Keep it simple with this! Pick three French words to learn and encourage your child to use them throughout the day. We went with “bonjour,” “s’il vous plait,” and “merci.”
French History Activity
Three Phases of French History
It’s never too early to start working with kids on the idea of chronology! While you’re not teaching dates or names of periods here, this activity is just a simple way to get kids to start to notice details in images and then reason through the order that would make the most sense for them to chronologically be in.
It’s also a good way to introduce the idea of concepts of historic periods in general, or to help them start to see that many of the modern comforts we have are fairly recent.
I try to include this activity in each country unit theme that I make for my daughter, and she’s really gotten the hang of looking at the pictures and figuring out which order they should go in.
This activity is available for free here.
Architecture of France
Create the Eiffel Tower
Nothing stands out in Paris more than the Eiffel Tower. Let your kiddo be creative with how they want to create their own version of the Eiffel Tower.
You could get really fancy and put popsicle sticks or Q-tips together to make a 3D structure.
Or you could keep it a little simpler by gluing toothpicks onto a piece of paper so that you don’t have to worry about structural integrity.
We kept it even simpler by sketching the lines of the Eiffel Tower on a black sheet of paper. Then my daughter used gold glitter glue to trace over the lines and make it look like the Eiffel Tower was lit up at night.
And if you’re looking for more creative ideas than what I could ever come up with, I found this great website here full of Eiffel Tower crafts!
French Geography for Kindergarteners
Identifying Physical Landscapes of France
I created this simple cut and glue worksheet for my daughter just to introduce the physical landscapes of France.
With only four labels to sort, we talked about how a map can show physical geography features like oceans, seas, and mountains. Then we sorted through where those labels should go based on what we could see on the map or what made sense (i.e. I pointed out that England is to the north of France, and she pointed out that then it would make sense that the English Channel would run between England and France.)
For independent readers, you could set them up with a larger map of Europe and help them use that map as a reference to complete the cut and paste activity.
That activity is available here.
Identifying or Sorting Iconic Sites in France
I love using these cards in our country unit themes. With these cards, you could keep it simple by having children sort which places are in Paris versus which places are outside of Paris.
You could also help them place the sites on a larger map of France. (My daughter wanted to draw her own map of France on a poster board and then we placed the cards on her map.)
You could also match the places to the scenes in any of the books you’re including about France.
Lastly, you could just use the cards to talk about which places you’d like to see in France.
You can also easily modify this by just picking and choosing how many sites you want to include- there’s no need to include all of them!
Those cards are available here.
Culinary Activities
Make a French Recipe
If you’re feeling fancy, try making something that’s French inspired with your kids! While maybe too on-the-nose, French bread can be fun to make and is always delightful to eat!
Visit a European Bakery
We went with a lazier route though as we did this unit in the summer and none of us really felt like baking. So instead, I took my girls to a local European bakery and treated them to croissants. We pretended that we were in France and they felt very fancy.
Art Activity
Learn About Claude Monet and Paint with Watercolors
This turned out to be our favorite activity from this unit! I got a whole host of books from the library about Claude Monet (our favorite was Monet’s Cat) and we read them all together.
Then we went on a little “field trip” to a public garden we have in our city with our watercolor supplies in hand. We even found a pond with lily pads!
My kindergartener LOVED trying to paint the flowers in the garden and even my toddler sat down and enjoyed coloring with us!
This was a really special day that my oldest deemed to be “the best field trip ever.”
Music
An easy music activity could be to learn the words to “Frere Jacques” and sing it in both English and French. (If you’ve forgotten the words yourself, here’s a great YouTube video for it that actually emphasizes teaching French to kids!)
This is also a great song to bring in different instruments like rhythm sticks as the melody is so simple.
Additional Books About France for Kindergarteners
Blastoff, France!
I always love to include a nonfiction, full color introductory book into our country units if I can. The Blastoff! series is good for having books at different reading levels. While this is geared towards elementary students, even my younger daughter loved looking at the pictures and matching them to some of the geography cards I had pulled out.
Goodnight, Paris
I love the Adam Gamble books and we have several of them in our home. They all follow the same formula of visiting different sites throughout the day in Paris. The illustrations are inviting and I’m always surprised at the amount of detail included in these books.
It’s available here.
Monet’s Cat
I mentioned this in our art activity, but this book is fantastic even if you’re not doing a dedicated Monet activity. In the book Monet’s cat figurine comes alive and jumps into Monet’s different paintings- usually wreaking havoc. It’s a fun way to look at the paintings up close and my daughter LOVES finding the chaos that the cat has caused to the paintings.
It also really makes Monet as a person come alive.
It’s available here.
Additional Resources
I hope this was helpful! Be sure to download your free choice board here if you want an easy way to keep track of the different activities.
And if you’re looking for more country unit studies, be sure to sign up for email updates and check out my section of the blog here.
