I am forever imagining up ambitious projects. For a while this summer I decided I was going to try to teach my kids French by immersion at home! I speak horribly broken French and that was going to make it even more fun! I even registered a blog on Word Press called My French Fry. I was going to have photos of my small fry in berets sipping cafe au laits and reading Le Petit Prince. But the idea died in its infancy. C'est la vie.
Another project, which I blogged about here, was starting a potager (that's a french kitchen garden), just FYI. You have to scroll down to the bottom of the post to see the kids shoveling dirt.
The great thing about planting things is that they grow on their own. Ok, there was some watering. But our neighbor did that for two weeks while we were in Hawaii and when we came home we already had food!
We had mint and basil and lettuce and thyme and arugula and peas.
We washed them. I cut them into matchsticks with a mandoline, because I didn't want any matchsticked kid fingers.
Look at the red color of these ones. I swear it is not blood.
And fried them.
Evelyn found some that were green on the inside. She says that potatoes that grow too close to the surface develop chlorophyll.
These matchstick fries are the kids' favorite.
So, I don't have homegrown French fry.
I think if I really want that to happen I'll have to plant us for a year in the native soil of France, where their language skills can bloom and grow without my cultivation.
But we sure enjoyed our homegrown french fries.
Delicieux!
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6 comments:
Did you say your were moving to France for a year? When/where can we join you? Tres Bien! Viva la voyage!
You are ambitious-no doubt about that. Those french fries rock!
A Chinese lady I met in the coffe shop the other day told me to have Cecil learn 5 languages by the age of 10, like she did. I asked her how she learned them. Apparently, her father had hired private tutors. At $45-$60 an hour times five lessons a few times a week....well, I like your idea of living in another country and immersing yourself there a whole lot better.
I've always wanted to do that too. I've heard from parents (who have done this) that: enrolling your kids for six months in a public school in another country, not worrying about grades, but just having the kids exposed to another language in class all day, enables them to become fluent in another language.
Now, if we could just manage to afford to live somewhere else for six months, and pay all of our expenses at home too.
Why is it so difficult for Americans to learn another language? It's hard to get those total immersion experiences unless you're very wealthy, or you've got a job that is mobile.
Ooh, they look tres bien!
BTW, I love how you say in your 'About Me' section that you are homeschooling yourself along with the girls. It is so true!
A bientot,
K
Martha, wouldn't it be great! I hear the Paris office has one engineer...so I guess the odds for a transfer for both of us seem slim.
Kristin, I build a lot of castles in the sky, it is true. Then I go take a nap. And then I have french fries.
Karen, I am homeschooling myself to have intrinsic motivation. I am an extrinsic motivation junkie. Thanks, everyone for your comments. You keep me going. :)
Ha- i never knew why some potato chips were green, thanks for the lesson!!
yesterday Maggie told me she wanted to live in Paris! I might just have to water that little seed in her head, hahaha.
those frites look magnifique! (how's that for broken french?? ;)
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