As holidays, celebrations or birthdays approach, we naturally start looking for meaningful gifts for loved ones.
To help parents find great gifts that are entertaining but also help their kids to build their French skills, we’ve put together a short list of awesome gift ideas for French Immersion students.
1. French Magazines from Bayard Jeunesse
First off, we highly recommend checking out some of the fun and educational French magazines that can be found with a quick browse on Bayard Jeunesse’s website.
There is a wide array of 40 different magazines to choose from which cover all age groups from 1-18.
Bayard Jeunesse’s magazines are all chosen with care and produced by some of the most talented creatives and smartest childcare experts.
These magazine subscriptions are the perfect holiday gift for French Immersion students because they can help build a love of reading in the children while also stimulating their imaginations. These French educational magazines also allow kids to learn while enjoying themselves and having fun magazine stories and articles at the same time.
The grades on the website are for francophone students so follow our guide for French immersion students, developed by our fabulous Head Librarian Anne-Marie.
Grades 1 and 2:
- J’apprends a lire
- Pomme d’Api
Grades 2 and 3:
- Belles Histoires +CD
- Youpi
- Wakou
- J’aime lire
Grades 3 to 6:
- Les explorateurs
- Explotechno
- Les Débrouillards
- Les Débrouillards sport
2. Word A Day French Calendar
Another fun and clever gift that helps French Immersion students along their language learning journey is the Word A Day French calendar. Available in many iterations (from beginner to advanced) and produced by numerous calendar makers, this type of calendar can be a big help in keeping kids on track with their French education, learning new and essential French words and phrases on a daily basis. Living Language used to make great French calendars, but you can try Lonely Planet, as well as Merriam-Webster.
These types of calendar also often come with cultural pages that offer insights and info about French culture and traditions.
With a new French word or phrase each day, you’ll notice your child’s confidence with the language skyrocketing throughout the year.
3. French Board & Card Games
A nice and simple way to help boost your child’s French learning experience through gift-giving is to get them one of the many classic French board or card games.
Anything from the engrossing and challenging racing card game Mille Bornes, which is a big hit with players of all ages, to an easy but fun matching game like Spot It or Dobble, to a colourful and whacky battle game like Djeco’s Batamo. Buy them from Canadian-based Archambault to support Shop Local!
You don’t even have to go for a literal French board game though, because the most important part will be the actual gameplay, when you can help them practice their French by playing and learning the games while speaking in French with your little ones.
Check out our article on Top 7 Board Games To Enrich French Language Skills for more ideas. Playing games and having low-pressure conversations in French while you play is not only a great way to practice and improve your children’s French skills, but maybe more importantly, it gives the language a positive and fun connotation in your child’s child, so when they think French, they think fun!
We hope these recommendations are useful to you and would love to hear what you think of them.
Leave a comment with YOUR family’s favourites!
