LITTLE PIM BLOG
About.com's Laura K. Lawless Review of Little Pim French
Widely respected French language expert, Laura K. Lawless, reviewed Little Pim on her About.com page. Laura is the author of seven language books; three in Spanish, four in French. Her fourth book, Intermediate French For Dummies was published in 2008. I received a personal email from Laura this morning letting me know the review had gone live and that we'd received four stars!
"Since I don't have children to tell me how fun this is to watch and what they've learned, my review can only be based on my opinion of the program from an adult point of view. The native speaker providing the panda's voice pronounces the French very carefully and clearly..."
Merci beaucoup, Laura! C'est tellement gentil!
Read the review here: http://french.about.com/od/listening/fr/littlepimfrench.htm
Halle Berry's Bilingual Baby
I was recently forwarded a lovely thank you note from Halle Berry for a Birthday Bag her daughter Nahla received via Jewels & Pinstripes that contained a Little Pim Deluxe French Gift Set.
As you may know, Halle Berry is raising her daughter bilingual in French and English. She has given interviews saying it was very important to her that her daughter learn French, the language spoken by her father, Gabriel Aubry, who is from Montreal, Canada.
Babycenter.com recently reported on how little Nahla's language learning is going.
"While out for dinner last night at Malibu’s Nobu restaurant with her mom and dad, 18-month-old Nahla was overheard speaking en français. A worker at the restaurant says, 'The little girl was pointing at the colorful drinks in the cooler and speaking French, like ‘Papa!’ and ‘Regarde!'"
Sounds like Nahla’s French is vraiment très bien! Merci, Halle Berry, we are so glad Little Pim can help you bring French into Nahla’s life.
Mom Magazine Feature
We were featured in the Mompreneur of the Month section of Mom Magazine!
Mom magazine is a quarterly magazine brought to you by the creative team behind Pregnancy.
Click the image below to enlarge.
Fun with Flashcards? Absolutely!
Lately I have been making up games with the Little Pim French Word & Phrase cards to help my son Emmett learn new French vocabulary words. When we leave the house, I grab about 10 cards from the 60 in the Little Pim deck and carry them with us in the sturdy Little Pim box or a plastic bag. They tuck nicely into my purse for a low tech game! Then on the subway or while waiting for food in a restaurant we'll play what we call "The French Game”. I offer him an M&M if he can get ten right which makes it more of a game and less of a "let's learn vocabulary" exercise.
First, I run him quickly through the ten flashcards telling him how to say each word in French and asking him to repeat ("le fromage" ..."le toboggan"). He does not need to say the English, just the French. Then I start over and it's his turn to remember! He gets so excited when he can say the new words and we have a great time. He loves my silly hints: for "noir" which he has trouble remembering, I tell him to think of his favorite fruit, "poire" - pear - and then he gets it!
I like making up the "sounds like" part (“sounds like revenge meets today... ‘reveille!’") and he has started making up his own mnemonics as well. There’s always quite a bit of giggling! What’s also wonderful is that a few days later I'll say "how do you say "cheese?" and he pipes right up, "fromage!" with the biggest grin on his face.
P.S. We have phonetic spelling on the back of each card, so you don't have to speak French (or Spanish, the other language in which we offer flash cards) to play the game I played with Emmett!
Little Pim Spanish flash cards
How do you use language flashcards with your kids?
DVDs 4, 5, & 6 are available!
Little Pim is happy to announce that DVDs 4, 5, and 6 (Vol. II) are now available in Spanish, French, and Chinese. The titles are as follows: DVD 4: In My Home
DVD 5: Happy, Sad, & Silly
DVD 6: I Can Count!
This volume introduces two new friends of Little Pim: Lola the Elephant and Bob the Bobcat. We are certain that your child will have as much fun absorbing language from Volume II as we had making them. You can purchase them individually, in Three-Paks, or in Gift Sets!
Let the language learning journey continue!
The Little Prince: Where Are You From?
Earlier this week I introduced Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), a classic french children's book that has had a significant influence on me. Intriguing questions are asked throughout the short book. In Chapter 3, the narrator and the Little Prince discuss places of origin. "Where are you from?" is a universal questions that is becoming more and more complicated to answer as we become globally-oriented. It can be answered in a variety of different ways: Where are your parents from? Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where do you live now? What country do you most identify with?
Many of today's children have parents who were born in different countries. It seems as if the only correct answer to this seemingly simple question is "Earth". It is no wonder that so many families are choosing to raise multilingual children. Nobody is a foreigner when you're communicating with them in the same language.
Le Petit Prince: Chapter Three (en Français)
Il me fallut longtemps pour comprendre d'où il venait. Le petit prince, qui me posait beaucoup de questions, ne semblait jamais entendre les miennes. Ce sont des mots prononcés par hasard qui, peu à peu, m'ont tout révélé. Ainsi, quand il aperçut pour la première fois mon avion (je ne dessinerai pas mon avion, c'est un dessin beaucoup trop compliqué pour moi) il me demanda:
"Qu'est ce que c'est que cette chose-là ?"
"Ce n'est pas une chose. Ça vole. C'est un avion. C'est mon avion."
Et j'étais fier de lui apprendre que je volais. Alors il s'écria:
"Comment! tu es tombé du ciel!"
"Oui, fis-je modestement."
"Ah! ça c'est drôle..."
Et le petit prince eut un très joli éclat de rire qui m'irrita beaucoup. Je désire que l'on prenne mes malheurs au sérieux. Puis il ajouta:
"Alors, toi aussi tu viens du ciel ! De quelle planète es-tu?"
J'entrevis aussitôt une lueur, dans le mystère de sa présence, et j'interrogeai brusquement:
"Tu viens donc d'une autre planète ?"
Mais il ne me répondit pas. Il hochait la tête doucement tout en regardant mon avion:
"C'est vrai que, là-dessus, tu ne peux pas venir de bien loin..."
Le Petit Prince: Chapter Three (in English)
It took me a long time to learn where he came from. The little prince, who asked me so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him. It was from words dropped by chance that, little by little, everything was revealed to me.
The first time he saw my airplane, for instance (I shall not draw my airplane; that would be much too complicated for me), he asked me:
"What is that object?"
"That is not an object. It flies. It is an airplane. It is my airplane."
And I was proud to have him learn that I could fly.
He cried out, then:
"What! You dropped down from the sky?"
"Yes," I answered, modestly.
"Oh! That is funny!"
And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.
Then he added:
"So you, too, come from the sky! Which is your planet?"
At that moment I caught a gleam of light in the impenetrable mystery of his presence; and I demanded, abruptly:
"Do you come from another planet?"
But he did not reply. He tossed his head gently, without taking his eyes from my plane:
"It is true that on that you can't have come from very far away..."
The Little Prince: Part One
One of the joys of being bilingual is being able to read in another language and having access to an entire body of literature outside your own. I recently picked up a copy of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) I had kept from my childhood and was delighted to re-immerse myself in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s magical realism. There is a good reason this tale has been translated into 180 languages and is one of the best selling kids books of all time. I also think it has one of the most clever first pages I have ever read. De Saint-Exupéry immediately establishes the humorous, wry tone of the book, which is part of what makes it delightful for kids and adults alike.
Read the first few paragraphs below in French (also provided in English, scroll down) and then go dig your own copy out of storage! You wont regret it. Or just come back for my next installment. I’ll be blogging excerpts of Le Petit Prince for the next two weeks. Vive le Petit Prince! Someday your child will be able to read books in another language, and might teach you a thing or two while they are at it!
Le Petit Prince: Part One (en Français)
Lorsque j’avais six ans j’ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image, dans un livre sur la Forêt Vierge qui s’appelait “Histoires Vécues”. Ça représentait un serpent boa qui avalait un fauve. Voilà la copie du dessin.
On disait dans le livre: “Les serpents boas avalent leur proie tout entière, sans la mâcher. Ensuite ils ne peuvent plus bouger et ils dorment pendant les six mois de leur digestion”.
J’ai alors beaucoup réfléchi sur les aventures de la jungle et, à mon tour, j’ai réussi, avec un crayon de couleur, à tracer mon premier dessin. Mon dessin numéro 1. Il était comme ça:
J’ai montré mon chef d’œuvre aux grandes personnes et je leur ai demandé si mon dessin leur faisait peur.
Elles m’ont répondu: “Pourquoi un chapeau ferait-il peur?”
Mon dessin ne représentait pas un chapeau. Il représentait un serpent boa qui digérait un éléphant. J’ai alors dessiné l’intérieur du serpent boa, afin que les grandes personnes puissent comprendre. Elles ont toujours besoin d’explications. Mon dessin numéro 2 était comme ça:
Les grandes personnes m’ont conseillé de laisser de côté les dessins de serpents boas ouverts ou fermés, et de m’intéresser plutôt à la géographie, à l’histoire, au calcul et à la grammaire. C’est ainsi que j’ai abandonné, à l’âge de six ans, une magnifique carrière de peintre. J’avais été découragé par l’insuccès de mon dessin numéro 1 et de mon dessin numéro 2. Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours leur donner des explications.
The Little Prince: Part One (in English)
Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: “Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion.”
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked like this:
I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.
But they answered: “Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grown-ups’ response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
Suite101 Review
Suite101 reviewed Little Pim Language Learning Program. Suite 101 is for freelance writers and journalists, these sites provide a new outlet for their work while delivering an audience of millions each month. For curious readers these sites offer authoritative articles, reviews, and expert commentary written by professional writers.
An excerpt:
Recognizing that children learn through multiple modalities – visually, auditorally, and kinesthetically – the Lim Pim company is working to develop a variety of products to engage children in language learning. Currently they offer a fun music CD in both Spanish and French, as well as picture flashcards in those two languages. And now an iPhone app is available in Spanish and French: Little Pim Word Bag. Digital downloads of the DVDs in all ten languages are available for home computers and portable digital players (such as iPhone or iTouch), which makes learning on the go fun and convenient.The LittlePim.com website offers printable coloring pages and an interactive “Talking Coloring Book” feature in most of the available languages. A free digital newsletter keeps parents and teachers informed about new products and language additions.
Read the full review here: http://languagestudy.suite101.com/article.cfm/little-pim-language-learning-program-review
Little Pim Birthday Parties!
Here are some snapshots of a few Little Pim Birthday kids:
New Celebrity Little Pim Families
I recently received thank you notes from Sarah Wynter (Windfall, 24, Damages) and Brad Paisley (country singer- American Saturday Night, Play), husband of actress Kimberly Williams (Father of the Bride, According to Jim), for Birthday Gift Bags containing Little Pim Deluxe Gift Sets given to their tots through Jewels & Pinstripes. I'm so touched! Don't you LOVE Huck's artwork? Too cute!
Celebrity Baby Blog joined in on the fun by giving one Birthday Bag away to their readers.
One Birthday Gift Bag was auctioned to support the Annika K. Strain Foundation, a non-profit that benefits pediatric cancer patients.
I'm so glad that we were able to participate and hope the new Little Pim families are having beaucoup de fun with their Gift Sets.
