Over the last couple of weeks I've been pouring over guide books and googling things to do with children in Paris and Venice, so in order to get the children in the mood for our up and coming adventure we collected together a few books so that they could do their own 'research'.
Some we had already - like the Paris Hide and Seek and the Panda and the Odd Lion (a funny second hand book about the winged Lion of Venice).
I took myself on a little detour to Hatchards the other day - their Children's book department is wonderful - and got a couple more:
This is Paris
This is Venice
Olivia goes to Venice
Paris - Everything you ever wanted to know
I actually could easily have spent a small fortune... but I held back, here are some of the books I reluctantly didn't buy
A walk in Paris
A Lion in Paris
The Madeline Books
Stickyscape Paris
Paris colouring book (city)
Paris City Walks (partly as I couldn't find a copy - but it looks fab)
We've also spent a bit of time 'doing' pages in the Usbourne first french words sticker book and playing french bingo... (helping to touch up my GCSE French too).
Coco (7) seems to have read 'Paris Everything you ever wanted to know' from cover to cover - but as she keeps telling us it's 'not for parents' so she's being a bit mean about sharing any information. She is still adamant that the main things she wants to do are to go up the Eiffel tower and to see the Mona Lisa.
Oh, and take a boat down the seine... Despite the comparative lack of books on Venice Coco has announced that she thinks she'll enjoy Venice more than Paris... we'll see, I'll get her to report back!
The books have also sparked off some ideas of our own about how to keep the children entertained. I'm planning on making some kind of carousel token system - basically a reward chart - we're budgeting for one carousel ride a day for the children but they might have to 'earn' it a little... (obviously there's a big assumption here that they'll WANT to go on carousels... I off course am just thinking about the photo opportunities... so predictable).
We've gleaned some facts, such as Venice having 177 bridges so we'll do a tick-off chart of some kind for those - Coco loved doing cat spotting in Marrakech last year.
I definitely think the small people are ready for this trip - I'm not sure what they are going to really make of it all...
We made up a 'treasure hunt' for Fred when we were in Paris, he had to spot all the things on the list to earn his reward. I remember we put things of varying difficulty on there ranging from a green metro sign (easy) to a man wearing a beret (cliche and not spotted, where are the French men wearing berets these days?!!). There were also things like a small dog, a pink flower, a black bicycle, a sign saying boulangerie and more specific sites we knew we were going to see. It kept him occupied for ages as we wandered around. I'm very jealous of your trip. Sounds amazing.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAmazing picture of the little one reading "This is Paris", the colours are beautiful (we aslo have This is London at home !); hope you have a nice time in Paris !
ReplyDeleteWe have the this is london book and I love it! children's book sections are my nemesis I think, there's always so much I want!
ReplyDelete