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F Is For French

We are participating in the Christian Home School Hub's Passport to the World journey. This week, we're exploring France. French is a beautiful language. I studied French for 2 years in high school. I even translated one book from French into Thai :). Now I can only remember a handful of French words/phrases. Below are some interesting facts we've learned about France and some useful links that different homeschool families share at http://christianhomeschoolhub.spruz.com/ .

Bienvenue A la France! = Welcome to France!

Some Interesting Facts:
  •  The French flag is called le tricolore (blue, red, & white). Red and blue are the colors of Paris and white was once the color of French royalty.
  • The French national anthem is called La Marseillaise, composed by a soldier named Claude-Joseph Rouget De Lisle as a marching song for the revolutionary army in 1792.
  • In France, you drive on the right hand side of the street and cars have steering wheels on the left just like us here in U.S.
  • The Eiffel Tower was built for the Paris Exposition of 1889 and contains 9,700 tons of iron. It's 1,000 feet high.
  • Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps, at 15,781 feet.
  • The first winter Olympics were held in Chamonix in 1924.
  • Children have a day off school on Wednesday.
  • In France, there are 2 kinds of police: Les gendarmes who work in the country and les agents de police who work in the town. 
  • Grasse in southern France is the center of the perfume industry.
  • France is the 4th biggest car producer in the world, next to the United States, Japan, and Germany.
  • Boules or pe'tanque is the national game of France. The object of the game is to toss or roll the boules (metal balls) as close to the jack ball as possible. The kids and I actually saw this game played on The Cosby Show :).
  • The famous bicycle race, Tour de France, follows a 2,975-mile course through France each summer.
  • Bastille Day on July 14 is a national holiday in France. It is the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prision in Paris in 1789 which marked the beginning of the French Revolution.
  • People in France do not usually give gifts on Christmas Day but instead give them on St. Nicholas's Day (Dec. 6) or on la Fete des Rois (Jan. 6).
  • Some famous French artists include Eugene Delacroix (1799-1863), Honore Daumier (1808-1879), Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).
  • Victor Hugo (1802-1885), a famous French writer, wrote poems, novels, and plays. The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables are his two most famous novels.
Some Useful Links:
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