One of the most famous horse races is the Kentucky Derby. It takes place each year in May. The horse racing season in Paris opens in the spring as well at the Hippodrome de Longchamps. Somehow both events have become associated with the most beautiful hats with attendees out doing each other. But that’s another story.
Here are 2 horse puzzles, games based on Horses that we put together for the kids next door to whom we were « teaching » English over the garden wall during confinement. I stood up on a ladder to see over the top and they were in their front court. It was pretty funny to see. They enjoyed having some authentic conversation although they had trouble with my « odd » US accent as opposed to the British one they hear in school. It was a welcome distraction for us all. It was tricky to select a « program » as there are 3 girls ages 10 to 17 to entertain and challenge. They have such different levels of English amongst themselves and of course there is the age difference between them and me in terms of knowledge and pop culture. But I figured out that they like to ride horses. So one lesson was centered on horses and their « homework », sent by paper airplane over the wall, was these two puzzles and this nicely done worksheet which includes word searches and lots of horse vocabulary that I found online.
First is a Speak Easy horse puzzle called Horseplay where the object is to match the English phrase with the French one. The answers are at the bottom. This puzzle is extracted from our book of Speak Easy Puzzles volume 1.
The Speak Easy Puzzle was a popular feature in the FUSAC magazine for more than 25 years. Readers liked them so much they would cut them out and save the whole collection. It is widely used by teachers of English and French as well. Because they were so popular we combined them into a lively book illustrated with watercolors. Fun, entertaining way to learn French. Makes a good gift too. This Spring Speak Easy Puzzle is one of 150 puzzles in a 3 volume collection which is available exclusively at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room or by email : BRBookRoom@gmail.com
There are more sample Speak Easy Puzzles on our website.
The second of the horse puzzles is to match the horse’s name (mostly English, American and French famous horses) to the claim to fame or their partner rider in the other column. Some are historical, others fictional, others are sport champions. How many do you know?
Did you enjoy these puzzles? Here are several other Speak Easy puzzles form the FUSAC site. https://fusac.net/fusacfr/category/speak-easy/