Dear Members,

This time of the year brings the best memories of my childhood. When my mom used to stay hours in the kitchen preparing the seafood dishes for Easter! My dad would spend hours stirring Vatapá, Camarão, arroz branco, farofinha…..makes my mouth water. Those sounds and smells still surround me when Easter times come, so I try to make this a special time for my son as well…bringing some of the traditions like purchasing the one pound Easter Egg at the Brazilian store….making sea food on good Friday and working on a two hour sweet bread which allows me to share some of my memories with him.

If you wish to share some traditions with your child or use some interesting materials in the classroom, I would suggest:

Use bunny songs which can be found in YouTube:

De olhos vermelhos or Coelhinho da Páscoa, words for the songs can also be found online

Memory game with Easter vocabulary like, coelho, cesta, ovos, chocolate, colorante, páscoa

Print easter egg from online free coloring pages and cut them in three parts, have the children put pieces of the eggs together, this can also be used to review colors on the eggs.

I hope my ideas help you share Easter traditions!

Feliz Páscoa!

Claudia Krusch

Director of EasyLearn Languages Programs

Dear Readers,

A lot of homeschooling parents and teachers e-mailed us, asking  for materials to use on Easter. I have couple ideas to share, which can be used in any foreign language class:

1)Plastic egg decoration- children will glue decorations they colored on the eggs and you will review or teach Spanish colors while doing that

2)Hide and seek, children will take turn counting(numbers) and try to find students.

3)Word egg hunt- I hide eggs and words/candy seeing during the month, they will hunt for eggs, but they will only get the candy if they can tell me what that word is.

4)I also use the song Los Pollitos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4y6PEWhGmE&feature=related

5) We make baskets, chicks as crafts

6) We do an animal class with Easter related animals, they will toss them into a basket, saying their names.

Feel free to contact me for more ideas! Above all, let’s help children have fun with a foreign language!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Director of EasyLearn Programs

Dear Readers,

March is Dr. Seuss month and talking to another teacher, I heard the sentence, Dr.Seuss books were meant to be read in English! I disagree, I honestly believe, children will take a advantage of any opportunity to learn a foreign language, especially if it is connected to their own experiences, something they can relate to….

The collection was published in Spanish and I worked on my own version for Portuguese. The children immediately connect with the book and a subject they are also seeing in school.

So we decided to use Dr. Seuss books translated to Spanish this month in our classes and offer a free event to celebrate the author and his legacy at our office in West Deptford, on March 19rh 5pm. Story time, refreshments and a craft, a free event for Dr. Seuss lovers!

Come and join us or puchase the book and share with your child!

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations and EasyLearn Director

Dear readers,

Every time somebody asks me how many languages I speak, I struggle to say four, because I’m proficient in three languages, but German has always been a passion and a curse.

I took four years at Goethe Institute at my hometown in Brazil, graduated, but I can’t say I’m really proficient….

I’ve been to Germany twice, loved the country, used the language, but once I arrived in small cities, I quickly figured out that turning the menu upside down wouldn’t work…..looking at people’s plates and pointing worked better…..beer room temperature( and I hate beer) all for the sake of experiencing the country!!! Wunderbar!

Well, we decided to bring the passion back to our classroom and offer German for adults and children!

I’m really excited to be sharing my passion with you all!

Just some info to give you a little taste of basic Deutsch. Enjoy,

Claudia Krusch

Director

I had a parent call this week and the parent wanted to find out how we used LEGOS in our classes? Well, I decided to share my conversation with other parents in order to inform them of the benefit of using LEGOS in the child’s play time.

There’s a theory developed which defends that LEGOS can be used to treat children with autism, they improve brain function, accelerate reasoning thinking, increase attention and the tactile experience brings an amazing feeling of empowerment not shown with other toys.

We jumped on the idea and developed a program which took the same concept to bring a fun and educational experience to little ones! We teach basic Spanish vocabulary through building and manipulating the blocks.

There are some things you can do at home, such as depending on the age, use megablocks or LEGOS and have them identify colors, number counting, building a house, a car, a boat….take pictures, show it to everybody! Your child will be motivated to accomplish more! Contact us for a list of words you can use while playing with the LEGOS.

If you are interested in having your child join a group, our first sets of classes proved to be a huge success! We will be offering two new sets starting in March. Log on our website for more information:www.easylearnlanguages.com

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Director

Dear Readers,

This is a question I often have to answer. Parents are worried about children who don’t speak English yet, who have speech delay, can’t differentiate colors after 24 months and other concerns……they are afraid a foreign language will make the situation worse or will bring a problem to their children.

NNELL and our website: www.easylearnlanguages.com lists thousands of articles which defend the early introduction of a foreign language to a child, proven  not to be only beneficial but instrumental in early reading, math, reasoning and other skills which were more developed in children exposed to foreign languages in early age.

My students, we currently have 150 enrolled in our programs have demonstrated those studies to be true and their learning process to say the least, have brought a joyful and educational experience to them.

Next time you decide to give a gift certificate to a child on their birthday, think of that!

For more information on classes and programs, please visit our site or a school in your area.

Claudia Krusch

Director of EasyLearn Programs

Dear Parent, Grandparent…

Are you home with children, looking for something different to do? I have been thinking about the same thing, so my son inspired me to offer more playtime educational foreign language classes to help parents bring children to an educational activity this winter!

Our two new programs: Spanish and Legos and Las Ninas offer the best in play time, building a foundation for a foreign language, block by block, using toys.

If you far from one of our locations, I have some advice on how to bring a foreign language to your little one:

Set up an indoor picnic, search for food names on the web, some pages have the pronunciation included, to ensure you are giving your little one the right knowledge, play while eating in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian…..

Set up an indoor play time with balls, play soccer, basket ball, pass the ball, using numbers …..

I hope that will keep you busy and your children happy!

For more information on our classes: 856-848-8870 or www.easylearnlanguages.com

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Dear Readers,

My own son loves Legos and has inspired to do some research on some existing programs in other areas which use Legos as a powerful tool to facilitate the learning process. That helped me bring my new program to life! We will be offering a brand new approach in teaching a foreign language, building vocabulary as the child builds with Lego pieces…..

Basic vocabulary will be introduced using the blocks as stimuli. Parents who homeschool children can use Spanish books and start the vocabulary building using the blocks. They will build houses when learning about them, build cars and toys when learning about it, people when learning about body parts and the parent/teacher is the facilitator to bring  the vocabulary to life while the children are playing.

Please parents and teachers tell me what you think about our new program and if you would like to print a free pass to a trial offer.

Program starts in two weeks!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Programs Director

Dear Readers,

I have been working for children for more than 10 years now and they never cease to amaze me! Anything can happen when you are working with little ones! I could write a book on my great experiences with them! Some stayed on my mind like the little 3 year old Spanish student who looked at a paper tree, which I called the magic tree, I told him she would talk…….., el arbol magico, and he said, Ms. Claudia, this is a paper tree…..why do you think it’s magic? or the other little four year old Spanish student in NJ, who looked at me and started talking about moon craters, when I asked what do you see in the sky???Or the 14 m old girl who did not speak English, but started speaking Spanish during the classes and then English afterwards!

Working with children and those experiences gave me inspiration to use their daily magic “tools” to create brand new programs. We will be offering two new programs: Spanish and Legos ©, building a foundation to a great foreign language experience! and Joy to the world© – learning a foreign language with music. Both classes will offer a four week program filled with hands on experience, teaching children to make association between new vocabulary and legos and the second will teach children holiday songs and games, using music only……

If you are a parent or teacher and wish to use some of the concepts used to create the classes, I will be happy to share with you and bring the joy of a creative foreign language experience to many other little ones!

Abraços,

Claudia Krusch

Director of CK Translations and EasyLearn Programs for adults and children

Dear Readers,

I would like to share some of the activities we have used during the two weeks prior to Halloween.

I would not recommend talking about dia de los muertos with ages 14m-5 years old……we use some of the traditions without naming cemeteries or showing skeletons.

14m-36m

Toss the pumpkin

materials

10 plastic pumpkins

basket

You will instruct the children to line up and toss the pumpkins inside the basket.

Objective: new vocabulary: calabazas – pumpkins

review numbers.

3-5years old

candy corn bingo

Make bingo sheet with candy corn picture and use candy corn to mark the numbers. Children will love it!

5-7 years old

Black cat on the wall

Cat picture

Velcro

Print a cat’s pic and color it many different colors and ask children to match cats to circles on the wall, saying the color in Spanish.

Objective: Follow up activity for color.

We need to make the Halloween experience fun for the children, those activities listed can be done at home as well.

Authentic materials sometimes don’t reach the children and bring a barrier between young minds and the language itself.

Have fun using the activities, it’s Halloween!

¡Dulces o travesura!

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations and EasyLearn Programs.

For free bingo sheet, e-mail me privately.