Dear Readers,

We are spending the whole week celebrating Dr Seuss birthday! Even though he is not a South American traditional author, his influence in the American Schools made me take the time plan a special class to celebrate his birthday! I used two books, Un Pez, Dos Peces….and Huevos Verdes con jamon both for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I used the first book and planned a fish class, we went fishing with a plastic fish game with water and a bucket, they needed to go fishing and tell me the size, color and name of the sea creature, we used sea horses, alligators and crabs of different colors. We used pictures of large fish, whales and turtle in the ocean on the floor, they learned nadar, we also used speed and parar to guide movements.

We showed a video of bilingual reading of the books from youtube :

And the song I created: Yo soy un pea, yo soy un pea, yo soy un pez y me gusta nadar….repeat 2x and Nado rapido y despacio, nado rapido y despacio (3x), the kids loved going fast and slow.

We ate colored gold fish, they could eat the ones they could name the colors.

We also went fishing on a small water bucket where I placed twenty fish and they practiced: Yo tengo un pez  (color) en mi mano. This was done at intermediate level classes.

We used this book during the class! A translated version of the original!

Can’t wait to share this and other class plans on our membership portion of our site which is currently being updated! Stay tuned!

A lot of fun!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages Director

     Carnival is approaching and I wanted to share some activities we will be sharing in some activities, some suggestion on games and videos! Enjoy!

Carnival is celebrated in some countries in South America, Europe and New Orleans in the US! I usually don’t share it in all the classes, but some of my intermediate and older children classes!

This year Carnival or Mardi Gras will start on the 9th in some countries and end on the Ash Wednesday, Feb 13th. So in two weeks, we will sharing some of the fun activities and bringing the beads and masks to our classes!

So let’s share some options for crafts:

Masks- We will be using templates for masks and I will bring beads and stickers and glitter to make the masks! I cut the masks myself on cardstock and punch holes for the two parts to tie in the back.

Here is a link for a Free printable template, but I design and cut my own and will be sharing some pics of the student’s work later after we do it!

http://freebies.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=freebies&cdn=hobbies&tm=9&f=10&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=3&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.activityvillage.co.uk/mardi_gras_masks_to_print.htm

Confetti  

We will make our own confetti, I will bring construction paper and classes of children 6 and older will use templates of shapes, while learning shapes, make their own confetti, review colors and trade them to make a confetti rain at the end!

Beads

We will be making necklaces with beads and other materials, using different colors and ideas, I can’t wait to see their creations!

Some music:

We will be listening to Spanish Music, Rick Martin and doing a Spanish dance, Brazilian Music in the Portuguese class with Yvette San Galo! Here are the videos for the songs we will be singing in class:

We will also teach older children children the history of Carnival which started in Venice and how it survives in countries like Brazil, being a part of the country’s culture as a major component to their identity! I spent most of my life enjoying Carnival in Brazil and spent one in Venice, Italy, so I always look forward to finding a new way to share that with my students!

Teaching a foreign language is a lot more than just vocabulary and grammar, it is about connecting the passion behind the language!

Viva Carnaval!

Dear Readers,

We are spending the whole celebrating Dr Seuss birthday! Even though he is not a South American traditional author, his influence in the American Schools made me take the time plan a special class to celebrate his birthday! I used two books, Un Pez, Dos Peces….and Huevos Verdes con jamon both for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I used the first book and planned a fish class, we went fishing with a plastic fish game with water and a bucket, they needed to go fishing and tell me the size, color and name of the sea creature, we used sea horses, alligators and crabs of different colors. We used pictures of large fish, whales and turtle in the ocean on the floor, they learned nadar, we also used speed and parar to guide movements.

We showed a video of bilingual reading of the books from youtube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ0wm1-Sr80

And the song I created: Yo soy un pea, yo soy un pea, yo soy un pez y me gusta nadar….repeat 2x and Nado rapido y despacio, nado rapido y despacio (3x), the kids loved going fast and slow.

We ate colored gold fish, they could eat the ones they could name the colors.

Can’t wait to share this and other class plans on our membership portion of our site which is currently being updated! Stay tuned!

A lot of fun!

Claudia Krusch

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.