Dear Readers,

I purchased the Eric Carle’s Book! Decided to use it as inspiration for teaching fruits and introducing my Spring Class topics! Well, I started reading the book! stopped before the fruits! I told the children the oruga was hungry! She needed to shout that out, we sang: Yo ten go hambre, Yo tengo hambre! Quiero comida, quiero frutas, with hand motions and the same thing with sed ( thirsty) and quiero agua and jugo! They loved it! We learned, when we ask for food, we say por favor and gracias!

We moved to an oruga game, they needed to crawl like an oruga and eat the fruits on the other side of the room, telling me the name of each fruit they were eating.

We added a coloring page with three apples (manzanas), they would color the apples the oruga would eat and draw the oruga and tell me how many and incorporate color to the apples! They passed with flying colors! Older ones also wrote on the page and filled out with number of apples.

We ended with this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC2qSWEjD28

The children loved it and I had a blast teaching! For materials for your homeschooling session or school, please contact me privately!

Saludos!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages

Dear Readers,

I was looking for a fun new way to bring shapes to our classrooms and I was hit by a technology wave when I looked at a robot made out of tissue roll tube….I decided he would be the centerpiece of our class!

We start by learning shapes, then selecting shapes which will go on our robot, we will paint and glue shapes on our robot and place arms and the antenna is a glued toothpick. Can’t wait to see all the amazing robots!

Then we will use a scale I have and balance shapes, telling what shapes, colors and which side is higher and lower for the more advanced classes!

A Larger scale picture of the robot placed on the wall will serve as background while children take turns finishing that robot with shapes for body parts!!

Classes are perfect for children 4 and older!  I can’t wait to start!

If you are planning on doing some of those activities at home, here is a list of Spanish shapes: circulo, rectangulo, cuadrado, triangulo, estrella, rombo!

Enjoy!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages

Dear readers,

This past week we worked on several themes and home and furniture was one of them!

Children would look at pictures of rooms in the house and learn their names, then we would work on a game and they would place items in each room, making vocab work easy and fun! For example, we place a sink,lavabo in the bathroom, baño.

We sang en la casa, en la casa hay….using room names

baño – bathroom

sala de estar – living room

cuarto – bedroom

cocina- kitchen

We also watched the video from Boca Beth which tours a house, the video is called La Casa, where a chicken shows children things in the rooms.

Children had to cut and glue parts of the house and make their own house., older ones had to tell me their favorite rooms, why, describe their rooms as well.

Loved sharing this subject with our little ones!

I hope you enjoyed it!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages CEO

Dear Readers,

This week was my birthday! I share this joyful time with some of my students who had the class on Friday. I promised I would share the vocabulary here! If your child had another class, please look on archive for other topics.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

We looked at birthday vocabulary using a bingo sheet:

Los globos – balloons

Las velas – candles

El regalo – gift

El juguete – the toy/game

We did Ispy looking for those objects in the room. We also colored a cake ( Torta) and placed candles for each child’s next birthday. Older children received some candles and had to add the amount to make the total for the amount of candles on his next birthday. We broke a piñata, ate cupcakes ( pastelitos) and reviewed tableware.

We also sang Happy Birthday in Spanish:

Feliz Cumpleaños a ti, Feliz Cumpleaños a ti,Feliz Cumpleaños a ti,Feliz Cumpleaños a ti!

We showed a Sesame Place video  about Fiesta in Spanish and read a book on the same topic which taught children how they celebrate birthdays in Mexico.

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch CEO

Dear Readers,

Many parents asked if there is Halloween in Spanish speaking countries and I used to say no, there is a Dia de Los Muertos celebration which is more religious and not child oriented. Well, a parent of one of my students recently shared that in Colombia they do Dulces o Travesuras (trick or treat) and children dress up like in the US. That surprised me!

 In Brazil, my native country, Halloween is only celebrated in English Schools, not as a real holiday…..They have dia das crianças, October 12th when little children receive toys.
I will share later this week some linkswith information on dia de los muertos and Spanish Halloween worksheets and songs. Stay tuned!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch
CEO EasyLearn Languages LLC

Dear Readers,

I’m so excited to announce that we listened to parents and we are now offering our summer book with activities to be used at home! The book contains 20 pages of pure fun, coloring pages, games, suggestions on activities and more! The book is recommended for children 2-7 years old, but some of the activities can be done with older ones as well!
Make it a family fun time and join us in the great journey of bringing foreign languages to little ones!
To purchase the book only, go to our site: www.easylearnlanguages.com and make a payment of $ 10.00 + shipping and handling and you will receive your book at home or receive instructions for download.
To join the membership portion of our site, you will click on the membership icon on this blog and follow instructions, that will give you the book, personal consultation on how to use it, newsletter with great articles, class plans and more!
I am proud of our new venture and I hope you enjoy it too!

Saludos,
Claudia Krusch
EasyLearn Languages Programs Director

Dear Readers,

I have answered this question more than 5 times this week, which motivated me to bring this topic to our blog.

Children who are exposed on a 30min foreign language class a week, will basically forget a lot of what was learned if the stimulus cease.

I highly encourage parents to buy cds, invest on classes, books anything that can keep the foreign language present in their lives!

Amazon offers many options of cds with songs and programs, classes as also offered nationwide and Bookstores like Barnes and Noble offer many offerings for at least 5 different languages, which can be easily downloaded to an ipad with the B&N reader, an app for ipads.

Please e-mail me privately if you wish to receive recommendation for specific materials and to receive a free sample of my spanish summer activity guide!

Enjoy the summer!

Claudia Krusch- Director of EasyLearn Language Programs

Dear Readers,

I absolutely love new gadgets, I must confess I’m a huge fan of apple products, not quite sure if I am a bigger fan of Apple or Steve Jobs, who did to Apple, what I dream to do with my business- bring monetary value to the same level of the quality of our product.
Back to the ipad, I need to share: it is a great gadget! I immediately started experimenting and downloading children’s books in various languages….found out an app for children practicing Spanish called Salta! Now I can sing songs, read bedtime stories and play with my son using a foreign language and everything is done on the ipad! Very interesting….
My son asked tonight, mom, where is the ipad? I answered, it is charging, he said, oh no! No story time tonight???
I know parents complain that technology drive children away from real interaction, family time…I just showed you that is not true!
Whether you have an ipad or not, please consider using technology to bring your little one closer to you, especially bringing a foreign language closer to both of you. Having that in mind, I am creating a series of videos for parents who wish to do something at home related to a foreign language, but don’t feel confident enough to do so. My videos and audio files will help parents use technology to do some cool things at home with the children, as well as follow our activity guide to bring more fun and a foreign language to their summer.

Summer Activity Book and audio files will be available here on the blog, under membership category. I will let all the parents know as soon as we have it up on the site.

Saludos!
Claudia Krusch

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