If you’ve joined our membership, welcome!

See below for your membership content.

Your first membership item is now available – The Summer Booklet

You may download your book by right clicking on the link below and then doing a “save as”
to save it to your computer:

Summer Booklet

Please check back here often as new content is being prepared for you.

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Dear Readers,

This summer I am fortunate to have two Rowan students completing an internship with us and I asked them as their first assignment to research how children learn and work on an entry to my blog, I proudly present the first one:

 How Children Learn

Your child is constantly learning. As you eat dinner with them, they are learning the names of new foods. As they play on the playground, they are learning how to interact with other children their age. Even as you speak to them, they are learning how to communicate. Your child may ask a lot of questions and be very curious, like an information sponge. It is an amazing thing to watch your child grow as you teach them lessons everyday—even if you don’t realize it.

Every day brings new experiences and lessons learned. Since early childhood is the age at which a child’s brain develops, they are able to absorb a lot of information. Every child learns at their own rate, and they learn by “doing” and getting involved in the activity. It is the same idea when you are introducing your child to a foreign language. You may be worried that presenting them with a completely new language will overwhelm them and cause them to be confused. But learning can always become fun for your child, even when they are learning a foreign language. Instead of asking your child to fill out worksheets and overwhelming them with subject-verb agreement, you can include language lessons in the activities they already enjoy!

                We use language in every part of our lives; so introducing your child to a new language would not be too overwhelming, as long as you do it in a fun and interesting way. You can sing a song in Spanish and dance and get the whole family involved. You can go to a pet store and count the puppies in Spanish. If your child loves to play dress-up, you can pick out outfits and say the names of clothing in Spanish. You can even play games and run around in your backyard while pointing out objects in Spanish. All of these activities will be enjoyable for your child; you child might not even realize they are learning! That is how learning can be made fun and “easy!” – by Rachel Mancini

If you are interested on how your child learn and acquire languages, we will be posting more on that topic soon!

Claudia Krusch

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,

Finishing up the details of our summer camp activities, working with my interns and staff made me think about how we should bring an innovative approach to foreign language teaching, challeging the children, raising the bar for offering fun and educative activities in an outdoor environment. Those ideas and concepts took shape in a form of a resource book for summer activities to be used by teachers and parents.

After many parents have asked what they should do to bring Spanish to their children while at home with them,  the book idea seemed not only an idea but a need. I then decided to work on a easy, well designed workbook to help parents who don’t speak Spanish to bring the fun home! We included topics such as numbers, colors, family, body parts, shapes and more, suggestions on activities, coloring pages and songs and audio for each topic to allow parents to repeat the words and sing songs with children while using the book. It is done in Spanish but the activities can be applied to any language.

My personal suggestion is that no matter what, it needs to be a fun time, when mommy or daddy will play with the child and have Spanish as a background to spending time with your child.

Use summer friendly toys such as water slide for colors, water baloons for counting, chalk for reinforcing vocabulary, treasure hunting for developing a deeper understanding of the language, bug catching for vocabulary and nature exploration and more….

The book will be available next week on our membership page!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn 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

Some Parents came to me yesterday at an event I attended and said, their children don’t even speak English…..that inspired me to write this post about the FAQs on the subject “misconceptions of foreign language being introduced in early age to children”.
On the top of the list:

1)  My child doesn’t even speak – misconception

Even if the child doesn’t speak, the foreign language will at least stimulate the brain which is already working to produce language.

2)  My child already speaks two languages, I don’t want to confuse him/her – misconception

All the studies conducted with children who had learned more than 2 languages in early age show that there are infinite ways where the brain is wired to store and process a new foreign language and there’s no limit to it. Children will sometimes, use words from different languages with bilingual parents, but the language use is a social behavior, so they usually use the languages when they are required by the parent who requires…(speaks) Later on , they will separate the language use.

3)  My child has speech impairment, therefore I will not enroll him/her in a foreign language program – misconception

I currently have two children who have speech issues, especially with consonants in English, which is normal in early age, until the brain is processing sounds. But they presented no speech impairment in Spanish, so I came to the conclusion that there are different areas of your brain for different languages and your vocal system will be wired to use its tools to communicate in different ways, for different languages.

4)  Foreign Languages should not be taught later on – misconception

I strongly believe that our brain is being formed until the age of 12, which benefits the early learning process of a foreign language or acquisition of any languages, but that doesn’t prevent any individual who is motivated to learn a second language later on. I currently have an 88 year old student!

5)  My child is too young – misconception

It is never too early to introduce a foreign language to a child, I honestly believe the younger the better. We start mommy and me classes at 14months. Children love it!

I hope that this helps parents answer their questions regarding introducing a foreign language to children. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like recommendations on software and programs in other states or countries.

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch
EasyLearn Programs powered by CK translations LLC

Dear Parents,

I very rarely endorse events on my blog, but this another is worth coming too. The JCC has organized an amazing variety of children related plays, musicals and more. Enjoy family-friendly music, theatre and dance performances as well as a host of fun and interactive activities in the FUN ZONE on the Outdoor Plaza including crafts, face painting, jugglers and more!

We will be there on Saturday, May 16th, all day, with Dora, who is coming to greet the children!

For more information, tickets, please log on:
www.katzjcc.org

I look forward to seeing you there!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Director

Dear members,

Some parents asked about our summer camps and how to invest on bringing the best of a foreign language program to summer fun, so we decided to post our summer camps schedule on the blog for a week, after that, we will have it on our site. Enrolment has started. Come and Splash en español this summer!

                                                                                  Spanish Splashing Summer Camps

                                                                                                  EasyLearn Programs

West Deptford

July 26^th-30^th    August 16^th-20^th

10-12 am 2 hours of pure fun! Outdoor activities, sports, nature exploration at the park besides the office, water games, summer vocabulary, basic Spanish concepts and more!! Snack is included.

Cost: $ 60.00 per week / Ages 3-5 and 5-7.

Cherry Hill

August 2-6^th

10-12 am 2 hours of pure fun! Outdoor activities, sports, nature exploration at the playground area, water games, basic Spanish concepts and more!! Snack is provided.

Cost: $ 50.00 per week / Ages 3-6.

Lumberton

August 9-13^th

10-12 am 2 hours of pure fun! Outdoor activities, sports, nature exploration at the playground area, water games and more!! Snack is provided.

Cost: $ 99.00 per week / Ages 3-8.

Fox

All summer, every Friday in July and August, two hours per Friday, 10-12pm! Outdoor activities, sports, nature exploration at the playground area, water games and more!! Snack is provided.

Cost: $ 50.00 per month / Ages 3-6

Mullica Hill

July 19-23rd, afternoon times per age.  Outdoor activities, sports, nature exploration at the playground area, water games and more!!

                                                                            For more information, call 856-848-8870

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