Dear Amigos,

I am very happy to share some interesting links to show thanksgiving traditions in Spanish and bring vocabulary to celebrate the season of being grateful in a great way!

A parent asked me: Thanksgiving has such hard words for children to learn and memorize! Her statement inspired me to focus on activities which will capture the child’s attention while teaching Thanksgiving words and concepts in Spanish.

Click on this link and have the child repeat some basic words

http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/spanish_for_kids_18

print those words and make flashcards or memory games, they are great ways to start

Depending on the age group, you can also play with this matching game:

http://123teachme.com/games/drag_n_match/category/thanksgiving

And finish a quiet story time with this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61iqIl8YwuY&feature=related

You can use a turkey coloring page online and ask the child to color the feathers in patterns, amarillo, rojo, verde….the  pattern can be as complicated as the child’s age. If your child is under 3 years old you can help them by coloring using the pattern, repeating colors in Spanish and asking what comes next? Que viene ahora?? Rojo, no!, Amarillo, no, verde, si!!!

I have designed the EasyLearn materials which are coming out of the oven for you! Please keep checking us out for more info on how to share Thanksgiving vocabulary with your child!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Programs CEO

Dear readers,

Some teachers have asked me in the past years for ideas on Halloween themed classes. We have used many different topics but this year, I believe we really capture the children’s interest with the classes. We divided the Halloween topic in two classes, using the verb poner (Yo pongo), the children were asked:

1. To place Halloween objects in the cauldron – Yo pongo el fantasma en el calderon ( I put the ghost in the caldron)

2. To place eyes, mouth, ears, nose on the ghost’s face- Yo pongo la nariz en la cara….(Used a paper bag, markers for eyes, ribbon to tie the ghost), nice activity and cute craft

3. Book Activity- We read the book 5 little ghosts in Spanish and they had to place each ghost in each part of the book- Yo pongo un fantasma……

4. Song- Original Yo pongo sung by me to be released on my upcoming cd- for sound file email me directly

Vocabulary needed:

Ghost- Fantasma

Witch- Bruja

Monster- monstro

Mummy- mumia

Halloween – Dia de las Brujas or Dia de los muertos

Candy – dulce

trick or treat – dulce o travesura

Halloween, Dia de Las Brujas, is all about making children have fun!!!! Dressing up, having candy…..I hope my ideas will inspire teachers and parents celebrate Halloween at home using a foreign language!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages LLC – Director

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,

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

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 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

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