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

I am a confessed bookworm, as such, I have always kept books on my desk, after my teenage years they came in different languages and to suit my broad taste. I am trying to pass my legacy to my son, we love going to Barnes and Noble and picking out new books and he has a reading chart where he gets a new toy for every 30 days of reading!
Since books have been my best friend for as long as I can remember, they taught me so much! Made who I am! I owe my books so much! The fact that I am able to read English, German, Spanish and Portuguese classics in its original language is a priceless gift!
When planning my classes, I try to bring the joy to the children, specially the ones who can’t read yet, because I can’t always find Spanish and Portuguese books to match my units, but I can always find an English one and read them my way!
I have been using story time as one of the components for my class planning for as early as I can remember!
The key is to reduce Spanish Classics to meet baby’s short attention spam and one sentence page for toddlers is a must! After all, if you wish to make the experience fun, you must cater to your audience, otherwise the children will associate reading with BORING and my program is called Spanish made fun, not Spanish made boring!

So, I wanted to share some tips on how to make story time a powerful tool in your foreign language classroom, at your home, in your library story time, anywhere!

• Chose the right book! Depending on what you trying to accomplish, your thematic unit or the age or all the above!!!
• Reduce the amount of reading to suit your audience, early ages, short one word-3 word sentences, words will increase with age!
• Pictures will help children understand your story better, so definitely lots of pictures when reading in a foreign language to non native speakers.
• Bring stories which speak to their lives, to the things they know and love! Authentic shouldn’t always mean foreign, should mean close to their heart! I am against the thought that only authentic literature should be used when teaching a language.

This Holiday I changed my plans made in the summer for my holiday unit and incorporated the elf, el duende! Brought my story time to a whole new level, connected to the children like never before and brought the Spanish closer to their heart, so mission accomplished! I used the book The Elf on a Shelf™ in Spanish

I paired the book, which can only be found at Target online, with hide and seek, tell the elf (since he can’t talk) what you want for Christmas and Elf chat activities! My Spanish elf came in a darker color which creates a conversation about ethnicity I would never be able to bring to the classroom, if I did not have my special friend! Shared, that different is beautiful and we are all beautiful, no matter what language we speak!

I hope you enjoy our ideas and that you make the great decision to bring books when teaching a foreign language, it will inspire children to read, will open the doors to the fact that books speak that language as well, increase vocabulary and bring the fun to a whole new level!

Off course we talked about advent and Los Reyes in our Spanish classes and the shoes in Portuguese ones, but the elf was definitely the highlight and resulted that  I was invited to read the story 1000+ children in December, in the most popular Santa story times in our area, so it is all about sharing bilingual love!

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on using story time to teach or bring a foreign language to children and get your book, elf, out of your shelf and use it in your next bilingual experience!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages Director

Speaker of 4 languages and teacher since 1998

As back to school is here and my son’s private school opted for Latin instead of Spanish, I started looking for alternatives to keep his summer skills sharp and the Spanish fresh in his mind. I searched for ideas and created some new ways to bring a second language to my child who will be basically exposed to just one language in school.

I hope you enjoy!

1) Game Night – Juegos

Choose your favorite game like scrabble, bingo, any game and create a Spanish version. I have a professional bingo wooden set, we get the popcorn out, my son loves it! Once a month is game night in Spanish!

2) Libros –My son loves buying books, I take him to Barnes and Noble or shop online, for each English book, he needs to chose one in Spanish!

3) Cantar – We download karaoke versions of songs in Spanish and he and I try to sing and do a contest! I connect my laptop to the tv and the songs are on youtube.

4) Comida – Off course food is always a great way to bring Spanish to the table through the amazing dishes,if you need inspiration, visit my cooking blog: www.kcocina.com

5) Hablar – Speaking Spanish at home, on a daily basis, using short sentences if you are not fluent, is off course the most effective way to develop your child’s skills and his/her connection with the language.

If you have more ideas, please share them with us! Would love to hear you!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages

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