Dear Readers,

Researching good activities for earth day, April 22nd, I did not find out anything I really liked so I worked on some different ideas and totally outside la caja!

I think the vocabulary list should be:

Tierra – Earth, Sol- sun, Nubes- Clouds, Lluvia-Rain, Planta- Plant, Arbol- Tree, Flor-Flower and Aire- Air.

I showed some of my classes those things in their school playgrounds and they had a first hand experience of how to embrace, take care and appreciate madre tierra.

We played Pasa La Tierra game with blue and green small Plastic Balls, where they would pass the oceano y la tierra (which came from coloring page below, which they colored ocean blue and land green). They also alternated between pasa el ocean ( blue Ball) y vivo en la tierra ( green ball).

Earth Day Coloring Page

I also talked about recycling with older ones!

I showed this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2J2B6P7XZU&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9243D527AFB56CD8

Also have a nature board where children added some items, placed some animals on their habitat, they had a lot of fun!

Share if you like our activities and if you use at home or in your classroom!  Your opinion is very important to us!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages

Saludos!

Looking for new activities to do using the Spring theme, it came to me to use a mural as a backdrop after we teach the new vocabulary or verbs associated to vocabulary learned in previous years by children who have been with us for a longer period of time!

We gave them the vocabulary by talking about season changes and:

Memory Cards with words – Primavera- Spring, Nube – Cloud, Lluvia- rain, Cesped- grass, Flor- flower, Arbol- tree, Mariposa- butterfly.

We also used the book Pedro Conejito to talk about spring words

We gave them stickers and asked them to draw on our wall and table mural, depending on age, they loved it! Some of the pictures are shown here!

Try and let us know how it was, we would love to share your picture!

Today we started from ages 14m-9 year old students and I wanted to share some of the amazing results! Check it out!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages

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Dear Readers,

This month we decided to bring our Spring activities to the next level!

Children started this week, by contrasting the differences between winter and spring and singing a song about weather….we make hand motions and sing about lluvia(rain), sol (sun), viento ( wind) y nubens( clouds). We read a book called Primavera and they saw the trees with leaves and the bugs and birds who came back!

We also did a coloring page with  a Mariposa ( butterfly) and a flor ( flower) and the kids would color and draw on the worksheet. You can easily make it at home with coloring page drawings.

I bought a collection of bugs and bug cat and nets and we went bug hunting, saying the name of the bug, color and comparing sizes.

Off course if you child never had Spanish before and you are starting, I would recommend just doing colors for now…..

I made a memory game with pictures of bugs and they had to match and say the name of the insect, Mariquita( lady bug), Escarabajo ( beetle), mariposa ( butterfly), abeja ( bee), saltamontes ( grasshopper).

I will be happy to answer questions and send the worksheet, if you wish to have it at home!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages CEO

A lot of the parents which come from families or are Brazilian have asked me to post vocabulary and suggestion of activities on different topics. This is the first of a series.

Spring Vocabulary:

Spring – primavera

Flower – flor

Spring colors- green – verde, purple- roxo pink- rosa, blue- azul, yellow- amarelo

Grass-grama

Garden-jardim

Bee- abelha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y9m_EYWOi0 – video with spring scenes in Rio

Coloring Page: http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/spring/color/bee7.gif

My favorite spring song: O Barquinho – Tom Jobim – This song always reminds me of spring in Brazil, but I don’t have a recording to offer to readers to check it out. Maybe in a Brazilian search engine.

Suggestion on activities:

1)Take your child to a garden or your backyard and show him/her the flowers, grass and bring the vocabulary on this list to life.

2)There is a children’s lullaby- O cravo brigou com a rosa….very nice, will put your child in a spring mood, right before bed: http://www.microvip.com.br/vipkids/ocravoearosa.htm. My son loves this song….the hard part was explain the flower names to him….cravo…..

If you are teaching your child how to read in Portuguese, spring vocabulary is great for asking the child to read the flower names, for example.

For more suggestions, information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

I strongly advocate for introducing a second and many foreign language to children at early age, so it will be my pleasure to give any readers, any information to help them introduce or bring foreign languages to children.

Next posting will give some information on colors.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Tell us what you think!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearnLanguages Director

www.easylearnlanguages.com