Carnival is approaching and I wanted to share some activities we will be sharing in some activities, some suggestion on games and videos! Enjoy!

Carnival is celebrated in some countries in South America, Europe and New Orleans in the US! I usually don’t share it in all the classes, but some of my intermediate and older children classes!

This year Carnival or Mardi Gras will start on the 9th in some countries and end on the Ash Wednesday, Feb 13th. So in two weeks, we will sharing some of the fun activities and bringing the beads and masks to our classes!

So let’s share some options for crafts:

Masks- We will be using templates for masks and I will bring beads and stickers and glitter to make the masks! I cut the masks myself on cardstock and punch holes for the two parts to tie in the back.

Here is a link for a Free printable template, but I design and cut my own and will be sharing some pics of the student’s work later after we do it!

http://freebies.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=freebies&cdn=hobbies&tm=9&f=10&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=3&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.activityvillage.co.uk/mardi_gras_masks_to_print.htm

Confetti  

We will make our own confetti, I will bring construction paper and classes of children 6 and older will use templates of shapes, while learning shapes, make their own confetti, review colors and trade them to make a confetti rain at the end!

Beads

We will be making necklaces with beads and other materials, using different colors and ideas, I can’t wait to see their creations!

Some music:

We will be listening to Spanish Music, Rick Martin and doing a Spanish dance, Brazilian Music in the Portuguese class with Yvette San Galo! Here are the videos for the songs we will be singing in class:

We will also teach older children children the history of Carnival which started in Venice and how it survives in countries like Brazil, being a part of the country’s culture as a major component to their identity! I spent most of my life enjoying Carnival in Brazil and spent one in Venice, Italy, so I always look forward to finding a new way to share that with my students!

Teaching a foreign language is a lot more than just vocabulary and grammar, it is about connecting the passion behind the language!

Viva Carnaval!

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,

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

Parents have always asked me to include a summer class in our regular programs. Summer is a fun time, when children play, so teaching Spanish in the summer, means adding Spanish to fun activities children love!

I hope you enjoy my vocabulary list and suggestions:

El Sol – Sun

La Playa – Beach

La Sombrilla- the umbrella

La crema – the lotion

La arena – the sand

El Castillo- The castle

El Mar – The sea

El Calor- The heat

A few activities which can be used when teaching summer and beach themes are:

*Use colored sand and have them cover the word playa for example

*Buy precut fish craft and have them put it together, teaching fish and other sea animals

*Buy plastic fishing kit, they children will love to go fishing and learn about water and animals

*Beach Ball can be used to be passed, each student will need to say a beach word in Spanish when you stop the song

I also use some songs such as, vamos a la playa, la bamba, que calor to bring some flavor to the activities.

I hope you enjoyed my suggestions, please post your comments and suggestions.

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Programs

Director

-For more information on summer language programs, call 856-848-8870 or log on www.easylearnlanguages.com