This week we will be sharing house vocabulary and I am very excited to be sharing our activities with you!

We will be looking at a house as we enter the amazing world of different types of houses for older children and a house as we know for younger one! We will chat about their favorite part of the house! Using basically this vocabulary list and me gusta:

We will then, build a house with Legos and they will show me where the ventana is, la puerta, etc.

We will use shapes to make another house together, using their spacial skills to fit the shapes into the frame given to them. I use the Discovery Toy shapes and a House Page.

We read the book

http://astore.amazon.com/easylearn-20/detail/0316234486

I don’t show all the pages and just address vocabulary seen in class, the book is a little long for younger ones and a 30/45min class.

We also watch el Oso en la casa azul:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KKspxSCpKo

They listen to the song as we talk about La Cocina.

We also play tag and they will have to tag the parts of the house. They love that!

I hope you enjoyed our class and that you share it with your students or little ones!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLEarn Languages CEO

Dear Readers,

Thinking about a new post for Valentine’s day, I decided to share something amazing that happened to me yesterday! I had my usual busy schedule, taught 5 classes during the day, but since the first one, my students, boys and girls, noticed my outfit, my bracelet, my earrings and complimented me….it made me think how children, starting age of 3 were being influenced by me….how much we take for granted when we, teachers, get dressed to bring knowledge to the little ones, we seldom think how much our overall presence and acts affect them!

When a 3 year old says: Ms Claudia, your earrings are beautiful! Another two girls asked me to lend them my bracelet and proudly shared them during the class…..that really touched my heart because all the effort and style or lack of…LOL I try to bring to the classroom, from my hair to my shoes, really does influence and puts a strong mark on my work, which opens the door to bring a rich foreign language experience to the little ones!

Yesterday’s experience made me think about something much deeper than just cutting papers and preparing for a class, but how much love I put in getting ready for a class, from the moment I get dressed to the moment I finish it!

This Valentine’s day I wanted to share my AHA moment, when I finally understood, teaching for me is not a job, it is an act of love and best of it: I receive a lot more love than I give and that is very gratifying!!!!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Dear readers,

This is a topic which I love, but I never find good ideas or nice materials to teach a great Valentine’s class or Spanish Classes in February! So this year, I decided to

innovate and I created Spanish and Portuguese classes with the Valentine Day topic which not only teach the vocabulary of a day which is celebrated in some Spanish speaking countries but also teach children to share and show friendship! Enjoy!

Today I will share my ideas for Spanish:

1) Children ages 3-5 will hold on a portion of a large tablecloth, making a sort of parachute and place a light pink ball in the middle, la pelota de la amistad! When the ball pops up, they will shout amigo, when stays on/around the tablecloth, they will shout pasa…pasa! children love to move the ball around!

2) Children will pass a soft ball, and say Pasa, pasa, pasa mi amigo! The teacher will stop and say Amigo randomly and the child who has the ball will share it with a friend in the circle….teaches them how to share and how to be nice to friends. Songs are originals composed and written by me. Email me for words and tune.

3) I also show the snoopy San Valentin cartoon which is cute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F4kpl1kuAI

4) We made a San Valentin card which they colored and cut. I don’t have a template to upload to the blog but you can easily make a card and have them color it.

5) Lucky charms craft- I used the marshmallow hearts on lucky charms box and they glued to a heart shape. They loved doing it! You can use paper heart or stickers as well.

6) Valentine’s Tic tac toe – regular template with hearts printed on card stock as pieces, white and red.

I hope you enjoy my activities! Try some of them with your little ones!

Saludos Amigos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages CEO

Dear readers,

This is a topic which I love, but I never find good ideas or nice materials to teach a great Valentine’s class or Spanish Classes in February! So this year, I decided to

innovate and I created Spanish and Portuguese classes with the Valentine Day topic which not only teach the vocabulary of a day which is celebrated in some Spanish speaking countries but also teach children to share and show friendship! Enjoy!

Today I will share my ideas for Spanish:

1) Children ages 3-5 will hold on a portion of a large tablecloth, making a sort of parachute and place a light pink ball in the middle, la pelota de la amistad! When the ball pops up, they will shout amigo, when stays on/around the tablecloth, they will shout pasa…pasa! children love to move the ball around!

2) Children will pass a soft ball,  and say Pasa, pasa, pasa mi amigo! The teacher will stop and say Amigo randomly and the child who has the ball will share it with a friend in the circle….teaches them how to share and how to be nice to friends. Songs are originals composed and written by me. Email me for words and tune.

3) I also show the snoopy San Valentin cartoon which is cute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F4kpl1kuAI

4)  We made a San Valentin card which they colored and cut. I don’t have a template to upload to the blog but you can easily make a card and have them color it.

5) Lucky charms craft- I used the marshmallow hearts on lucky charms box and they glued to a heart shape. They loved doing it! You can use paper heart or stickers as well.

I hope you enjoy my activities! Try some of them with your little ones!

Saludos Amigos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages CEO

Dear readers,

This past week we worked on several themes and home and furniture was one of them!

Children would look at pictures of rooms in the house and learn their names, then we would work on a game and they would place items in each room, making vocab work easy and fun! For example, we place a sink,lavabo in the bathroom, baño.

We sang en la casa, en la casa hay….using room names

baño – bathroom

sala de estar – living room

cuarto – bedroom

cocina- kitchen

We also watched the video from Boca Beth which tours a house, the video is called La Casa, where a chicken shows children things in the rooms.

Children had to cut and glue parts of the house and make their own house., older ones had to tell me their favorite rooms, why, describe their rooms as well.

Loved sharing this subject with our little ones!

I hope you enjoyed it!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages CEO

Dear readers,

I’m so excited to start sharing some activities our instructors will be using at our Spanish classes in South Jersey!

First I would like to share a list of words, must have when you are teaching Christmas in Spanish:

Feliz Navidad! -Merry Christmas 

Christmas tree – árbol de Navidad

presents – regalos

sleigh – trineo

chimney – chimenea

the shepherds – los pastores

bells – campanas

peace – paz

ornaments – adornos

wreath – corona

For children who read, they will “decorate” the tree below with the words above ( cut them and have them glue them on the tree, saying the names in Spanish)

http://www.coloring-page.net/pages/xtree027.html Word find for older ones:

http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa121399a.htm Song/video for little and older ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq34OLRM5Mw

I also have a line of bells, children will ring (repicar) and each time I stop in a different number of bells, they need to count them.

I read Santa Claus is coming to town in Spanish, I use the book in English and make 2 line sentences for each page. They know the story, so it becomes easier. I also use the video and turn in the Spanish mode for the dvd, I do that with frost the snowman and Rudolf too. We have a whole class, just with Frosty! I may share that later!

I also print colored balls and color cotton balls with paint and have them do a “snowball fight” and each ball touches another student, they need to tell me the color. Younger and older ones love it!

Google ” cascabel” and you will find the words for jingle bells in Spanish, there are three or four versions.

The one listed here on youtube is a little hard for little ones, so when we sing only, I use

Cascabel, Cascabel musica de amor

Dulces horas, gratas horas

Juventud in flor

Cascabel, Cascabel

Tan sentimental

No ceces o cascabel,

de repiquetear

I hope you enjoyed my ideas! Please share your experiences in using them here!

¡Feliz Navidad!

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Languages© CEO

Ideas and information on this blog are protected by copyright, please contact author to publish or reprint ideas.

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

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

Dear Readers,

I have been working for children for more than 10 years now and they never cease to amaze me! Anything can happen when you are working with little ones! I could write a book on my great experiences with them! Some stayed on my mind like the little 3 year old Spanish student who looked at a paper tree, which I called the magic tree, I told him she would talk…….., el arbol magico, and he said, Ms. Claudia, this is a paper tree…..why do you think it’s magic? or the other little four year old Spanish student in NJ, who looked at me and started talking about moon craters, when I asked what do you see in the sky???Or the 14 m old girl who did not speak English, but started speaking Spanish during the classes and then English afterwards!

Working with children and those experiences gave me inspiration to use their daily magic “tools” to create brand new programs. We will be offering two new programs: Spanish and Legos ©, building a foundation to a great foreign language experience! and Joy to the world© – learning a foreign language with music. Both classes will offer a four week program filled with hands on experience, teaching children to make association between new vocabulary and legos and the second will teach children holiday songs and games, using music only……

If you are a parent or teacher and wish to use some of the concepts used to create the classes, I will be happy to share with you and bring the joy of a creative foreign language experience to many other little ones!

Abraços,

Claudia Krusch

Director of CK Translations and EasyLearn Programs for adults and children