Dear Readers,     

Instead of just sharing holiday posts with suggested activities like we normally do, I decided to share my personal discovery and journey through Christmas traditions of my own country, Brazil and Hispanic countries, when I research the topic to bring to my classes.

My first stop will be the Shoe on the Window tradition!

The story I was told when I was a child was that Santa would come at night and drop off toys in the shoes left on the window….because of the safety issues, we would leave them outside our doors and Santa would leave the toys!

There is a song which has remained in all my wonderful Christmas memories! Deixei meu sapatinho

So, to bring this tradition to my son, I explain to him, since it is warm in Brazil, there are no stockings, we have shoes and I ask him to place shoes outside his door and every Christmas morning, Santa leaves stocking stuffers in them, along with new slippers! Fun! Divertido!

It’s that time of year and you are thinking, how can I sneak in some bilingual toys and make my child enjoy it and help him/her learn a foreign language at the same time???

Well, I looked around and will share some of my favorites!

Books:

Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book stores have a whole section of Spanish, French, Chinese or bilingual versions of classics like Dr. Seuss and others, so if you like adding books to your child’s list, this is a favorite way to share great moments and bring some bilingual fun to your child’s bed time or reading time!

I did not find Christmas Classics in foreign languages available in bookstores, trust me, I looked for it, but I believe you should look at your child’s preferences and classic stories. I wanted to share my activity book, which combines a cd which reads the story in both languages and suggestions on activities in each page!

http://www.easylearnlanguages.com/products.html

Many other options are out there like Dora™, Curious George™,  and Other famous characters books!

You can also download them in your tablet or computer and have a paperless version of them or do a surprise dowload to your child’s tablet! My son loves comic books and character books, I have found some of his favorites in Portuguese and will download them into his tablet before Christmas!

Itunes has so many options!

Music

It’s always a great way to connect with children! The holidays bring the magic of showing children favorite tunes in different languages!

I have this cd and we always play it on weekends and when we are decorating the tree!

http://www.amazon.com/Feliz-Navidad-Christmas-Songs-Spanish/dp/B000FI8LW6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349627481&sr=8-1&keywords=christmas+songs+in+spanish

I have a Brazilian Cd with songs in Portuguese with the character Monica, a famous comic book character in Brazil, but I could not find the link to share, I have found this one, not sure why it so hard to find music in Portuguese when you are here in the US! Sharing the songs and culture like the fact that South American countries don’t have stockings but shoes where Santa brings the toys and other traditions I will be sharing in a later post, will bring your child to a magic new world where America traditions are added to the new ones! Priceless!

http://musicabrasileira.org/brasilianchristmas/

 Movies

Basically any movie you purchase nowadays, has the Spanish and French options, so your child can watch the movie in a foreign language. I would recommend showing them the movie in English first, unless they are totally fluent in the second language. You would be surprised how children sit down and watch the elf, Christmas Carol and Mr Magoo in Spanish and love it!  Brazil has a different zone for movies, so I purchase my dvds there when I go or in the sendex.net store and load to my laptop as they will not play on my blueray/dvd player!

Toys

Dora, Elmo, Diego, so many toys are now offered with bilingual versions, Dora has a new gymnastics doll which sings in Spanish! So cute!

Clothes

I ordered a shirt on vista print, it is green, long sleeve and it says Feliz Natal! Every year we have a tradicion to wake up in new jammies on Christmas morning and I ordered this shirt for $ 15,00 with the printing in red and will buy the pj bottoms and surprise my son with it! You can also place granparents pics and saying in a foreign language if your in laws or parents are from a foreign country or make the shirt your child/children’s pic in it, place the Merry Christmas in their native language and ship as a Christmas gift! Shipping of a shirt to a country like Brazil is only $ 4,50!

After all, it’s all about bringing the holiday cheer to your children, making the foreign language, a part of it!

Claudia Krusch

CEO of EasyLearn Languages

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

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 Parent, Grandparent…

Are you home with children, looking for something different to do? I have been thinking about the same thing, so my son inspired me to offer more playtime educational foreign language classes to help parents bring children to an educational activity this winter!

Our two new programs: Spanish and Legos and Las Ninas offer the best in play time, building a foundation for a foreign language, block by block, using toys.

If you far from one of our locations, I have some advice on how to bring a foreign language to your little one:

Set up an indoor picnic, search for food names on the web, some pages have the pronunciation included, to ensure you are giving your little one the right knowledge, play while eating in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian…..

Set up an indoor play time with balls, play soccer, basket ball, pass the ball, using numbers …..

I hope that will keep you busy and your children happy!

For more information on our classes: 856-848-8870 or www.easylearnlanguages.com

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Dear Readers,

My own son loves Legos and has inspired to do some research on some existing programs in other areas which use Legos as a powerful tool to facilitate the learning process. That helped me bring my new program to life! We will be offering a brand new approach in teaching a foreign language, building vocabulary as the child builds with Lego pieces…..

Basic vocabulary will be introduced using the blocks as stimuli. Parents who homeschool children can use Spanish books and start the vocabulary building using the blocks. They will build houses when learning about them, build cars and toys when learning about it, people when learning about body parts and the parent/teacher is the facilitator to bring  the vocabulary to life while the children are playing.

Please parents and teachers tell me what you think about our new program and if you would like to print a free pass to a trial offer.

Program starts in two weeks!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Programs Director