Reading Time: 2 minutes

Game Time! 

Fun and quick 5-10 minute games that will teach your students to speak Spanish

Welcome back to our Game Time series! We hope you liked our Pronoun Game and are looking forward to what’s next! Today, your students will be learning the words “amigo” (friend, male), “amiga” (friend, female), “amigos” (friends, plural), “amigas” (friends, plural, female). This activity is very simple and can be used for large groups or for a single student. 

So, let’s get into it!

Sticker Activity 

Part 1

Learning objective

Students will learn and use two new Spanish words: “amigo” (friend, male), “amiga” (friend, female), “amigos” (friends, plural), “amigas” (friends, plural, female)

⏲ Time needed

 < 10 minutes

✏️✂️ Materials needed

• Printed photos or drawings of the student’s friends or classmates. Some of the pictures should include only boys, only girls, and some both. 
• Stickers or labels if you have them, or scotch tape and a pen 

👩‍👧‍👦 Ages

For anyone who is game to play! Learning in a playful and different way helps everyone remember the Spanish vocabulary long-term. 

Step 1

First, have your students gather their favorite photos (or drawings!) of their friends or classmates. Make sure that there is a variety of photos of individual and group photos. As well as boys only, girls only, and a mix of both. This is how we will practice each of the four vocabulary words.

Step 2

Create labels with a pen and some scotch tape, or use stickers if you have them. Create enough labels for each of the four vocabulary words: amigo, amiga, amigos, amigas.

Have your students label each photo with the correct stickers or labels and say the word aloud, pointing to the photo as they do so.

Step 3

For a fun additional step to this activity, have your students take any leftover amigo and amiga stickers and stick them on their friends’ shirts! As they sticker a friend, have the student teach them the new Spanish word!

Challenge: Try to say these words 3 times today.

Let us know what you think of this challenge and if your students had fun playing it! What other games or activities have your tried and are your favorites? Let us know by reaching out to info@fl4k.com!

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Whether you are a parent, a teacher, or a parent-teacher, I am sure that you are always looking for innovative and engaging ways for your children to learn another language.

The truth of the matter is that this generation of digital natives is not particularly easy to teach due to their statistically proven shorter attention spans. They are used to having easy access to entertainment through their mobile devices.

We can turn a blind eye to this reality and continue to convince ourselves that the way kids learn best is the same as it was when we were children, but the facts show that the digital generation has rewired their brains. They need interactive and innovative learning strategies that help them to stay focused and engaged in learning.

Games and videos are the perfect way to captivate the attention of Gen Z children. The problem is that it is hard to find quality games and videos when it comes to language learning.

At FL4K, a teacher team with over 100 years of experience has joined designers and developers to create a state-of-the-art curriculum that includes Spanish games and videos that both teach and entertain in a way that keeps students engaged. There are many entertaining, even addictive games and videos on the market that are popular with Gen Zers, but they are not specifically designed to teach a second language.

Our games and videos are all about embedding language within a context that makes language functional and memorable. We have designed two games and a video series that follow a culture curriculum through eight different Hispanic cultures. Language students are learning a second language while developing a rich intercultural awareness that is preparing them to be global citizens. 

Let’s look at the games and videos we offer through FL4K.

Fly Swatter Game

The first one is based on a very old-fashioned game, Fly Swatter, that many language teachers will remember. It involved a real flyswatter that kids used to slap words that were either written or posted on a white or blackboard. Language teachers would feed words to students, have them find an associated word or translation of a word, and have them slap it with the flyswatter. It was a way to engage students in a classroom game that kept learning active and fun.

The problem with the game was that the words were more or less isolated vocabulary with limited capability to give students the opportunity to compete against themselves or as a class against themselves or against other classes.

Our Fly Swatter game does just this. In each game, the student has a digital flyswatter that they use to swat as many flies as possible within a round.

For example, a student would hear and read a prompt such as, “Voy aquí para estudiar.” They then would have to choose the correct response of “A la biblioteca” from a group of 5-6 flies moving around on the screen. This group of flies represents many places that one might go like “Al supermercado,” “Al gimnasio,” “Al parque,” etc.

The fly games correspond to the 8-culture curriculum, reinforcing all that the students have learned about another culture (Hispanic is our first curriculum, but many other languages/cultures will be available in the future) while at the same time reinforcing the functional vocabulary and structures that are carefully scaffolded and embedded in the games.

Through games and videos in FL4K, the students expand their global knowledge while at the same time building language proficiency in a second language.

The rich and varied culture curriculum delves into global challenges like deforestation and climate change while exploring AP themes of Family, Beauty and Art, How Science and Technology Affect Our Lives, Factors that Influence the Quality of Life, and Environmental and Societal Change with the idea of preparing them for advanced language study in the future.

Categories of study for each cultural unit include geography and climate, citizens, sites of interest, nature, lodging, adventure, food, products, art, and other cultural influences such as Afro-Latino and Asian. All of this content is reinforced with games that teach functional language and vocabulary.

Bounce Game

Another game that is included with each lesson is called Bounce. Students match images and language, but not in an isolated way.

Images of cultural content will appear in the form of balls flying around a screen and the students will hear functional language like, “¿Dónde está el delfín rosado?” while trying to click on the corresponding image.

When students hear, “¿Dónde está_____?” over and over, they learn to use it actively in a way that is much more effective than rote memorization that is quickly lost once a student has been asked to reproduce it on a quiz or test. Students build proficiency in practicing functional language to communicate in the real world. 

Video Series

In addition to these state-of-the-art games, FL4K has an entertaining video series that follows a clever narrative involving the lives and interests of three brothers.

Functional language is scaffolded and embedded in a context that makes the real-world language easy to learn! Kids can actually start speaking another language right away.

In addition, there is built-in practice with interactive dialogues and questions that allow students to test their knowledge after each lesson and prove what they have learned at the end of a unit/level with built-in can-do’s.

Kids love the instant feedback that this language program offers! The Spanish games, videos, and other interactive features are rolled into one platform that is easy for kids to navigate on their own with guidance from parents and educators. You really have to see it to believe it!

Take a peek at FL4K.com to see demos and read more about the available curriculums. If you want your students and/or children to learn another language while building cultural awareness with games and videos that motivate and actually help them to develop practical language proficiency, FL4K may be what you have been looking for!

Maybe your children are even starting to experience the mid-summer doldrums. Take the opportunity now to get them started with our free summer trial!

If you are a parent that would like to learn another language right along with your children, FL4K is a great opportunity, too! 

Reading Time: 4 minutes

An icon in the homeschool community

Cathy Duffy began homeschooling her three sons in 1982. Unlike today, homeschool resources were scarce then, and Cathy was dedicated to finding and reviewing as many materials for homeschool families as she could.

Four decades later, the homeschool scene couldn’t be more different, but Cathy’s expertise is needed more than ever.

Cathy authored several books during these years. Her first, the Christian Home Educators Curriculum Manual, was published in 1982. It’s had several new editions, ultimately split into separate books for elementary and secondary grades. More recently, she started her Top Picks series, starting with 100 Top Picks. Her last edition, 102 Top Picks, was published in 2015.

Cathy notes that “the market has changed a lot” in these seven years. “More resources use technology or digital delivery, and many use creative mixtures of physical and digital content. The market has continued to broaden with resources for secular homeschoolers in contrast to the first few decades of homeschooling, when so many resources were Christian.”

One of the beauties of homeschooling is that it allows us to recognize and nurture each one or our very special children. We have the glorious opportunity to help them find out who they are, what they want to be, and how they might get there.

Cathy Duffy

103 Top Picks

With the incredible quantity of resources — some more credible than others — it’s difficult for parents to ascertain which are high quality, which are the right fit for their children, and which will work well together in a cohesive curriculum and schedule. Parents today also need to understand the role technology plays in what they’re purchasing.

If you’re facing any of these issues, you’ll want to check out Cathy’s brand new work, 103 Top Picks. 103 Top Picks is an in-depth analysis guiding parents, particularly new homeschoolers, with strategies to identify the learning styles of each of their children as well as recommendations of Cathy’s 103 top curriculum choices. It’s an essential resource for navigating through the overwhelming number of choices available to homeschool families.

Cathy explains, “if you are a new homeschooling parent…where on earth do you begin? There are far too many choices. How do you know what your child needs? How can you figure this out? That’s the purpose of this book.”

In the second and third chapters of 103 Top Picks, Cathy guides you through hands-on activities to help identify your specific homeschool needs, academic goals, and determine your family’s philosophy for education. Once identified, you can easily sort through the chart of programs to find the ones more likely to be a good fit for your family’s homeschool approach.

103 Top Picks provides a chart of programs for language arts, math, social studies, and science, each broken down by ease of use, teacher prep-time, the amount of direct instruction needed, and if a program supports the Charlotte Mason or the Classical approach. If you aren’t clear on the differences between the Charlotte Mason and Classical approaches, the book explains both of them in the second chapter, as well as additional approaches such as traditional textbooks, unit study, unschooling, independent study, and working under a program.

This chart of programs also shows how each program fits with different learning styles. Cathy believes being aware of your children’s individual learning styles is a powerful tool that will help them learn more effectively. If you don’t know your child’s learning style, don’t worry! In chapter 4, Cathy explains the four learning styles, how to determine which styles work best for your children, and how to teach using the different styles.

‘Mental’ nourishment should take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of each child — teaching to their strengths and helping to overcome weak areas. There should be extra nourishment for those areas of special interest, and it should be provided at a pace each child can handle — not too slow, not too fast.

Cathy Duffy

In other words, don’t let curriculum guide your homeschool methods; instead, be goal-oriented based on your child’s individual needs and find a curriculum that fits into that agenda.

Cathy also discusses all-in-one curriculums. Cathy discusses the merits and drawbacks of what she calls “packaged programs” that provide a curriculum as well as oversight and record keeping. Programs like this are generally very affordable, but they don’t offer a lot of guidance or flexibility.

There’s also what Cathy calls an “eclectic program”, which involves a mixture of educational approaches. While using an eclectic program would generally mean putting it together yourself, some publishers, such as My Father’s World, Timberdoodle, Sonlight, and BookShark, have put together eclectic programs for parents. Cathy notes that “any of these programs can be a great place to start if you aren’t sure what approach you want to use since they all give you the chance to experience a variety of learning methods.”

I asked Cathy if she had one message for homeschoolers. Her answer? “Set your own goals for what you think is most important for each of your children, and use those to measure your success rather than anyone else’s ideas.”

You can grab your copy of 103 Top Picks here to start learning about the best programs for your children. And learn more about Cathy and read her reviews on her website, CathyDuffyReviews.com.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Teacher Tooltip Tuesday: Avoid BURNOUT! 

May seems like a good month to address the pernicious result of working nonstop for an entire school year without taking time to breathe: BURNOUT!

Why is burnout common in the World Language classroom?

According to the American Psychological Association, burnout is defined as “physical, emotional or mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes towards oneself and others.” 

Oh, dear! Our field is especially wrought with this kind of exhaustion because language teachers are among some of the most conscientious individuals I have ever known.

With 40+ years of experience in the profession, I have had the great privilege of knowing many world language teachers. Based on what I have seen, (literally dozens of colleagues at teaching levels from PK-college), our profession attracts a lot of earnest individuals with tremendous discipline, creativity, intelligence, perfectionism, perseverance, and great wonderment about the world! I consider myself blessed to have worked with so many incredibly gifted world language teachers. 

But, guess what? With all this giftedness, comes a strong work ethic and the endless quest to teach our students to actually speak another language and yet, that goal can continually elude us.

We get to the end of the year and aren’t always happy with our results. So, we wipe the slate clean and try again next year, all the while feeling completely burned out from the effort. 

Helpful resources for understanding burnout in our field

To get an idea of what we expect of ourselves to be effective world language teachers, peruse the Teacher Effectiveness for Language Learning (TELL) PROJECT this summer as professional development.

Take a look at the assessment tools and think about how you are doing according to what many professionals in the field have collaborated to define what effective world language teaching entails. I suggest looking at the Feedback Form Full Class Observation to see what criteria are important for best practices.

You may also want to look at the assessment tool for The Learning Experience. This will give you an idea of why our field attracts so many hardworking individuals.

Creating the best language experience without the burnout

Teaching a world language effectively is demanding! Here are just a few of the criteria for creating the best language experience for our students according to the TELL PROJECT:

• I provide opportunities for my students to become more effective communicators
• I provide opportunities for students to engage in cultural observation and analysis
• I provide opportunities for my students to acquire language in meaningful contexts
• I ensure that students receive comprehensible input.

How can we do all this without feeling burned out?

(Also to consider is the complication of the GEN Z student that is accustomed to the dopamine fix from instant and constant communication through social media. How can we compete with this phenomenon without ending up feeling burned out?) 

There is no panacea, no magical formula, to inspire in our students a genuine desire to learn another language for real-world communication. We can share all kinds of data about the job market advantage, the excitement of being able to know people of other cultures through knowing their language, and the way language learning trains the brain for other higher functions, etc. The bottom line is that it takes a lot of expertise to teach another language in a way that motivates and excites students, and gets results!

It can definitely leave us all ending up feeling exhausted, unappreciated, and with a negative attitude about starting it all over again in September! BURNED OUT!

The solution

At FL4K, I am part of a teacher team writing curriculum for you!

We have personally experienced burnout and are doing everything we can to create a platform that supports teachers in their quest to be effective language teachers without burnout! We actually help you to provide the highlighted criteria above as deemed necessary for effective world language teaching according to the TELL Project!

It will cost you NOTHING to take a look and see what we have created for you!

One of the most exciting features of our curriculum is a full interculturality program that includes social-media-like posts about Hispanic culture with carefully scaffolded target language progression, amazing images, interactive polls in real-time for your students, discussion questions, songs, games, hands-on activities, and more! 

Check this out to consider for your fall program. There are also some testimonials online that you can read. I, personally, met with a teacher in January who was completely overwhelmed with her teaching load from 1st-8th grade, and here is what she said after a few months of piloting our Fl4k program:

“Just wanted to check in with you all and let you know that everything is going awesomely with the program. The kids love it and my friends who are parents of the kids are amazed at how much Spanish they are speaking at home just having fun with it.”

Isn’t this what we all are looking for? A support program to help us fulfill our lofty goal as world language educators to have our students enthusiastic about and actually SPEAKING another language without BURNOUT! 

I’ll be back next week with another tool tip! In the meantime, check out FL4K and take advantage of their free summer trial. Try out the entire program for free all summer long!

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tuesday Teacher Tooltip: Take advantage of the norming stage of group development to allow students to enjoy pair work in the World Language Classroom

During the last two weeks, I have addressed the first two stages of group development, forming and storming, where students become acquainted with one another and wrestle with all different personality types. In the “norming” stage of group development, students have developed enough respect for one another that they can engage in pair work effectively. In this stage, students begin to cooperate and engage in partner activities.

Here are a few ideas to consider for this phase. 

Peer Editing

Students can now comment on or edit one another’s work with maturity and respect.

Teachers can use Padlet or Flipgrid, both apps that allow students to critique each other’s work. These are platforms that allow students to post their own work and then comment on each other’s work. The students can’t wait to both respond to their peers’ work and then, read the comments about their own work.

Students can tease each other and have fun interacting. This kind of feedback exchange is healthy and motivating in a class where students know and respect one another!

Role-Playing

Once students have built trust in the classroom with one another, they begin to become much less intimidated. They will more likely volunteer to play a role with each other and practice their language proficiency skills while hamming it up! 

Pair Work

In the norming phase of group development, you can begin to randomly pair students using the Class Dojo app or traditional methods of creating pairs.

Mixing it up really helps students to become better acquainted with one another and prevents any student from feeling excluded.

I always had sticks or notecards with every child’s name on a card. Just to create drama in the classroom, I would throw them up in the air and pick them up two at a time to create pairs. The kids always loved this method and had faith in the randomness of it due to this ancient, but very transparent method!  

Dice Games

You can make a dice grid for students such as this sample for teachers.

Use real dice in the classroom or students can use a dice generator online. If they roll a 2 and a 6, they have to find the two possible questions in the grid for that combination and answer one of them. The one who rolls answers the question first and then asks the same or the other question to the partner.

Make dice games for every unit of study. This is the way to truly give students a chance to practice communicating. Kids love to express their opinions about everything! This activity gives the teacher a break, too. After 15 minutes of play, randomize the partners again and continue having the students work in pairs. 

Norming is a wonderful stage of group development that allows for natural exchanges in the classroom that provide real world language exchanges.

With FL4K, our single platform program with a built-in culture curriculum for 10 different Hispanic countries, we provide dice games and ideas for pair work activities for every unit! Please check out our website to view samples of our state-of-the-art way of teaching World Language for real-world communication!

Reading Time: 2 minutes 

        

As I check the news online, I think I am the exception as I skip most of the video clips and seek out the written content. For our company, we are filming short informational videos about our Spanish program because it’s visual, quick, and easy to receive the information this way. This is helpful as we are all busy and can get more done in a day without having to stop and read. But…what are the consequences of most of us reading less?

For the older half, one of our bigger concerns these days is our brain health. Our bodies are living longer and our brains can’t keep up so the quality of our longevity may be compromised. (Interestingly, learning a foreign language is one of the best things we can do to improve our brain health…but that’s an article for another day). My sister and I shared a room growing up and we still vividly recall our nightly quarrels because I was reading and refused to turn off the light. I recall driving through the Redwood Forest on a family trip and my father being justifiably frustrated with me because my face was buried in my book instead of on the wonders around me. Yet even for me, a long-time bookaholic, I’ve noticed that I’m reading less than I used to.

But if someone like me is reading less, what about the younger half? Kids today watch videos for everything. Could they read and understand an instruction manual if they had to? I remember my nephew, now 22, disliked reading when he was in elementary school and struggled with it. He wouldn’t read the stories in school and his parents were concerned. But, in second grade, he came across the TIVO manual and read it in one sitting. That was a turning point in my nephew’s reading development. I wonder if this would happen today. Kids now watch how-to videos. Would it occur to them to read instructions? Would they even incidentally come across the printed instructions to spark the natural curiosity that kids so wondrously have?

I still like the feel of a book in my hands and the smell of a library. I wonder if my kids know what a library smells like. If they do, I’m sure they would tell me that I’m weird or just old for liking it.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

It’s SPRING! This is a great time of year to put the windows up in your home and get the fresh air flowing. It’s also the time of year when many of us begin to think about cleaning out the dust and grime that has built up over the winter, and purging the clutter that has piled up inside our homes.

However,  those of us with young kids at home all day may have a hard time with this. When mine were little, every time I’d get a bucket out to start cleaning someone would come alongside me and either dump or track dirt in on top of it making a nice muddy mess.

Oh, the joys of children!

Through the years I have found a few things that have made spring cleaning with kids a lot easier. This can also be a great time to learn about the world around us and get some major items marked off of moms to do list.

Get the Kids Involved 

Many hands make light work … so how do you get the kids to pitch in when it’s time to spring-clean the house?  Start with assigning age appropriate tasks. Young children can organize toys, dust items, pick up laundry, etc. With younger kids be sure to assign tasks that can be done in a short time period. Think 10-15 minutes. Working as a team involves kids in the cleaning process, helps them learn cleaning skills, and most important, models both the attitude and the job standard you’re trying to teach.

Older children should be able to do larger tasks. Like scrubbing the bathroom, wiping down walls, mopping, and even some light yard work. Ecnourage each family member to work as a team. Divy up chores by room, let them take turns picking which tasks they want to do. Give them a choice, but let them know that EVERYONE is working together.By having yoru kids working with you, ou won’t have to woryy about what they are getting into while you are spring cleaning.

Label Items Around the House 

For the younger kids, having visual aids is a HUGE way to ensure success. For example, if you have bins where toys like blocks, balls, and dolls go, add a picture for each item to the bin. This helps your child know where the item goes, and lets you know the task will be completed correctly.

For older kids, include words around the house in another language. If you are learning Spanish, add stickers or labels to these household items. You can also use pictures and labels like those in this post to label a chore chart of what all you want your children to do.

Another option for older children is to allow them to choose which rooms they want to clean by offering them in Spanish. This is a great way to teach older kids vocabulary words in another language! It’s also a great way to eliminate fighting over which room they are going to clean 😉

el salón

–

the living room

el (cuarto de) baño	–	the bathroom
la cocina	–	the kitchen
el comedor	–	the dining room

el garaje, la cochera

–

the garage

Make it Fun

Regardless of your age, no one really LIKES to clean, but adding some fun to the day makes it a lot more enjoyable. Here are som eideas for making spring cleaning with kids fun for the whole family!

Play Music! 

Playing upbeat music or an exciting audiobook keeps the body moving, and spirits high. Let each child pick a tune they want to listen to, and for the older children let them play their own music or audio book in the room they are working on.

Young children love to dance, and one fun activity to do while cleaning with your kids is playing “wax museum”. Keep the music going, but occasionally sneak and turn it off. At this time everyone has to FREEZE where they are like a wax statue. This is sure to be a giggle fest as the kids test their balance, coordination and reflexes.

Find a “Busy” Chore for Each Child

Look around the house, and find a chore that takes itme, but that even a child can do. I call these busy chores. Here are a few examples.

• Shaking theToaster- Kids will LOVE doing this, and most of the time it doesn’t get done because we just don’t like the mess. Unplug the toaster and lay paper grocery bags or an old cloth over the kitchen counter. Then let your child turn that toaster upside down and do a shake and shimmy dance to get all the crumbs out.  Offer your child a wood spoon or chopstick to remove stuck pieces. This is a great time to teach them to NEVER stick metal utensils inside the toaster.
• Alphabetize the Spices- If you have a young child who knows their ABC’s have them sort through your spices.Tell them they can “read” the labels, smell the spices, and even taste them if they choose. Show them which ones you use regularly for baking. In th ened your spices will be more organized, and yoru child will have had some great reading and sorting pracitice.
• Go “skating” for dust bunnies- Have hardwood floors?  Have your children wear old pairs of socks and “skate” around the house collecting dust bunnies with their feet. See who can accumulate the largest dust bunny, then hae them collect the dust bunnies in a trash bag along the way.

Discuss Spring Cleaning in Other Countries

Everything we do can be a learning experience. As you are spring cleaning with your kids you are teaching them homemaking skills, life skills, home economics, it is LEARNING. We can also deepen the learning experience by discussing the history of spring cleaning and what that may look like in other countries.

In most countries, spring cleaning has come to mean the process of deep cleaning a house or room. But where did the idea of Spring cleaning come from? No one really knows. However, most countries participate in it in some shape or form.

 

Shaking the House in Iran

Irans spring cleaning coincides with their New Year which is March 21 (the vernal equinox and first day of the solar cycle). This is a time of refreshing, and rejuvenating. Which is why many Iranians also participate in the tradition of khooneh takouni – ‘shaking the house’ – a custom that lives up to its name.Khooneh takouni is a vigorous spring cleaning ritual. During this time, Iranians buy new clothes to wear and clean every corner of the home. This includes rugs, curtains, bedding, floors, ceilings, and even household ornaments. No item in the home is missed and every family member participates.

Cleansing the home at Passover

Another spring cleaning ritual that you can teach your children is the ancient Jewish practice of thoroughly cleaning the home before the springtime memorial feast of Passover. Passover is among the most important festivals in the Jewish year. It is a time when Jewish people remember how the children of Israel escaped from slavery imposed by the Pharoah when Moses led them out of Egypt over 3000 years ago.  The festival is called Passover because before the final plague began, God told Moses his people should mark their doorposts with lamb’s blood. God would then know which houses to ‘pass over’ and spare them from the plague.

Once Pharaoh allowed the Jews to leave Egypt, they had to leaven such a hurry that their bread did not have time to rise. To this day, during Passover, Jewish people eat unleavened bread called Matzah in remembrance of the rapid escape from Egypt. There are strict prohibitions against eating or drinking anything which may have been leavened or fermented with yeast.  In fact, Jews must clean their homes of even the smallest remnants of chametz (leavened food) for the length of the holiday. They do this by “spring cleaning” the home. The cleaning is followed by a traditional hunt for chametz crumbs by candlelight (called be diktat chametz) on the evening before Passover.

Sweeping away bad luck in China

The Chinese believe spring cleaning should be done in preparation for the New Year. The belief is that doing this will bring them good fortune in the year to come.   At the end of the year, Chinese homes are cleaned from top to bottom. By sweeping floors, and cleaning their homes they are removing any bad luck and misfortune that may have gathered there during the year. They feel sweeping it away is one way to ensure it doesn’t linger ready to continue into the next year. Once the homes are clean and the floors swept, the Chinese welcome and preserve good fortune by refraining from sweeping for many days after the start of the new year. They believe this prevents them from sweeping away any good fortune that came into the house at the turn of the year.

 

Offer Incentives 

One sure fire way to get the kids moving is by letting them know at the end of the Spring cleaning they will be rewarded. This could be a family treat or an individual treat for each child. Here are some things to consider:

• Pizza night!
• A trip to the movies
• Family movie night at home with a special sweet treat
• Monetary reward for older kids
• A later bedtime one day throughout the week
• A new book or video game
• A reward of their choice

The key is to find something that will motivate them to complete the task with a good attitude and in a timely fashion. We all like to reward ourselves at the end of a hard day right? Our kids are no different.

Spring cleaning is a great time to clean our homes and learn with our children. And even the most tedious tasks can be made into a fun experience with a little bit of creativity. Now, get to work spring cleaning and learning with your kids!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Spring is upon us, and with it comes thoughts of Easter. I’m not sure what you think of when Easter comes to mind, but for me, it’s church , the resurrection, tulips, family gathering, warm weather, and baby animals.  We have numerous family traditions that go along with Easter.   But, have you ever wondered how others around the world celebrate Easter? I have! And was surprised at what I learned about Easter traditions from around the world.

Easter Traditions in Spain

Easter in Spain is considered one of the most important festivals. Spaniards consider it a time of celebration and merriment.  The celebrations start with ‘Domingo de Ramos’, or Palm Sunday, and finish with ‘Lunes de Pascua’, or Easter Monday.

One of the biggest Easter celebrations takes place in Seville. The celebration includes 52 different religious brotherhoods marching through the city. Thousands watch the daily procession of marching bands, decorated candlelit floats and illustrations of the Easter story.

Easter Traditions in Brazil

Easter in Brazil comes during the autumn season due to its geographical location.  Overall the Easter traditions in Brazil are held with much splendor and celebration. Many small towns hold mini versions of Carnival on their Easter Saturday, called ‘Sábado de Aleluia, to celebrate the end of Lent.

Easter Traditions in France 

France celebrates Easter with a lot of enthusiasm and zeal. In French, Easter is known as P�ques and is one of the major festivals in the country. One tradition takes places in the town of Haux, where each year a giant omelet is made with 4,500 eggs that feed 1,000 people. The meal is served in the town’s main square.  The reasoning behind the tradition comes from a story about Napolean. Rumor has it that when Napolean and his army traveled through south France, they stopped in the town and ate omelets. He liked the omelets so much that he ordered the townspeople to gather eggs and make him and his army ANOTHER giant omelet the next day.

Easter Traditions in Bermuda 

In Bermuda, Easter is celebrated mostly on Good Friday. The locals celebrate by flying home-made kites, eating codfish cakes and hot cross buns. This Easter tradition is said to have begun when a local teacher from the British Army had a difficult time explaining Christ’s ascension to heaven to his Sunday School class. To help with the lesson he made a kite, shaped like a cross, to illustrate the ascension. Traditionally the Bermuda kites are made with colorful tissue paper, wood, metal, string, and long tails.

 

Easter Traditions in Germany

In Germany, Easter is known by the name of Ostern. The Easter holiday in Germany lasts about three weeks for children. Employers typically give their employees Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday off from work. In America, and other countries, Easter eggs are hidden and children hunt for them. However, in Germany, Easter eggs are displayed on trees and prominently in streets. In fact, some of the trees may hae thousands of multi color eggs hanging on them.

Many countries celebrate Easter similar to the way we do in the U.S.  some involve similar characters, traditions, and songs, and some are quite different. The common theme I noticed while studying Easter around the world is the tradition. No matter what country we are looking at, the Easter holiday is deeply rooted in tradition. A celebration of the past, but remembered today.

What traditions are you leaving behind for your family this Easter holiday? What traditions are you incorporating into your family celebrations?

PS: Have you grabbed your FREE Spring Printable Pack? It’s a great way to add a foreign language to your spring activities!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

When my daughter first told me she wanted to learn a foreign language, I didn’t know where to start. Which language should I teach? Which program should I use? How could I even teach her when I didn’t speak a foreign language?

Now, those questions are too much to answer in one blog post, but chances are you have asked yourself these questions as well. Today, we are going to take a look into determining which foreign language you should teach your kids.

Which language are they interested in? 

I think this is one of the most important questions to ask. I have friends who have adopted internationally. For their children, they were most interested in the language their sibling was native to. This made the most sense and was the most practical place to start.

When my daughter was a preschooler she was fascinated with French because of the book series Fancy Nancy. This was a natural place for us to start when she expressed an interest in foreign language.

Has your child expressed an interest in a certain language? If so, tap into that interest NOW. The easiest way for a child to learn is when they are learning something they are passionate about and interested in. This is true for anything they are learning, including a foreign language.

Which language do you think they would be most likely to use on a regular basis?

Which foreign language will your child hear regularly? Depending on where you live, you may have a large population of residents who speak a foreign language. This means your child will hear that language often. If so, start there.

I have friends who plan on taking their children on mission trips when they are teenagers. For those families, it is natural for them to teach their children the language they will use in the future. Consider future mission trips or overseas vacations when determining which foreign language you want to teach your children.

We live in an area where the majority of residents speak English only. I think in my whole life, I have had heard another language at our grocery store half a dozen times. All of those instances were college or foreign exchange students. So, for us, there really isn’t a foreign language our children will hear on a regular basis. Because of this, we decided to go with one of the most common foreign languages, Spanish. It is rising in popularity and there are 52 million people in the United States who speak it. The United States has recently been cited as the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. With those statistics, I figured at some point, my children will hear Spanish on a regular basis.

Which language is the easiest to learn? 

A recent study has found that the easiest foreign languages for English speakers to learn are:

Spanish

Spanish is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn because it only differs from English in word formation and pronunciation. It uses most of the same letters as the English alphabet and grammatically has fewer irregularities than other latin based languages.

Portuguese

Portuguese is a close cousin of Spanish and is spoken both in Portugal and in Brazil. The intonation of Portuguese is very similar to the English language, making mastering many of the words easier than other foreign languages.

French

French is widely used both in France, here, and in many other countries in the world. It is known as a beautiful language that shares an alphabet with many English words.

So, hopefully, this will help you determine which foreign language will work for your family. Once you decide, be sure to us know in the comments which foreign language will you be teaching!

---

Misty Bailey is a work at home homeschool mom.  She loves helping new homeschoolers and has a Homeschool 101 eBook for those getting started. She shares everyday tips and encouragement for the homeschool mom on her blog Joy in the Journey.