Learn Spanish at Wingra
Teaching Spanish to the Pre-School Kids.
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Worried about whether or not your preschooler has what it takes to be successful in kindergarten? Take a breath and relax. Learning shouldn't be a chore, especially at home. There are fun ways to build your child's academic skills without him even knowing the activity is educational. The best thing about preschoolers is that they're like sponges. They soak up everything they see and hear to be used at a later time when you least expect it.
Last week I was at Target with my three-year-old daughter when she pointed to the sign and informed me, "There are two 'T's' up there!" I almost fell over. Don't get me wrong, my child isn't a genius - sometimes she'll pick her toenails for five minutes before I finally distract her with a piece of candy! My point is that she learned the letter "T" because I started pointing it out on the name sign that hangs on her bedroom door. I've seen a big difference in my own daughter over the last six months with regard to letter recognition and numbers. This is the age to immerse them in learning activities. Don't get overwhelmed, I'm not asking you to create full lesson plans for your kids. When you're three-years-old, every outing or activity is a spontaneous opportunity to learn and increase awareness. Have fun with it and follow some of the tips below which I found at Rasmus Kreutzmann's company. 1. Don't baby-talk, baby! When your child wants to know why her paint won't cover up the white crayon marks on the paper, tell her in big girl words, "That's adhesion, honey!" She'll look at you and smile and won't understand, but sooner or later that word will come out again. When you give children an answer to something they want to know, they'll listen. I have found this does not work with the explanation of why you should eat peas, go figure. 2. Incorporate learning into the activity, don't make it the sole purpose. Any activity you do can be an opportunity to teach your child. If he's coloring a picture, ask him to choose 5 or 10 crayons and count them before he begins. Ask your child what color they are using while they are using it. Point out that one of the scribbles they made looks like a circle or square. The more they hear the vocabulary the more comfortable they will feel using it themselves. 3. Play games. My daughter loves finding the eggs that the Easter Bunny brings, so I took the idea a little further. I wrote down some letters on pieces of paper and put them in the eggs along with a small piece of candy. When she opened an egg she had to tell me the letter then got to eat the M M.; Some of them she didn't know, so I told her what it was and we thought of an animal that started with that letter. If you have a young child I suggest hiding no more than 5 eggs if you want to keep their attention. 4. Read, read, read! The more you read, the more your child will want to read. Reading stories to your child brings up vocabulary that you don't hear often. One of my daughter's favorite books is Just in Case by Judith Viorst. It's about a little boy who is always prepared for anything..."just in case". In one scenario he puts together a week's worth of lunches including lox for his parents, just in case the grocery stores are out of food. I don't eat lox, never talk about it, and my daughter has known since she was two-years-old that lox are salmon. Books will take your kids to another world and another academic level. 5. Increase your awareness of learning opportunities. Once you get in the habit of enhancing your child's activities, it will become second nature. Remind yourself to point out to your child that the stop sign is in the shape of an octagon and that it's the color red, which was also the color of the strawberries she ate this morning. The more you talk, the more they'll absorb.
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Photo used under Creative Commons from OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology)