Category: Parenting

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month With Kids

We at Languages4kidz think it’s important for kids to gain exposure to languages other than their own early on so they can gain a better awareness of the world and its inhabitants.

The past and present achievements of Hispanic and Latino Americans are woven into the fabric of Hispanic and Latino culture. Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month offers students, parents, and educators an opportunity to explore and learn about the rich history, vibrant cultures, and exciting contributions of the Hispanic and Latino American communities.

We invite you to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month even if your ancestors didn’t originate in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central, or South America. Learning about other cultures helps children develop empathy and an inquisitive mind.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, here are eight fun ideas for kids to get involved in:

 

1. Explore Hispanic and Latino artists

After learning about the works of various Hispanic and Latino painters including Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, Diego Velazquez, and Francisco Goya, youngsters may put what they’ve learned into practice by creating their own Hispanic-inspired paintings.

Take a peek at Art with Krista ‘s website for some Hispanic Heritage Months art lesson ideas.

 

2. Take kids on a virtual tour

Go around La Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s old home, a museum devoted to her life and work in Mexico City.

The history of Latinos and Latinas in the United States is highlighted by the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Latino.

 

3. Celebrate by playing games with a Latin flavor

Playing Loteria, the Spanish variant of Bingo, is a lot of fun. Matching words (such as el oso, “the bear,” or la vaca, “the cow,” to their game board is a fun way to teach and practice vocabulary with kids.

Check out some other traditional games for children in “La Guia Infantil.”

 

4. Discover the rich culture of Latin America and Hispanic festivities

Learn about Hispanic and Latino celebrations and traditions.

Celebrations create connection and fun everyone can enjoy. Plus, experiencing how a culture celebrates is a great way to learn.

Spend some time learning about the many traditions, holidays, and other celebrations practiced throughout Latin America and the Hispanic world.

Learn about how different countries celebrate birthdays.

Plan a birthday party. Make invitations, decorations, a cake, and Pinatas together with the kids.

Create flowers made with tissue paper to brighten the event. Tissue paper originated in Asia, and it was the Spanish colonizers to the Americas who brought it to the West to use in paper crafts. After then, indigenous people started making these flowers to use in church decorations.

Make Güiros. The most famous Puerto Rican musical instrument. Traditionally made from gourd, this percussion instrument sounds unique. They now come in many shapes and materials and are used to make music or decorate.

Create colorful Rainsticks. Rainsticks were believed to bring rain during dry seasons and were devised by the Mapuche people of Chile. Now they’re musical instruments.

Celebrate El Dia de la Raza (October 12) by watching a kids short video about Cristobal Colon y el Descubrimiento de America.

5. Try the following Hispanic and Latin American dishes to bring some new countries to your table

For the following meals, you can start by having the kids make a list of the things you need.

Migas are kid-friendly and popular in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and Texas. Families usually have the components. Scrambled eggs, tortilla chips, melty cheese, and pico de gallo make a delightful entrée.

Arepas, the ultimate sandwich, are fried corn cakes loaded with chicken, avocado, and more from Colombia and Venezuela. Tell kids “El día Mundial de la Arepa” is honored worldwide. Kids may enjoy making arepas filled with their favorite stuffing.

Try other recipes from ALLdoneMonkey’s website 

 

6. Read books by Latin American and Spanish writers

There is a wealth of literature written by Hispanic and Latino authors for children of all ages. All of the picture books in our collection were created by women of Hispanic or Latin American descent. Both electronic and print versions are available now.

Watch Languages4kids founder and writer Graciela Castellanos read “Me gusta como soy.”

 

 

7. Make plans for a movie night

Kid-friendly films that explore Hispanic and Latino culture are ideal for family movie nights.

“Encanto” is one of my favorites. This film is set in Colombia. Along with the mystical family Madrigal, your children will see Colombian fashion, architecture, animals, and gastronomy. Expect to pick up a few Spanish phrases along the way.

 

8. Sing and dance throughout the day

This is an excellent opportunity to introduce children to Latino rhythms. There are numerous songs and dancing steps that children can learn and enjoy.

Some of my favorite songs for singing and dancing are:

La cucaracha by Reino Infantil

La pulga y el piojo by Serenata Guayanesa

La vida es un carnaval

By celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with kids, they can build respect and curiosity about other cultures, build respect for diversity, and deepen their understanding of others.

Enjoy celebrating with your kids Hispanic Heritage Month!

📢 Exciting News for Educators and Parents teaching English to young learners! 🌟

🎉 Our Website Has Fresh Updates for the New School Year! 📚

After a rejuvenating summer break, we’re thrilled to unveil our revamped webpage that’s loaded with an array of engaging English teaching resources designed exclusively for young minds. 👩‍🏫👨‍🏫

 

📝 What’s New?

🔹 Brand-new page design for seamless navigation.

🔹 Enhanced user experience for both educators and parents.

🔹 Upgraded resources to ignite curiosity and foster learning.

🔹 Updated pricing that’s budget-friendly and value-packed.

 

💡 Why Choose Our Resources?

🧠 Tailored to suit the needs and interests of toddlers and young children, ages 1 through 8.

📚 From interactive activities to engaging exercises, our resources offer a well-rounded curriculum that grows with your child’s learning journey.

🤗 Our Interactive Activities and Home Kits turn learning into play, where children actively participate and engage with English in meaningful ways.

📘 Our carefully crafted picture books effortlessly introduce kids to the beauty of the English language with engaging stories to make language acquisition a fun-filled adventure. Our stories not only entertain but also educate, instilling valuable life lessons, promoting critical thinking, and nurturing a love for reading.

👩‍🏫 Perfect for Home and Classroom: Whether you’re a parent looking to enrich your child’s language skills at home or an educator seeking innovative teaching resources, our collection seamlessly integrates into both environments, making learning English a seamless and enjoyable experience.

📱📖 Adaptable Formats: Whether you prefer digital resources for a tech-savvy classroom or paperback editions for a tactile experience, we’ve got you covered. Our collection of children’s picture books and curriculum resources are available in both digital and paperback formats.

🎁💰 Budget-Friendly Prices: We believe in making quality education accessible to all. That’s why we’ve worked tirelessly to update our prices, ensuring that top-notch resources are budget-friendly.

 

📣 Don’t Miss Out!

Join us on this enriching adventure of language and culture. Visit our website shop today to explore our collections and embark on a journey that will leave a lasting impression on your child’s education.

🌐 Explore our captivating picture books, engaging activities, and comprehensive guides. Your journey to unlocking the world of English for all kids starts today!

📚🌎 Let’s paint the world with English together! 🌍🖌️

Do you want to start up your own business?

If YES is your answer keep reading…

We are almost at the end of our summer vacation!

With children soon going back to school, this is the best time for you to get ready to start up your own new business.

Many parents at this time of the year are turning into Google for ideas on how to juggle the everyday challenges they face when trying to balance work and business with children and home life. Although many corporations are making changes to accommodate the increasing demands of parents, it seems that there is still a long way to go.

If you are fluent in English and would like to start up your own business with a low investment, we encourage you to put your talents to work and get excited about sharing your skills with the children in your area. We invite you to be part of the significant rise of “parentpreneurs”, in particular, “mompreneurs” looking to launch their own ventures, with the aim of developing and growing a business around life at home.

Join Mi Primer Inglés®, an educational brand where the product is already developed and the systems and procedures have been written down for you to be up and running far more quickly than if you were starting from scratch and having to go through all of the development stages. We are not a franchise and with a small investment you can become an entrepreneur.

Mi Primer Inglés® will help you in successfully starting up and setting up your teaching business and may well allow you to achieve the flexibility you are seeking. However, building any business whilst caring for or sharing the care of children is a challenge. It requires a lot of time, attention, nurturing and resources to grow and thrive. That’s where the benefit of having an educational brand such as Mi Primer Inglés® behind you comes into play.

 

 

WHY MI PRIMER INGLÉS®?

Because we believe that…

• In a more and more globalized modern world in which we live, this is an extremely important time for children to learn a new language. Aside from enhancing their educational experiences and their future careers, learning a new language is fun, it comes easy to little ones and it opens a whole new world to them full of new experiences, a new culture, and new friends.
• The best time for acquiring an additional language is in the first 6 years of life. There is a “window of opportunity” that we must take advantage of.
• Parents all over the world are more aware of the benefits of early language learning and want their little ones to be exposed to a new language early in life.
• If you are one of many individuals out there who speak Spanish fluently, you are a “parentpreneur”, a university student, or a languages teacher, and would like to start-up your own business, this is the best time to start planning.

 

WHAT DOES MI PRIMER INGLÉS® OFFER YOU?

We offer you a complete program for teaching English to very young children.  Together with the resources for getting ready through a self-paced guidance – “The Basics for Starting-up your Own Business” and the “Home Kits” for children, you are set for a good start.

You and/or your employees can start teaching using whole language in context right away. Our no prep lesson plans save even experienced teachers a great amount of time that can be spent in getting families to sign up, teaching, marketing, hiring other teachers, or finding places to teach.

 

HOW DOES MI PRIMER INGLÉS® BENEFIT YOU, CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES?

Our easy-to-use thematic units based on age-appropriate experiences and activities foster a lifelong love for language learning and respect for other people and other cultures.

Mi Primer Inglés® gives children a leg up in their education and their lives.

For parents who value multilingualism – it is a natural fit.

For English-speaking homes, it helps keep the family’s cultural heritage alive.

For you, starting up your own business with Mi Primer Inglés® may be more than changing careers, it may be the opportunity to change your life.

 

Do you share our passion and values to make a difference in the lives of the children in your community as well as a healthy financial return? Consider joining Mi Primer Inglés® as an entrepreneur.

Owning your own My First Spanish business is a rewarding experience, both personally and financially. Becoming a Mi Primer Inglés® entrepreneur is simple—our owners are people just like you.

Start here and see if Mi Primer Inglés® is the right fit for you.

 

 

 

Why teach English to children?

Today I could not think of anything that is more important for children than learning an additional language and if this language is English, it would contribute to giving them a valuable tool that they can use in different areas of their student, professional, cultural and work life.

The use of the English language has grown throughout the world in recent years. It has become the world’s lingua franca and countries all over the world have adopted its instruction as part of their education system starting in the preschool years.

Parents want the best for their children and they know that one or more languages besides their mother tongue will provide them access to better opportunities. They want their little ones to have access to a foreign language at ever younger ages and when asked what second language would be most helpful for their children, the overwhelming number of parents choose English.

Why is teaching English to children at an early age a good option for me?

With the new advances in technology and the rapid growth of the internet the exposure to the English language has grown tremendously and with it an increasingly interest in introducing this language to very young learners. The English language in education is becoming stronger and growing and filling this niche can mean a unique business opportunity for you.

If you are a professional, university student or you are a mother or father who has a good command of English you can teach your children or many other children through readings, conversations, songs, games and fun activities appropriate for their age.

“MI PRIMER INGLÉS” materials are designed exactly to promote the learning and practice of the English language and at the same time develop reading skills in children.

With “MI PRIMER INGLÉS” you can generate income working independently and anywhere in the world.

Where can I teach English?

Depending on your situation and where you live, you can teach English:

• To your children at home

And/or other children:

• From your home: online, as a tutor or giving private lessons
• Opening your own business/workshop/studio
• In language academies
• In preschools or daycares
• In public or private schools, as part of the curriculum or as an extracurricular activity
• In a library or cultural center creating and facilitating English workshops

As you can see, there are several scenarios in which you can work, even if you are not a teacher. What is very important is that you should prepare yourself on how to teach children at an early age and accompany yourself with a good curriculum to make the process easier and more productive.

“MI PRIMER INGLES” is easy to implement, with curricula designed to work in any school-based, home based, or childcare setting. With the resources of “MI PRIMER INGLÉS” you will have basic training and an established curriculum designed so that people like you can successfully become an English teacher or entrepreneur.

If you already teach English:

You can use “MI PRIMER INGLÉS” materials as a complement to the curriculum you use. To enrich your classes with the variety of activities that the curriculum offers or to develop and practice vocabulary and language structures with our collections of children’s picture books and interactive activities online.

Note: (depending on the country you are in, a degree in language teaching, education or a certification or homologation of your title may be required).

If you want to teach English to children, what are you waiting for?

Getting a good curriculum with appropriate resources for children becomes a tireless job,  where many spend more time on planning classes than on teaching.

“MI PRIMER INGLÉS” offers you not only the basic preparation necessary to start off on the right foot, but also a complete curriculum with:

• Digital guides that include thematic units with a detailed description of how to carry out the different activities;
• Important suggestions and tips;
• Ready made lessons to start teaching English from the first day in a fun and natural way;
• Built-in audios of the dialogues to use and the songs to teach;
• An Enrichment Activity Booklet for children and;
• Illustrated picture books that help reinforce the English language and foster the development of children’s reading skills in a fun, simple and effective way.

“MI PRIMER INGLÉS” is not a franchise nor do you need a license to use the materials. With a small investment, you can purchase the materials for quarterly or yearly topics and start teaching immediately.

You are very lucky to speak English. We invite you to be successful using our program with an appropriate methodology and materials.

If you’re interested in opening your mind to new possibilities and exploring an exciting and rewarding career as a teacher or entrepreneur, we’d love to talk with you and see how we can help you!

We hope that this post is useful to you, and if you want to know more about our materias be sure to visit our SHOP.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Pinterest.

I want to teach English to children, but where do I start?

It is possible that right now you are asking yourself this question and that you feel blocked without knowing how to face a new project.

It is normal. I too have felt the same as you.

Today I would like to share with you those steps that have helped me when I wanted to start a new project and I didn’t know where to start.

The first thing that I usually do and that helps me clarify the way forward is to empty all my ideas into a concept map and break down the steps to follow as I work on them.

 

 

• Start by being clear about what you want. Be as concrete and specific as possible about your goal. For example: Open my own business / Teach children English / work independently for 20 hours a week to generate extra income.
• Analyze your personal capabilities both in the educational field and in the setting up of an educational business (strengths and weaknesses).
• Create a list of people to be your support group (keep track of how, from whom and where to get help).
• Choose the type of school or business you want to open (Mi Primer Inglés advocates a flexible type of business where you can work independently from home, in private schools, or in other places suitable for teaching children).
• Research and choose the curricular program and the teaching resources that will allow you to be successful from day one.

Once you work through these steps and have the information you require, you can begin to draw up an action plan to open your own business teaching English to children.

You can only achieve your goals through action. Put all your energy and passion and turn challenges and risks into opportunities. Then celebrate the achievement of your goals.

Our Getting Started I and II manuals guide you through the entire process to achieve your goals. These manuals are designed to give you valuable information about teaching a language to children and allow you to learn first-hand the basic steps to starting your own business.

With Mi Primer Inglés and all the educational resources that we offer, you can achieve what you set out to do and thus successfully achieve your goals.

Create a fun bilingual playgroup

You can become the leader of a mother/father and child playgroup. 

Photo by Yan Krukov from Pexels

Today I would like to propose to all parents who would like to support their child’s bilingual language development to build a support network. 

I encourage you to invite others who are raising their children to be bilingual to join you in creating a mother/father and child playgroup. 

 The mother/father and child playgroup may be for a one-hour session where mothers/fathers and their children participate in a range of activities that strengthen their engagement, build their language skills and address child development issues. During this session a playgroup leader (that may be any of the mothers/fathers in the group) models a range of interactive behaviors and activities that mothers can ‘take home’ and use with their children in the home environment. You can certainly become the leader in a playgroup. 

Photo by Yan Krukov from Pexels

Mi Primer Inglés offers you the perfect tools for guiding the group into sessions with activities that can nurture language development. Our Teacher’s Packages come with Teacher’s Guides with detailed lesson plans based on thematic units and full of activities, songs, picture books and games that are fun for both parents and children. 

You can find all our digital resources for teaching your kids through “Mi Primer Inglés.”  

Do you want to teach your kids an additional language? 

 

Then, this is the right time to start planning! 

 If you are interested in teaching Spanish or English to your young child you may be asking yourself many questions: 

•  What are the best curriculum options? 
•  How do very young children learn? 
•  What are developmentally appropriate activities for little ones? 
•  What types of activities do babies, toddlers, preschoolers and young ones like? 
•  What if I am homeschooling? 

 If you are in any of these situations, the newly available Mi Primer Ingles Branded digital resources for exposing little ones to English may be the right solution for you. 

 

 

Depending on your situation, our resources can help you get a good start. With our easy-to-use thematic units, you can start teaching using whole language in context right away. We encourage you to start giving children all the benefits of an additional language early in life. 

Our new digital curriculum books include complete guides with 12 detailed Lesson Plans each, Enrichment Activities Booklets (printable), audios of the songs, nursery rhymes and finger plays, as well as the audio for dialogues and read aloud of the picture books that accompany each unit. These NEW digital features facilitate anyone with basic knowledge of the language and basic knowledge on how to teach little ones to follow along. 

With our resources children sing and dance along with lively songs that help them develop a positive language learning experience and listen to story books that stimulate their imagination and creativity and gives them a valuable opportunity to follow and acquire the structures and patterns of the target language.