The YMCA Teachers in Woodbury, MN. Rock!

Last night I had the privilege to meet and work with the Director and Preschool Teachers at the YMCA in Woodbury. They are wonderful to work with, have a great sense of humor and are eager to get started teaching Spanish to their students-HURRAH!  They are beginning with Spanish In January.  A new idea we talked about is to prepare a "Spanish Show" that the kids can perform at the end of each month to other classrooms or even to parents! If the kids knew they were working towards performing for others they would think that is pretty cool!  One Woobury YMCA teacher suggested having her kids prepare the song "Frosty the Snowman" which is in the Spanish In January lesson-in Spanish it is called "Mi Hombre de Nieve".  The kids can not only sing it but act it out for other classroom, people who visit the YMCA and parents-WOW!!!

I teach Spanish to toddlers and perschoolers at four centers each week. I am going to prepare my students at one of the centers to perform at the end of the month for other classrooms and I will let you know how it goes! I have a feeling it is going to be a HUGE HIT! If so I may implement it as a new goal each month!

Yesterday the kids I taught LOVED when we called the NORTH POLE to find out how to say parts of the snowman in Spanish: Spanish In January Activity 3 CD Track 3! They laughed a lot, paid very close attention and had so much fun!

Also after listening to the number CD Tracks for numbers 1-10 and 11-20 I asked the kids who wanted to try to count from 1-10 on their own. A few kids raised their hands and counted from 1-10 in Spnanish-all by themselves. I pretended to faint I was so happy. They thought that me fainting was so funny. By the end of the class every student took a turn! When a child could not count al the way, the class and I helped them. We poured on the compliments from this lesson: "¡Qué guay! ¡Magnífico! ¡Bien hecho!

There is so much packed into this lesson and each lesson, focus on a few activities and help your kids learn them well rather than trying to get to every activity. (Save the extra activites for a rainy day or for next year!)

Please share your experiences teaching Spanish! What activities do your kids especially like?

-Theresa Gunderson
-Author of Spanish by the Month