Dance, music, drama, art.. Teaching French and Spanish the fun way!

Children like to have fun, but they also like to learn. Most adults think that learning and having fun are opposites right? Wrong! Children know that learning and playing go hand in hand. Without fun a child shuts down, closes up like a clam shell. A good example of playing at learning is how a child learns how to speak. The symbiotic interaction between a parent and a baby is a constant back and forth of sounds, giggles, tickles and laughs. And all this playing results in the baby learning the sound system of its native language, then learning words and phrases, and soon the baby has grown into a toddler that speaks English (or French or Chinese). It has played at learning how to speak.
Then why should learning a second language be any different? Why should children at a later age be expected to sit at their desk with pencil in hand, trying to memorize new words and be bored out of their minds?

Children are born with a desire to play, pretend and experiment. All you need to do is put on a play with Madeline as the main character and they will love to pretend to be French. Everybody knows that if you wear a yellow hat and a blue coat, and your name is Madeline, of course you speak French instantly. Or put on a show about Dora la Exploradora and, presto, you have changed your class full of ‘gringos’ into a bunch of ‘muchachos y muchachas’.

You cannot win children’s hearts and minds by boring them. They need to leaern through play. Through play. Then they become active participants in the learning process and there is nothing more rewarding for a teacher (or a parent) than a child who is enthusiastic about learning.

But how do children play at learning? They draw, they sing, they move about, they invent stories... All of these tools we call ‘The Creative Arts’. Yes, trough the Arts children express their feelings, ideas and fantasies.

So while your child is playing in our French and Spanish classes at fighting dragons and rescuing fair maidens, at pretending to be a ballerina or a pirate, your mind can be at rest knowing that they are actually working hard at learening a foreign language.leave comment here Read more...

SMART START: Learning Through the Arts

WHAT IS SMART START?
Children learn new concepts most easily when it is done through their particular LEARNING STYLE. There are several learning styles but the ones we find most useful to work with are the following:
PHYSICAL • AUDITORY • VISUAL • HANDS-ON.
Children learn FRENCH and SPANISH through song and dance, math skills with hoops and scarves, nature concepts by painting and puppetry, animals, colors, numbers and all the other wonders that children's little brains are hungry to learn. We teach concepts that children will need in school through play and games. For example, children need to get high and low, small and large, wide and narrow to truly understand these concepts. They need to act out simple “Three Little Monkeys” to discover three minus one equals two. leave comment here Read more...

The Arts in Your Child's Life

by Madeleine Kando, M.Ed.

Children start life with the potential to absorb information and learn skills of many different kinds: they can learn how to dance, talk, think, build things, play music, act (pretend) and much more.

In school, however, the emphasis is on ‘academics’, the three ‘R’s”. But we forget that children are multi-faceted in their ability and desire to learn. Even though schools will not admit this, learning does not even have to involve language. A child might tell you an endless story about what happened to them that day, but others would rather move and show you with gestures. Yet another child will draw a picture and still others will build something with a lego set to express their experience.Unfortunately, after a child enters school a lot of that rich caleidoscope is parked in the basement. Only language (writing and reading) and counting matters. I wonder how many children are left behind because they just happen to be weak in ‘verbal intelligence’?

But what is the value of a factual thought without this rich caleidoscope? Just an interesting oddity if you ask me. Yes, I am smart: I know that 2 green apples and 2 red apples make 4 apples. But what makes it interesting is whether red apples taste better than green apples. Or trying to stack 2 red and 2 green apples. Maybe drawing 2 green apples and 2 red apples.? Or carving a green apple..

Once you start applying imagination and creativity, your factual thinking about apples becomes transformational. Thinking about how to juggle apples, how they taste, how they look.. that is what the Arts are all about. And the Arts are not truly concerned about the mind. They tap into our emotions and our senses. Our taste, smell, vision and hearing.

Education that thinks that the ‘senses and emotions’ are not important in the learning process is doomed to fail. Not only are the Arts an extension of our senses, but they are like flashlights that illuminate other academic subjects. The Arts gives meaning to knowledge.

Aside from the fact that many children have intelligences that do not get addressed in a society that does not value the Arts in their educational system, the children who DO excel in those types of intelligences, i.e. verbal/mathematical, miss out on developing their other types of intelligences: kinesthetic, visual, musical and spatial.

A trapeze artist at the Cirque du Soleil who dazzles us with their triple somersaults on a tight rope. The gymnast balancing on one hand on 20 stacked chairs: are they not ‘intelligent’? Does their ability to use their ‘kinesthetic intelligence’ not border on genius? Martha Graham once said: ‘If I could say it I wouldn’t have to dance it.’

The problem might lie in the use of the word ‘Art’. It usually means an art ‘product’: a painting, a sculpture, a sonata. Yet ‘the arts’ are more than anything else a product of creative thinking. It involves problem solving and critical judgment. The process of creating a work of art is where the true value lies. Without The Arts in a child’s life knowledge is bland, like a dish without salt. Soon that child will loose interest and turn into one more ‘drop out’. Let’s listen to our children and tap into their ‘multiple’ intelligences. That is where the true success of education is to be found.

Some of the information contained in this article is based on reading the following :Boston Public Schools As Arts-Integrated Learning Organizations by Eric Oddleifson, Chairman CABC. leave comment here Read more...

LANGUAGE CAN PUT PEP IN YOUR PERSONALITY

By Madeleine Kando.

I have a confession to make. I have multiple personalities.

It is the fate of many people like me who grow up bilingual or multilingual. But you know what? I like being French one day, Dutch the next and American the rest of the time. I find myself being able to put on many different attires. Even though I am not native French, I moved to Paris when I was 4 years old and that almost makes me a native speaker of this beautiful language. It makes me able to watch French movies without subtitles, read the best literature in the world in its original form and doomed me to speak all other languages with a French accent, which sometimes people find charming and other times annoying.

Since all one’s memories are closely intertwined with the language one speaks, when I put on my French attire I immediately am transported to the world of my childhood. I used to walk home from the bakery with a still-warm baguette under my arms, and the unique smell of the Parisian streets in my nose. I like to put on my French attire, my French personality. I feel sophisticated, romantic and exotic.

Now let’s see … what else is in my wardrobe? Oh yes. My Dutch attire.

I learned Dutch in my teens, when my mother remarried a Dutchman. When I put on my Dutch personality, my Dutch attire, it makes me feel clean and sturdy.

Holland, even though it is one of the smallest countries in the world, is terrifyingly clean, and the Dutch are a sturdy, no-nonsense kind of people. Quite a personality switch from the romantic and exotic 11-year-old Parisian I had become.
You see, the act of speaking goes way beyond expressing words. Speaking a certain language not only gives voice to your thoughts, it also expresses the nuances of those thoughts through the filter of the society that that language belongs to.

There is something uniquely extraordinary about people who grow up with different languages. They can step out of the mold of a particular culture and see it in a much more objective light. That gives someone a very special perspective.

Many parents who wish to teach their children their own native language see it as a way to pass on their culture, a piece of themselves. Who doesn’t want their child to reflect some part of themselves?

My piece de resistance is my American attire. If there is a favorite in my wardrobe it is definitely this one.

I learned English as an adult, and as you might guess, I speak it with a French accent which I blissfully cannot hear myself.

For me, putting on this attire represents American know-how, American pragmatism, American friendliness. But above all it represents American freedom, the freedom to be whomever you want to be, including French, Dutch or Papuan.

My personalities are dear to me, they make up who I am, and I am glad I can switch back and forth.

If you find that you get bored with yourself, why not learn a new language? It sure makes life more interesting. leave comment here Read more...

MULTIPLICATION

Children trying to add 2 and 2 in our SMARTSTART class.

2 and 2 equals... 4!!


MULTIPLICATION FOR TODDLERS
You could also teach multiplication with 2 hoops and 8 stuffed animal bunnies
Place 1 bunny in each hoop. "Lonely little bunnies, what shall we do? Join them together so that there are TWO".
Place 2 bunnies in 2 hoops. "TWO little bunnies, looking for two more..Put them together and that makes... FOUR!"
Place 4 bunnies in 2 hoops. "FOUR little bunnies, don’t let them wait.. join them together and that makes ...EIGHT!"
You could go on to 16, 32 etc. if you are willing to raid the toy store for stuffed animals. Read more...

Classes at The Children's Arts Corner

Pre-Ballet Demonstration at The Children's Arts Corner

Mexican Dance etc.


Lerning Spanish at The Children's Arts Corner

A sample toddler ballet class at The Children's Arts Corner

Pre-Ballet demonstration Read more...

Are Children Miniature Adults?

by Madeleine Kando

We like to think that children are miniature adults, unfinished copies that will turn out to become like us. Children know better: they know that grown-ups are a breed apart and other than that they are a lot bigger, they could be from Mars for all they care.

The biggest challenge for them is trying to figure out the rules of society. The problem starts out right away, as soon as they are able to see a face. Their parents expect them to smile and show how cute they are and they soon learn that it’s their ticket to get what they want. Children are so into themselves, they really don’t have a lot of time to follow the rules. They possess a blissful unselfconsciousness that allows them to sing at the top of their lungs in the supermarket, makes them run into people left and right and makes them show up undressed in front of mom’s dinner guests.. all that is perfectly acceptable from the perspective of a child.

They don’t understand things verbally. It mistyfies me to hear moms discuss their shopping strategy with their 2 year old in the supermarket: ‘What kind of cheese do you think we should get, David? Do you think a pound is too much for tomorrow’s guests? Oh dear, look at the price on this!’… and on and on. I am tempted to go over and say: ‘Lady, you are talking to a wall here, not to mention the fact that you are preventing me from following my own train of thought. If you really want David’s advise let him taste the damned cheese. If he spits it out, don’t buy it.’

Yes, children learn by doing. You could try to offer a series of lectures on learning how to walk or climb a tree, but I don’t think that will work. The same goes for rules of conduct. Children have to learn the hard way that it is not acceptable to stare at strangers, to eat from someone else’s plate, to bite their friend if they don’t share their toys.

Another definite proof that children are not miniature adults is their openness and frankness. They don’t know the meaning of the words ‘being tactful’. One of the more embarassing moments in my long teaching career was being asked by a 3 year old in front of a group of parents why my teeth are yellow.

The ultimate proof that children are not miniature adults is that they do not find us very important. To them we are just there, like a tree or a rock. Yes, they love us and listen to us. They are attached to us because we take care of them. But I have a suspicion that for a child other children are much more important. Other children are their model. And learning the rules of society is a necessary evil that they can not escape. If it were up to them they would all remain little shrieking monkeys without a care in the world. Wouldn’t you? Read more...