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Thursday, December 15, 2016

Christmas Traditions in Italy.


We live in Italy and Christmas is my kids’ favorite holiday because of the magic of the Christmas tree’s lights and, of course, because of lots of presents that Santa Claus brings them!
How is Christmas celebrated in Italy?
Christmas in Italy is celebrated on 25th of December, as in other catholic countries; however, I was surprised to learn that not all Italian catholic kids receive presents that day.

Who brings Christmas presents in Italy and when?

In many Northern Italian cities, which once belonged to the Most Serene Republic of Venice, children receive sweets and presents 12 days earlier!

The night from 12 to 13 December Santa Lucia, a blind woman who is walking around towns and rings a bell, brings sweets and presents to the children living in the northern part of Italy: Trentino, Udine, Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi, Mantova, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Verona regions.

Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) and in some places Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) , brings presents on the night from 24 to 25 December to the majority of Italians. Some lucky kids receive a second round of presents.

In Alto Adige, Trieste and Bari kids receive presents from San Nicolas.

In Napoli la Befana, a kind Italian Christmas witch, brings presents and sweets to kids the night of January, 5th. In other parts of Italy, she brings just sweets as an addition to the presents received from Santa Lucia, baby Jesus, Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.
La Befana often leaves a lump of coal (made of sugar) inside children's stockings to remind them that they can behave a bit better than the previous year.

Xmas tree and Presepe (Nativity Scene).

And another interesting discovery! Some of Italian houses have  a presepe instead of a xmas trees. Presepe is a nativity scene that families start building on 8 December. It contains small figures, some of them are even animated!

Every year the scene gets some improvement: a new figure or a decorative element is added. Italians take a particular pride in presepe. Many expose their work outside their homes, in a garden or in a window, for others to enjoy.



Presepe window display

 

Italian Christmas meal.


Italy is relatively small country, but it is HUGE if you measure it by the wast variety of dishes and recipes the country has to offer. Different regions have VERY DIFFERENT FOOD! You will not find the same standard Christmas dish. Every table in every family will be different.

However, a general preference can be notices: fish dishes in the south of Italy and meat dishes in the north.

The Christmas celebration starts with a dinner on Christmas Eve, called Vigilia in Italian.

Many course dinner runs upto the midnight mass which is the culmination point of the celebration.

The Christmas day is celebrated with the lunch.

Here are some menu examples.

Christmas dinner (cena) menu from Cremona:

- pate con gelatina and salumi, included salame cremonese.
- ravioli in broth
- cappone ripieno
- panettone stuffed with ricotta cream.


Xmas lunch (pranzo) menu from Bergamo:

- fish and veggitable appetiser (antipasto di pesce salmone e verdure)
- Russian salad (insalata russa)
- lasagna
- rabbit with polenta (coniglio con polenta)
- panettone or pandoro with mascarrpone cream


- cappone ripieno
- tortellini in brodo
- lesso e arrosto
- biscotti


Italian Traditional Christmas Dessert.


1. PANETTONE from Milan

Globalization makes its impact even here. Originally from Milan Italian Christmas cake Panettone starts appearing on the tables around the globe and slowly even in the south of Italy.

Panforte Italian Christmas sweet



2. PANFORTE from Siena

Italian dry Christmas cake Panforte is delicious!  It has nuts, figs, citrus pills mixed with honey and flour. It is so rich in taste. The one on the photo we bought while traveling in Tuscany. It is one of our family's favorite cakes! even our kids love it! Traditional panforte is the one you should try first.

Panforte Italian Christmas sweet


3. PANDORO from Verona

Pandoro is an Italian Christmas cake with butter and eggs as main ingredients that is covered with powder sugar. If you cut it like on the photo below, each piece of the cake is a star. This makes Pandoro a great center piece of Christmas tables. You can decorate it with fruits, sparklers or even with candles as my kids did. You can add cream layers too, or just serve it with mascarpone cream on a side, as we did.

Try to prepare a Pandoro using the following Italian approved Pandoro recipe.



4. GUBANA from Udine
 
Gubana is a very particular Italian Christmas cake from Udine.
Try to make your Gubana, following this Gubana recipe.



5. PANDOLCE from Genova



6. TORRONE from Cremona


7. MOSTACCIOLI cookies from Naples


8. CROCCANTE from Naples


9. SUSAMIELLI from Naples


10.ROCCOCÒ from Naples


11.BOSSOLÀ from Brescia

Even if my favorite Italian Christmas cake is a traditional Panettone, I love the delicate taste of BOSSOLÀ, it is another great Italian Christmas cake all Pandoro lovers should try!  


12.CROSTOLE or CARTELLATE and PASTATELLE from Calvello

13. BISCIOLA from Valtellina (Sondrio)


It is also called Pan di fich or Panettone valtellinese. Typical Italian Christmas sweet from Valtellina, Sondrio province, Lombardia region. Bisciola is made of dry fruits, butter and eggs.
Bisciola Italian Christmas sweet

 _____________________

Christmas in Different Lands 2015 | Multicultural Kid Blogs
Welcome to our fourth annual Christmas in Different Lands series! This year each participating blogger will focus on a different country, sharing a traditional dish and more about Christmas in that country. For even more glimpses of global Christmas celebrations, see our series from previous years (2013, 2014, and 2015), plus follow our Christmas board on Pinterest! Follow Multicultural Kid Blogs's board Christmas Around the World on Pinterest.
 
December 9 Creative World of Varya: Lebanon
December 14 Raising a Trilingual Child: Italy
Celebrate Christmas Around the World Printable Pack from Multicultural Kid BlogsDecember 15 Let the Journey Begin: Latvia Spanglish Monkey: Spain
December 16 Pack-n-Go Girls: Austria
December 19 Uno Zwei Tutu on Multicultural Kid Blogs: Colombia
December 20 Multicultural Baby: Paraguay
December 21 La Clase de Sra. DuFault: Chile
December 23 All Done Monkey: Haiti
Don't miss our other posts about Christmas in different lands, plus our printable pack Celebrate Christmas Around the World, on sale now! 


Have you already got a calendar for 2018? Check out this coloring calendar monthly planner that I created. Illustrated by Maria Soldatova.




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Kids Radio Sations from around the world!
In so many different languages !

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Fun Activities and Mouth Exercises for Toddlers' Clear Speech Development.


I watched the wonderful work that my child's Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) was doing and I noticed that many pronunciation problems can be prevented, if parents act early and stimulate child's tongue and mouth muscles development. I talked about it with the doctor and she confirmed it. Also she was so kind and agreed to share some tips with you, parents of bilingual and trilingual children. She also writes about "R" pronunciation difficulties. I hope this article will help you! 



by my child's SLP

I and my colleagues, other speech language pathologies,  have noticed that among the children, who are accessing our services, there are increasingly more children with bilingual and trilingual abilities. These children have speech defects because of the phonetic characteristics of the secondary languages which quite often are opposite to the ones of their primary language, and because of this they also have different learning times.


Not always the children have a correct perception of the buccal space and of the movement that the tongue can perform in it, so one has to work on the phonetic apparatus perception, sensitivity and the muscular strength in order to obtain a joint correction, that including cheeks, lips and tongue.


This resulting so-called "mouth" gymnastics consists of simple exercises that every willing and imaginative parent can work on with their child, by making it fun as a game.



MAKING FACES


Normally one starts with expressive grimaces that involve all the muscles of the face: in front of the mirror, together with the parent and any siblings
we make the ugly face,
the beautiful,
the sad,
the angry …….
we raise eyebrows ,
we move our nose,
we inflate and then deflate our cheeks and so on ... whatever comes to mind !



BLOWING GAMES


The blowing games are also important, such as :
  • blow bubbles in water with different types of straw ( long, short , thin , thick , ... )
  • make soap bubbles,
  • move small cotton, paper balls or marbles by blowing on them. You can invent a football game, where you have to do as many goals as possible by moving the ball only by blowing on it ),
  • move small pieces of paper from one container to another holding them by sucking though a straw, slowly increase the distance and use thicker paper.
  • inflate and deflate our cheeks or hold them inflated for more time (remembering to breathe through your nose ! )  ... .



LIPS


Exercises for the lips such as:
  • send many kisses ,
  • hold "a kiss" for a minute ,
  • "pinch" the lips around the edges ,
  • make the noise of a car ( BRRRRR ... .. making sure that only the lips vibrate )
  • alternate the position from a kiss to a smile ( or more simply to say Italian "I" and "U" ) ,
  • hold small balls of paper and for spitting them out as far away as possible,
  • press the lips strongly and then produce a burst (like the sound of a bottle of sparkling wine cap)


TONGUE


And then come the exercises for the tongues which normally are the most difficult to execute. These are to be performed with the mouth open and the tongue pointed outwards so that it rests on the lower lip and the jaw does not "slip" forward:

  • licking a candy (or other kinds of lollipops)
  • touching only the upper teeth
  • touching the "rugae" (located behind the upper incisors at the beginning of the palate)
  • touching the upper lip
  • touching the corners of the mouth alternatively
  • same exercise as the previous one, but going beyond the corners of the mouth
  • circular tongue movements, clockwise and counterclockwise
TIP: In order to help with these movements, one could spread a bit of Nutella in the point that is to be reached with the tip of the tongue.
  • touching the four top and bottom molars alternatively
  • "massaging" the palate forward and back without moving the tongue beyond the upper front teeth
  • opening and closing the mouth holding the tip of the tongue onto the upper palatine wrinkles (“rugae”) without moving it
  • to repeat "LaLaLaLaLa ... ..LeLeLeLeLe ... ..LiLiLiLi ... LoLoLoLo ...... LuLuLuLu" being careful that the mouth does not move and that the tip of the tongue always touches palatine wrinkles without reaching the teeth.
  • to repeat "TATATA TETETE ... ... ..." changing the vowels etc.
  • to repeat "LALATATA ..." changing voice etc.

Please note that all of these exercises are intended to acquire a particular muscle capability therefore, during the execution, the precision of the movement is always more important than its speed!




PRONUNCIATION OF "R" (ITALIAN)


As for the phoneme R the question is a bit more complicated.

If by the age of five (5) years, the child is not yet able to produce it, it is best to consult a speech therapist.


As a matter of fact this sound is rather complex from an articulatory standpoint: the tip of the tongue must rise against the palate and move a bit forth, it creates a flow of air that passes between the tip of the tongue and the palate while keeping the tip in the top position to produce the vibration.
Very often parents force their children to say it, even if they are not capable of doing it, however, this will lead to an incorrect setting that will result in the known French R.

It 's good to know that for a speech therapists is usually easier to correct an absent R that to correct an altered R; also waiting over a certain age will make things more complicated as the child will get used to his way of talking and the correction will become more difficult.

The parent will have to figure out if this is just a speech problem (which will be easily fixed) or abnormalities linked to other pathologies, such as

  • speech or language delay,
  • deafness,
  • bad habits such as prolonged use of the pacifier and baby bottles, thumb sucking (all these ones make the tongue used to stay low).
  • there may be a short lower frenulum of tongue that leads to an incompetent tongue, environmental allergies and / or chronic conditions such ear infection- all these provoke an exclusively oral breathing, so the tongue lays always low - (an examination with audiologist is recommended)
  • a sore tooth occlusion with alteration of the bite or
  • an arched palate, 
  • an atypical swallowing (an examination with an orthodontist is recommended).


If there no one of these complications is present, it means that the child simply has not found an autonomous way to develop skills useful to produce various sounds of the language and thus it will be possible to help him.




I hope the tips that my son's speech and language pathologies shared here will help your child avoid seeing one.

If you find this post interesting please share it! It might help other parents too:)



If you’d like to share some tips and /or write about your experience as a parent of a bilingual or multilingual child contact me here.



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Kids Radio Sations from around the world!
In so many different languages !







PROS & CONS of Raising a Trilingual Child



9 steps of raising bilingual child successfully- how to from Trilingual children


Thursday, October 13, 2016

Letter learning activity with a multilingual twist. FREE Printable Russian & English Alphabet Letters.

This post is a part of the ABC’s series. Today's letter is "L" and !"L" is for "Letters"! Since I raise trilingual children that speak Italian, Russian and English, I thought of offering you some letter learning activity with a multilingual twist.


Just think Russian language also has a sound “L”, but the letter is written differently - ”Л”.  Or Russian "B" corresponds to an English sound "V". My Russian-Italian-English trilingual kids , who I taught the letter sounds early, are doing pretty well in distinguishing the letters from different alphabets. They read in Russian and Italian  and successfully experimenting with English. (I write "experimenting" because I do not really teach them, they just try to read English words to me and I correct them and explain some rules).

If you are raising bilingual/trilingual kids it is always a good idea to point out to them that the same letter can have a different sound in another language they are learning.

If you are raising a little global citizen, who speaks one language only,  it is never too early  to  talk about the differences this world offers, including different alphabets: Cyrillic , Latin  , Greek , Arabic ….


1. Pick some letters from different alphabets. Write them on a piece of paper or use printables I created for you.
Below you can find a worksheet with a letter "L" from Latin alphabet and a worksheet with a letter "Л" from Russian.
Use free printables downloads of Russian and Latin alphabet following the links below:
Free printable alphabet letters for preschoolers. ALL letters of ABC alphabet / Рабочие листы для бесплатного скачивания и печати с буквами английского алфавита

Free printable Russian alphabet letters for preschoolers. ALL letters of Russian АБВ alphabet / Рабочие листы для бесплатного скачивания и печати с буквами русского алфавита.




2. Take an old magazine or a newspaper with colorful pictures.


3. Ask your child to cut pictures out (small kids can easily do without scissors by just ripping pieces off from the magazine with their hands) and


4. Glue them with a stick glue to the paper following the letter shape.


Talk to your child about existence of different languages and alphabets and write down words that start with the letter of your choice in your language.

Ура! Появлась в продаже моя первая книжка-раскраска, написанная для русско-говорящих детей.  


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Хотите узнать о моих следующих проектах первыми? Оставьте адрес вашей электронный почты здесь. До скорого! :)


Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Good Reads - Fairy tales from a travel suitcase by S. Sakharnov - Сказки из дорожного чемодана, С. Сахарнов- Age 5+


Your child will definitely enjoy reading the book called “Fairy tales from a travel suitcase” - wonderful stories collected by Svjatoslav Sakharnov during his travel around the world. The stories come from England, Nigeria, Africa, Efiopia, Tanzania, Aliaska, Cuba, India, Vietnam, Indonezia, Afghanistan, Japan, Australia, Oceania, New Zealand! One of the stories tells us about a woman living in a bottle. Are you already curious to learn more about her life? :)

"Сказки из дорожного чемодана" - это замечательные книга сказок, собранных писателем Святославом Сахарновом во время своих путешесткий по миру. В этой книге вы прочтете сказки из Англии, Нигерии, Африки, Эфиопии, Танзании, Аляски, Кубы, Индии… Представляете, в одной из них женщина жила в бутылке! Теперь вам наверное не терпится открыть книну и узнать ее историю.

И в качестве дополнения к рассказам, рекомендую заглянуть на офицальный сайт писателя, поддерживаемый его сыном, и увидеть фотографии из путешествий автора.

Полезные ссылки:


Книги Святослава Сахарнова на Amazon


Книга "Сказки из дорожного чемодана" на Amazon




You might also like:


9 steps of raising bilingual child successfully- how to from Trilingual childrenCan babies distinguish foreign languages?

Easy way of teaching your bilingual kids to write in a minority language.






Language learning resources:

Children's radio stations from around the world. Let me know, if I am missing a radio station in your language.


Kids Books in Russian

Best Russian Children's Cartoons and Movies. - Лучшие Руссие Детские Мультфильмы и Фильмы.

 List of children's books in Polish language - Lista książek po Polsku dla dzieci
 

Friday, June 24, 2016

Easy way of teaching your bilingual kids to write in a minority language.




I try to follow my kids' natural interests as I teach them languages. I started introducing letter sounds while reading books and worked on letter - sound recognition day after day through introduction of different activities. Both of my kids learned how to read well before school. My girl impressed me with reading 3 letter words at the age of 3. ( There was no pushing on my side.)
Writing came on its own as a by product of my affords towards teaching them how to read for both of the kids.


Here are some activities I recommend to help your kids to start writing in minority language:

1. Drawing and writing 
I find drawing together with kids is a very important activity that entertains a wide range of age group: babies, toddlers and elementary school kids.You can teach so many things, without your kids realizing all the learning they are doing!
It can be drawing and labelling, writing a story and illustrating it. Creating your own book, a calendar...
In the beginning you do most of the work, but as a child grows and learns, his/her work becomes more and more independent. These days I am amazed by my kids creativity!


2. Playing games where writing is involved

Pretend play “a Restaurant” is such a great game! Kids love to be waiters and write down orders. Lots of orders! Get ready to pretend eating all the dishes you have order :)




3. Dictation
When kids already mastered the letters and writing words, try to experiment with short dictations. First use simple words, then funny phrases and sentences. Allow your child to participate: start a sentence and let him finish it.

4 years old child's writing
Tip! Use a notebook (btw, I mean the paper one not the computer;) for writing in minority language. Especially for elementary school kids, buy the same type of notebook your child uses for majority language to work in parallel on his minority language. My son just loves the idea of having his Russian language notebook. Give the minority language the same value as to the school's language.




4. Use workbooks/ worksheets with letters in your language
In Russia we call it “propisi”. I found great ones with transparent pages that also show the start point for writing a letter and indicate the direction of writing.


Note: do not expect a lot from small kids. Let them write, make mistakes. Only with time and a lot of practice you will see a result.

These are just some activities to help you get started. Try them. Experiment. Work on developing your child's interest for writing based on his other interests.


SOME TIPS FOR PARENTS TEACHING KIDS HOW TO WRITE:

- Attention: do not criticize!
Even if your child is open to corrections and you already correct him/her speaking. Be extremely careful while correcting mistakes in writing. Do not over criticize him/her. You do not want your child lose interest and stop writing. Everything will come.

- Be prepared for unusual ways of writing:
The letters might dance up and down. Your child might break the word in many different places to start it writing from a new line or, another extreme, write a sentence as one long word. He will not always follow the left to right or the right to left writing rule. Your child will make mistakes. And thus, comes next:

- Be patient:
Your child needs time to figure things out.


I hope this helps.

I’m always happy to hear about your own experiences. Please leave your comment below.
If you’d like to share some tips and /or write about your experience as a parent of a bilingual or multilingual child contact me here.

And if you find my post interesting please share it! It might help other parents too:)

You might also like:
 

7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings. 
 





Kids Radio Sations from around the world!
In so many different languages !


One parent speaks two languages. Raising a trilingual child.




PROS & CONS of Raising a Trilingual Child



Multilingual Family Interview: When your home languages are different from community language. Plus resources for teaching phonics and reading to children in English.


Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Good Reads: Forest Fairy Tales by Nikolay Sladkov. Лесные Сказки. Николай Сладков




If you’d like your child to love nature, read him or her these short stories by Nikolay Sladkov. In this book nature can breath and animals can talk and think aloud. The author attentively describes everything he saw himself while walking in the Russian woods. He opens the secrets of nature and triggers your child’s imagination.

You can find books by Nikolay Sladkov on Amazon 
I found some other great books by the same author in English and Japanese!

Хотите, чтобы ваш ребенок полюбил природу? - Почитайте с ним книги Николая Сладкова. В них природа дышит, а птицы и звери оживают и говорят, думают.  В каждом рассказе писатель внимательно описывает увиденное, раскрывая один за другим секреты природы и развивая детское воображение.



Ура!  Появлась в продаже моя первая книжка-раскраска, написанная для русско-говорящих детей. 





Купить на AMAZON USA:

Купить на AMAZON ITALY:

Купить на AMAZON GERMANY:

Купить на AMAZON UK:

Хотите узнать о моих следующих проектах первыми? Оставьте адрес вашей электронный почты здесь. До скорого! :)


You might also like:


9 steps of raising bilingual child successfully- how to from Trilingual childrenCan babies distinguish foreign languages?


Fun way to learn letters and start writing: What should I order? Mortadella alphabet! 

Naming languages with their proper name. 




Language learning resources:

Children's radio stations from around the world. Let me know, if I am missing a radio station in your language.


Kids Books in Russian

Best Russian Children's Cartoons and Movies. - Лучшие Руссие Детские Мультфильмы и Фильмы.

 List of children's books in Polish language - Lista książek po Polsku dla dzieci
 

Friday, June 10, 2016

How is it to grow up bilingual in a bilingual city? Interview.


Interview with Dani Lechner, who grew up in a bilingual city and  is bilingual from birth.


Question 1: How is it to grow up bilingual in a bilingual city?

I grew up on the east coast of Canada in a bilingual city. French and English were a part of my home, my community and my entire environment from the beginning. At home and in my immediate family everyone spoke French and English. I went to French school till I was 18 but English was present everywhere else.



Many of my family members chose to only speak English many only French.

I cannot even remember when I couldn't speak either French or English. The way it was in my family is you choose which language is most comfortable for you and that's it. For instance my maternal grandmother spoke mostly English with us although she can speak both languages. And when she spoke we just answered in French which came easiest for us since we were in French school. With some of my friends I was more comfortable speaking English although I identify most with the French side.


It's somehow hard to explain but where I come from everyone is bilingual, if you're not it’s almost weird. So from the very beginning I was immersed in both French and English equally. There were periods growing up where I was most comfortable speaking French and other periods (like now) where I feel more comfortable speaking English.


I never realized what a great gift my parents had given me until I was an aupair in France when I realized that no one was bilingual. It was quite a surprise to be honest. I just assumed everyone was bilingual. I'm very privileged to have had such an upbringing and I'm happy that I can also offer my children the same ;)


Question 2. What language did your parents speak to you when your were little? Did they mix the languages? How about code-switching?


My parents spoke French to us and sometimes my mother would speak English, depending on her mood I guess :) and YES we 100% mix languages all the time. As a matter of fact they've even starting calling it a French dialect because it's a mix of French English and "old" 1700 French which no one uses anymore except where I grew up. The "proper" French we learn in school and same for English. And therefore yes code-switching masters in our house growing up ;) but it was also fun because if we were around people who only spoke English we would secretly speak French so they wouldn't understand and vice versa. The negative side of this story is that the code-switching has actually become a language we call Acadian, and it's sometimes difficult for some to speak "proper" French (meaning only French).


Question 3. Since you grew up speaking two languages and often were code-switching, do you feel any difficulty speaking only one language, when you speak to a monolingual person?


Interesting question. To be honest not really. The one thing I would say is that because we speak a dialect in French it's sometimes difficult to be understood by others because some words are pronounced different. But generally no problem keeping to one language :)





Like the interview? - Share it!



Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.


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Kids Radio Sations from around the world!
In so many different languages !




Pros and Cons of Raising a Trilingual Child

Free audo books in English


One parent speaks two languages. Raising trilingual child.


Non-native Speaker Raising Bilingual Children. Interview with Christine Jernigan, the author of "Family Language Learning"




Can babies distinguish foreign languages?

Friday, April 22, 2016

Simple way to motivate your bilingual child to speak your language.


When our family started the trilingual journey more than 6 years ago, I had no idea if I would succeed in passing my mother tongue onto my two children. I simply launched myself into this adventure. Now my kids are 4 and 6 years old and can speak, read and write in Russian, my mother tongue. I can not believe that I did all this work by myself. I set a goal - the maximum fluency level my children can possibly reach - and I went for it.

What is the recipe you might ask?

I believe being motivated yourself is a part of successfully raising bilingual /trilingual children,
as for the rest - just give your child what he enjoys the most and what he is interested in. Give it all in the minority language!


BABY ( 0-12 month)


What babies like is exactly what they need for starting learning the language you speak. They need face to face contact, mommy’s and daddy’s smiles, baby talk.

Talk to your baby all the time. Use simple sentences. Point to things and name them.

“Babies are taking statistics while listening to us” , as Particia Khul has noted in her TED talk. The test have proved that "It takes a human being (not audio or video!) for babies to take statistics!"  (7:08 minute of the video)



Read my article "Bilingualism and Speech Delay. How can you help? for more insights on this topic.

Here are some more tips:

The Best Way to Start Building Your Bilingual Child's Vocabulary


When to start reading to your baby? 


Virtual babysitters help




TODDLER (1-3 years old)

What do toddlers like? - They like being with their parents, play, sing, read books, draw and move. The are full of energy. You just need to direct it a way that works best for language learning and vocabulary development.


Incorporate teaching into play. It is not as difficult as it sounds. Do not associate word “teaching” here with a class room settings. Remember that at this age kids learn well while moving. Turn on a song or sing yourself. I am sure you have something similar to the English “head shoulders knees and toes” song. If not you can make up your own!

Here is how we had fun with the Russian “Wind is blowing in the face”.


Add more words when describing an object to your child. If he makes a mistake, correct it indirectly by simply rephrasing, repeating what the baby says.


Read as much as you can during this period. Select books on different subjects.


Would you like to know why your baby does not want to sit still while you are reading to him and what you could do about it? You will find some answers in
Your Toddler Doesn't Like to Read? article.


Teach letter sounds, too, especially, if you’d like your child to be literate in your language.


Here are 7 simple principles to keep in mind while teaching your child how to read

Watch this Video by Floating University lecture, Professor Steven Pinker , who is talking about the nature of language acquisition in children.


PRESCHOOLER (3-5 years old)


What does a preschooler want? Same as a toddler, but now he is ready to play with friends.


Bilingual Multilingual families Find a playdate in your languageIt would be great, if you could find a friend for your child that can also speak your minority language.
My kids play with each other speaking their minority language only. They often sing songs in other languages, but speak Russian all the time no matter who is around them. Read about 7 facts that can determine the language spoken between multilingual siblings


SCHOOL AGE (5-8 years old)

What do first graders like? - school experience is very new to them. They love writing in a pretty notebooks with pretty pan and pencils. Just use this opportunity to start a new routine. Get a notebook for your home language and “play school” at home.


My kids both 4 and 6 years old have a notebook for Russian, where they write stories, short and simple dictations. I take whatever they covered at school and use it as a base for our fun lessons. Yes, I invent lessons myself. It is not very difficult. These lessons do not have to be long.


Write notes to each other, shopping lists.


Read more books about animals, adventure.


Magazines and interactive games are something they are interested in. Have them available for your child in your language.

Travel, visit museums. Talk about things you see and experience together.


TWEENS (9-12 years old)

I am not quite there yet with my kids. I will add more details later.

Right now I can only assume, that they would like to spend even more time with the friends. Watch TV. I would watch together some news in the minority language on TV or online. They will probably already have a cell phone - it is a good idea to send messages to each other in your minority language.
If kids have hard time reading books, perhaps having Comics around the house could trigger kids interest in books.


TEENS (13-18 years old)


What do teens like? - learn more facts, watch TV, hang out with the friends...


This is a difficult period for many parents as I hear.

Do you already have tweens and teens? I would be happy to add your comments here! What do they enjoy?

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Are you interested to participate in the Life Story series and write about your experience as a bilingual or multilingual child and/or a parent?  Would you like to take part in the Multilingual Family Interview series ? You can contact me here.



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Sunday, March 27, 2016

Happy Easter everyone!


Happy Easter to everyone!

Look what I found in one Italian pastry shop! - Chocolate Minions! :)

 

minions easter eggs italian chocolate