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 ….
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.
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?
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)
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”.
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.
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.
It 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?
If your kids are learning Spanish, then these wonderful activities are for you! Help your child to learn everything about ants by making it fun. You could sing a song about ants in Spanish, watch video, play some games (free printables are available), read books. Recommended "Arriba, Abajo y Alrededor" book looks very interesting. Read more about my pick from November's Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop here.
Welcome to the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop!
The
Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop is a place where bloggers can share
multicultural activities, crafts, recipes, and musings for our creative
kids. We can't wait to see what you share this time!
Created by Frances of Discovering the World through My Son's Eyes, the blog hop has now found a new home at Multicultural Kid Blogs.
Traveling is great! Visiting other countries and learning about other cultures is what I enjoy the most. Sadly since our family increased we slowed down on our attempts of going abroad. The tickets and hotel prices bite when you have to plan a trip for four.
Would you imagine that 3 and 5 years olds are able to make a list on their own?
Apparently the learning activities we have been doing gave them ideas of what they should do and see.
You can not just open a city guide and start reading it to your child. Whatever knowledge my kids had about the city they were going to for the first time, came in bits and pieces from what they have heard, seen, read to.
Pacca Alpaca - Travel Playtime App , that I was asked to review, can help you to trigger your kid’s curiosity in learning about other countries and cultures. There are 23 countries presented and more will be added in the future.
I am travelling alone with two 3 and 5 years old fully bilingual kids to our family minority language home country - Russia. Sounds interesting? Keep on reading!
Day One.
Here you will find: One parent travelling with two children. Airport and air plane experience. Significance of the trip.
Almost 3.5 hour flight went well. The kids were extremely well behaved (Surprise!). They even were able to negotiate on who takes the window seat without letting the entire airplane know about their discussion.
The moment we approached the boarding area my son commented about people: “mama, they all speak Russian!” and I realised that here is the start point for learning about Russians and Russian culture. The kids were studying peoples faces and were paying attention to other people’s conversations.
The next early encounter with Russia was in the air - kids reaction to the airline food. Russian black bread, butter, cheese … and pasta and chicken dish, which my kids picked.
I was curious to see how my Italian kiddos will react to pasta. The very hungry kids finished all the chicken, but the little one left the pasta and ate all our white bread instead. My sweet tooth girl did not want to eat a cake either.
We landed.
Did you know that such a simple thing like “venik” (a short brush of bound straw) can make a kid happy?
This was one of the most exciting moment for me and my kids. The older child noticed "venik" at the back of a bus that we took to get from our plane to a terminal. His eyes were shiny from happiness. He said “ Mom, this is a "venik"!“ (“Мама, это ВЕНИК! “) .
Right at this moment I understood the great significance of our trip - it is a real life encounter with everything they read about and talked about all those past years.
This first trip to Russia is much much more than just a visit of friends and family.
Or jump to DAY 3 - Bilingual Children Travelling to Minority Language Country - DAY TREE. Best
place for adults and kids to visit in St-Petersburg --- When music
unites the cultures --- Birthday party - how bilingual kids feel
encountering other kids speaking their minority language.
As I already mentioned in the 7 principles to keep in mind while teaching your child to read, before child learns to read he needs to learn how to separate phonemes (speech sounds). It is better for parents and kids to start working on it as early as possible, since in reality it does not require anything special. So what can you do to help your child develop phonemic awareness? - It’s quite simple: just sing, read and play. Play using the language and play with the language!
When your child is born, start singing to her/him.
The first recorded lullaby is dating around 2000 BC. According to the researchers, lullabies prepare child's ear and brain for language.
If you ask any child in Russia, who is Uncle Fedor, there is a big chance you will receive an answer that’s full of excitement!
Uncle Fedor is a little but very independent boy, who left the house together with his new friend - the cat. This cat not only speaks people's language and cross-stitches, but also knows the proper way to eat an open-face sandwich so it tastes better!
This wonderful story was written by Eduard Uspensky in 1973. Almost 30 years ago! And it is still loved by children.
You can also find it translated in many other languages:
Would your family go on a joined multilingual family adventure? Are you afraid that vacation fun will be lost in translation, if you try to share with other families whose children speak a different language? Read on, there is something to think about before you plan the summer vacation.
Who does not like summers? A summer beach vacation is one of the greatest experiences for every member of the family. Parents are more relaxed (if not, getting a drink at the beach bar would really help!) and do not nag the kids. The kids are playing with a sand, water, and do not bother the parents. No one gets bored on the beach! And this is where I am heading to.
Last summer we went on vacation with our English speaking friends.
It is an English and German speaking bilingual family that consists of father,
mother and two cute girls, who are about our Russian-Italian speaking children's age. It was
interesting to watch
how the kids' relationship developed. All children spoke their native languages
at first, but then, after realizing that "the message" does not get through, they started explaining themselves in the
language their friends would understand. Our kids tried to speak English and the friends' kids - Italian. The sign language combined with the native language worked well to fill the language knowledge gaps! They had so much fun playing in water , building sand castles and sharing toys.
The children loved the time they spent together, and now are looking forward to another joined vacation this year.
This kind of multilingual vacation is good because:
- it widens child's horizons. The child learns about other languages and cultures,
- it generates an interest and creates stimulus to learn a new language and to proficient the already acquired ones,
- it develops communication skills.
It is important to make children aware of the existence of other
languages not only by talking about them, but also by bring them in direct
contact with their speakers. It will help kids later at school to realize why they
need to learn all the verb conjugations. Kids always need to be challenged to promote development. In fact our friends' daughter is really eager to learn Italian now. She is only 5 years old and Italian language is already on her to-do list!
If you like beach as a destination for your vacations, another good way to expose you children to other cultures and languages is just by traveling with them to other countries' beaches. For Portuguese you could go to Brazil (easy to access from the Americas) or Portugal, if you are in Europe. For Spanish - beautiful Mexican, Argentinian and Spanish beaches. For English - Florida, California or Hawaii. For German - beach of the Northern and Baltic Sea would do a great job. For French - Cote d'Azur, Bay of Biscay, Tahiti. For Italian - hundreds of beautiful Italian beaches and amazing islands. For Russian - the Baltic and Black seas, for Hebrew - the Red Sea of Israel. For Croatian - Croatia. For Greek - Greece and hundreds of fantastic Islands. For Arabic - Egypt's Read sea, Tunisia or Morocco. There are so many countries with beautiful beaches!
Where have you been with your kids around the world?
Our family already visited beautiful beaches of Italy, France and Portugal. Where should we head next?
Apparently there is nothing as easy and fun as teaching your child letters using an aromatic Italian mortadella! One evening I was preparing appetizer for kids, I took a big piece of mortadella, the Italian heat-cured meat sausage, and
I am not a supporter of putting children at front of a TV screen; however, I see a significant benefit in watching movies, cartoons and documentaries in the case of promoting non community language abilities in children. I do limit TV time as much as I can and prefer to snuggle with my kiddos on the couch with a book instead. That said, I see a need that bilingual children / multilingual children have in that special world that cinema gives them. It works as one more minority language point of reference for them, a strong one that should be provided especially when only one parent speaks it.
We set a rule for our children that limits the Italian TV exposure to weekends only. During the week they are allowed to watch programs in the languages they are less exposed to in everyday life, such as English and Russian.
I tried to show the cartoons that follow the interests of my children by acting proactively, as I write in Being proactive in exposing your child to the new vocabulary. I first read a book with my son about first planes and boats and he just loved the vision of the Russian ice breaker "Arktika" crushing the thick ice and polar bears running around that he became really interested in boats. I try to provide as much information as I can to feed his hunger for knowledge. This days we watch cartoons and videos about sea life and pirates.
Turning on the TV gives me a break to run the household errands, but I try not to just leave the children in front of the screen. I find it
important to participate in this activity at least by watching some parts together. My children often call me and ask me to stay to share their excitement
with me. Also watching a program together it gives even
more topics to discuss and, thus, promotes the conversation and the minority
language development.
I was working on the computer when my daughter came with her wood animals in hands and sat on my laps.
We started playing with her toys saying what they are doing and where they are going to, and suddenly I picked a piece of paper and a marker that my son left before and started drawing with my daughter.
I made a blue river with green fields for her cow, a barn for her pink pig, dirt for them to have a bath. We went wild! I was drawing and we were making up the stories about what her toys do and where they are going.
Just by chance I discover a simple game that is so beneficial to the language development. You mix material objects (the toys), art and your imagination! This makes the game so special and fun.
