It is summer time! We have time for a little bit “summer” schooling now that there isn’t any school. If you don’t know – I am American. I only moved to Italy late in my twenties. I have always embraced living in Italy but I wanted to raise my children bilingual. Summer has always been a perfect time to work on this goal. Here is one of the tricks which I use to promote speaking English. BOOKS AND CREATIVITY. Recently, I have added STEM activities to the mix of things which I do to promote English language development. STEM: Where creativity and imagination meet is perfect example of how we do it!
STEM: Where creativity and imagination meet!
Recently, Tania has started reading a great series of books by Laura Owen and Korky Paul starring the silly witch, Winnie and her black cat Wilbur. Our favorite character is definitely WILBUR. A couple of weeks ago Tania tried out the modelling friends kit by Maped Creativ and made a little fix (click here to see the reel). I guess I should not have been surprised when she asked to make a figurine using the super soft clay representing WILBUR! We used Wilbur to act out some of the scenes in the book and help her understand the story in English
The book we read is made up of four short stories. We ended up loving the forth story which featured Winnie and Wilbur participating in a race and their crazy adventures on 4 wheels. During this time, we tried out the Salt Truck by 4M. This STEM toy is a wonderful way to work how motors and batteries work.
When we finished the Winnie and Wilbur books, we decided that our model Wilbur needed to go for a ride on the salt car. By creating a figurine and acting out the story line, we were able to reinforce Tania’s reading comprehension in a fun way!
So this is my approach to raising bilingual kids – STEM: where creativity and imagination meet! Do you use alternative ways to teach your kids? Let us know how you do it!
Alison
keep crafting
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