Pre-K Students Find Spanish Class to be Muy Bueno

¡Buenos días! Hola, ¿qué tal? Sal de casa; la escuela te espera ya.
Good morning! Hi, how are you doing? Leave your house; school is waiting for you.

This is just the first verse of the song you will hear in the halls of the Ellis Lower School as Cheryl Kotowski, the Lower School Spanish teacher, leads her Pre-K students to class.
This year, Ellis School began offering Spanish language classes for the Pre-K Cubs and Pre-K Tigers. Through a variety of fun games and hands-on activities, students work on basic Spanish words and phrases to learn greetings, names, feelings, numbers, colors, shapes, farm animals, body parts, and weather.

For example, when learning shapes and colors, students play a matching game. Cutout shapes of different colors are placed in two separate bags. Two volunteers sit next to each bag, and the first student selects a shape from her bag. The class then identifies the shape and color, and counts the number of sides, in Spanish. With her eyes closed, the other student reaches into her bag and must find the matching shape based only on feel. The class repeats the shape and color in Spanish before two more volunteers are selected.

While this age group is new to Ms. Kotowski, her enthusiasm is contagious and quickly spreads to her young students. She enjoys creating new games and activities in order to help her students learn and understand new material.

The girls often inquire about how to say particular English words in Spanish. Ms. Kotowski will say the Spanish word and then break the word into syllables for the girls to repeat to ensure proper pronunciation.

At the end of each day, Ms. Kotowski posts new materials to the online learning platform, Haiku. Here, parents are encouraged to access class materials and videos at home in order to review and practice Spanish with their daughter.

Studies have shown that the early study of a second language has many benefits, including greater academic achievement and increases in self-esteem. At Ellis, we are committed to providing our girls with the opportunity and tools to begin learning a foreign language in Pre-K.
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