Charlie and I attend school on Saturday’s a lot of the time and I want to make sure the lessons we do are fun and something Charlie wants to learn. I would like to share Homeschooling Resources for Foreign Languages.
Which Charlie and I will be checking into because Charlie wants to learn a Foreign Language. I asked Charlie which one and he said Spanish. I think learning Spanish using 123 Teach Me: Spanish for Children would be fun to use.
Age Range: 7-13 (Grades 2-8, with parental supervision)
This section of the larger 123 Teach Me website provides lessons, games, quizzes, videos and more for kids who are learning Spanish.
Older students can visit the home page to find resources for learning Spanish geared more towards their age level. For the purposes of this review we are focusing on the Spanish for Children page.When arriving at the kids’ page, there is a colorful menu with the following options:
- Spanish Games for Kids – Students can choose from 12 different games to learn and practice their Spanish. Be sure to have your Flash enabled to play the games.
- Games for Younger Kids – Younger children can play simpler games such as Memory, Spanish Bingo, Space Invader and more to learn Spanish vocabulary.
- Flashcard & Vocabulary – digital flash card and activities for learning vocabulary
- Spanish Alphabet for Kids – Learn the letters of the Spanish alphabet with visuals and audios as well as sample words that begin with the letter.
- Alphabet Videos & Quizzes – a couple of alphabet song videos, as well as letter flashcards and quizzes
- Music Videos for Kids – YouTube videos of Spanish songs that also provide the words in Spanish and English
- Quizzes for Kids – Students can test themselves with matching games, word searches and more.
- Short Stories + Quizzes – video presentations in Spanish of classic tales such as Midas the King, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Lion and the Mouse, and more. Each video includes the text of the story in Spanish and English and an interactive quiz.
- Audio Short Stories – similar to the Short Stories + Quizzes section, audios include the text in Spanish and English as well as interactive activities.
- Spanish Numbers for Kids, Spanish Colors for Kids, Spanish Vocabulary for Kids – include a variety of interactive activities for children to learn words in Spanish
- Printable Worksheets – a large variety of worksheets for vocabulary, printable lessons, short stories, flash cards, crafts and more
- Spanish Speaking Countries – a short geography lesson relating to the countries where Spanish is the official language
Select the “Next” option on the bottom of the menu for even more content for Grammar Lessons, Videos in Spanish, Reading Comprehension, Fun Lessons, and Spanish Holidays. There are a lot of great resources at this website and we have only scratched the surface. Be sure to bookmark this one. Please note that some of the activities are on other websites that have not been completely reviewed by our team. As always, be sure to check out the sites prior to allowing children to visit.
Age Range: 5-8 (Grades K-3, with parental supervision)
Join Salsa, the animated salamander, and his friends as you watch any or all of the 42 video Spanish lessons available for free online at this website.
Created by Georgia Public Broadcasting, Salsa is an award-winning language television series that uses puppets, digital graphics, and animations to provide young learners with an introduction to the Spanish language and culture in a fun and entertaining manner.Episodes, ranging in length from 15-30 minutes, are entirely in Spanish. With the help of familiar children’s stories and characters, children become engaged and quickly pick up on the language skills presented. Throughout an episode there are brief breaks in the stories to focus on the featured words, reinforcing the vocabulary being taught.
The stories include characters from such favorite stories as:
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Little Red Riding Hood
The Little Red Hen
Three Clever Goats
The Three Pigs
No need to worry if you are not familiar with Spanish because on each episode page there are Introduction, Vocabulary, and Instructor videos for the teacher to preview before presenting the episode videos to their children. Transcripts of the episode and activity guides are also available to download for each episode.And to keep the learning going, there are four fun interactive games for your students to play:
- Seek and Find
- Pizza
- Sequence
- Coloring Book
Based on research, children before the age of nine can easily learn multiple languages and with the help of this website your students can discover that learning Spanish is great fun.
Age Range: All (All grades; children with parental supervision)
This ad-supported website provides oodles of step-by-step drawing tutorials for animals, plants, cartoon characters and more. Most of the tutorials include video and online instruction.
The homepage provides some topical samples of the lessons with “See More” links under the categories including:
- Popular Drawing Ideas – cartoon flowers, a horse head, cartoon characters and much more
- Latest Easy Drawing Tutorials – Find the most recent tutorials here.
- How to Draw Animals – dogs, cats, forest creatures and other mammals, birds, fish and sea life, fantasy creatures and more
- How to Draw Cartoons – T.V. characters, Star Wars, Disney, Japanese manga, super heroes, and more
- How to Draw Flowers – from daisies to sunflowers and everything in between as well as trees, bushes, fruit and vegetables
- How to Draw People – characters, body parts and more
- How to Draw Things – food, instruments, transportation, buildings and all kinds of random things
- Other Drawing Guides – things that may not have fit into other categories such as emojis, symbols, landscapes, weather and much more
Visitors can browse the collections or use the search engine to see if there is a tutorial for something specific. Drawing lessons also include texts about the subject.If you subscribe to their newsletter you will receive a PDF Learn to Draw Animals ebook as well as the ability to download the lessons.
Age Range: 8-18 (Grades 3-12, with parental supervision)
This terrific website provides free, easy-to-follow instructions (complete with illustrations) on how to draw a variety of animals using simple shapes as a base.
When you get to the Google ad-supported site, you’ll see a menu of free drawing lessons. Simply click on the animal you want to learn to draw and a new page opens with the easiest directions imaginable:
- Learn to draw a kitten from a basic pear shape.
- Draw a squirrel using the number “3”.
- Find out how to turn alphabet letters into animals.
- Turn the number “2” into a frog.
- Discover how to turn a couple of bowling tenpins into strolling penguins.
You won’t believe how simple this is – and how satisfying it will be when your kids learn to draw.
Age Range: 5-14 (Grades 1-9, with parental supervision)
At this YouTube website you can listen (for free) to an entire album, released in 1961, titled “A Child’s Introduction to Jazz” that is narrated by the jazz saxophonist, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley.
It’s a relaxed discussion of the history of jazz, and some samplings of legendary jazz figures including Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and more.This is a wonderful compilation of jazz roots and sounds that provides a terrific introduction to the jazz genre of music. Listening to this album is a great way for the family to spend forty-six minutes together learning while being entertained.
Note: This is a YouTube site with random advertisements and uncensored viewer comments. As always, parents are advised to preview the site and supervise Internet access.
Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 6-12, with parental supervision)
Learn basic Japanese grammar and expressions with this website from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan’s only public broadcaster.
Not only can the 48 lessons be done online, but the audios and lesson PDFs can be downloaded for use offline making it great to use away from your computer.There are several ways to navigate through the site. Either use the upper menu to locate lessons, syllabaries, materials and information about the site and how to use it or the use the image map on the homepage to select:
- Lessons
- Japanese Syllabaries
- Teach Us, Teacher
- Vocabulary List & Quiz
- Sound Words
- What is “Easy Japanese”
On the right-hand sidebar there is a block of lesson numbers to select a specific lesson plus a link to the lesson download page and more.Lessons include a brief animated example, the approximately 10-minute audio lesson with the hosts presenting the information, the vocabulary audios and visuals, grammar tips, related “Teach Us, Teacher” selection where specific lesson points are explained, “Sound Words” about Japanese onomatopoeia, and “Anna’s Tweets”, which add fun tidbits of Japanese culture to the lessons. When your student has finished the lesson, they can take a vocabulary quiz or review what they have learned with a multiple-choice quiz.
This site is a wonderful starting point for a student wishing to learn Japanese.
Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 5-12, with parental supervision)
If you are interested in learning some basic foreign language skills, then this ad-supported site might be a good place to start.
Choose from over 50 different languages from around the world and learn important words and phrases as well as alphabets. Some language lessons include verbs, adjectives, ‘survival terms’ (words and phrases used in emergencies), and other important words. Some languages available are:
- English
- Hindi
- Portuguese
- Norwegian
- Chinese
- Indonesian
- French
- Farsi
- Japanese
- Spanish
- German
- Korean
- Italian
- Hebrew
- Polish
- Arabic
- And many more
Using the upper navigation bar you can also select from the following:
- Phrases
- Alphabet
- Language Tests
- Videos
- Virtual Keyboard
- Find Language Tutors
- Fun Page
Once you click on one of the above sections, you can refine your selection further by selecting from the available languages.The virtual keyboards are “a keyboard on steroids loaded with characters to help you write” and include international keyboards for Farsi, Hindi, Chinese, Urdu, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, and more. There are also printable language tests and videos for some language lessons.
Before leaving this site, be sure to stop by the Fun Page for some learning games such as Morse Code and Encrypt Messa
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David cates
