Señora Gose's Homeschool Spanish Blog (aka "Seriously, Suzanne")

Homeschooling parents always face a harrowing choice at Christmas (or any gift) time... Do we give our children experiences, educational, life enriching items and events? Or do we stick with the items we know they will like for the moment. In short: are we looking for a great reaction? Or a great long term effect? Can we do both? I don't know. I'm seriously asking. We keep trying. Our five being of a newly transitional ages (but really, is there an age that's NOT transitional?...ages 14, 16, 18, 19, 21... new teenager, new adult... new - new - NEW) we...

Failing feels AWFUL. No one wants to fail, and we certainly don't want our children to fail.  But truly, failure is QUITE good for us! It's showing us that we're trying something very new and different. As SOON as we fail, we re-evaluate - what happened? WHY did I fail? It's the number one, best moment with the most potential for learning than we get in the entire week, maybe even in the month. Celebrate failure! Don't let it crash down on you. As soon as you see - that did NOT go as planned, be sure to recognize that this...

This is often the portion of the year when there are hiccups... The "new smell" of Homeschooling has worn off, and we've arrived at some maintenance points. Being together all the time is becoming a little too "all the time," and we're wondering what we signed up for. The kids are changing, some too fast, others not fast enough, and they all want to eat EVERY SINGLE DAY. It's just all so DAILY. And gosh, the next holiday isn't soon enough! ​So... what to do? Let's change it up. Here are some GREAT changes you can make inside or outside...

None of us like to waste time - we fast forward through commercials, and hit SKIP as soon as we can on YouTube videos. If you'd rather hear me rant about this topic via video, you can find me on Seriously Suzanne.Wasting time is SUPER easy to do when learning ANYthing, not just a new language. What are the main time wasters to avoid?1) BREAK IT DOWN: Do not waste time looking at the WHOLE project. Before you sit down to learn or teach anything, break the lesson down into 20 minute slots, tasks, or bits of information. For Spanish,...

Sometimes the SHORTEST lessons have the most impact! In that vein, I've begun a new series on the SpanishGeniuses.com website. I've taken one of my favorite past times (reading comic strips) and my favorite method of learning Spanish (using flashcards and word chunking) and made some quick lessons for you - the goal is a less than FIVE MINUTE video and ONE MINUTE of practice per day. Can you do it? Here's the first comic strip. Watch the video, or just do these THREE STEPS!  Read the vocabulary word: MOJADO is our target word today. We're using it as an adjective, so it...