County Fair Time!

If you live in the States, your local county should have a fair very soon.

Call your local county extension office or the courthouse and ask for a county fair paper.

My student has been working on items for the fair for school this week. Lots of different items from animal care to baking. It's good for them to enter and have a bit of competition.

It's really good when they get a ribbon and fantastic, to them, when they win money.

You should enter too! Everyone used to enter their local county fair, but people have been so busy with "time saving" technology that the entries have become low. Time to bring back a good thing~

More Colorful Words...German-English-Dutch

Again, find similarities or memory triggers. I don't recommend teaching children how to read and write in a foreign language until they have several years practicing speaking it. Think about how we learn our Mother Tongue. We listen, then speak and finally read and write. Grammar follows.. for the rest of our lives~ LOL.

My youngest child is a 4th grader this year. I am only now showing him cognates, just for the sake of increasing his vocabulary. He is not writing or reading any other languages other than English at this time. I do, however, think that teachers should be learning all aspects of the language they are teaching. You will be teaching a higher level learner soon~ If your child is already in High School, then you will learn these together. Don't forget to check out Duolingo for FREE foreign language learning. My username is ElainaMc1 .

I make myself have lessons while I am waiting on my child to complete their lessons. I write days of the week, months, etc... I also try to do a lesson each day on the above mentioned website.

When my child reaches 7th grade, he will decide which language to pick for his 2 year credit course per our state law requirement. For now, we are only tasting foreign languages. He has already decided to not study French or Italian on a higher level, but we are still reviewing weekly what he already knows. "Use it, or lose it."

"The COLORS are Coming~ The COLORS are Coming~ " Italian-Spanish=French

Not quite the same as the "The Red Coats Are Coming--" but RED is a color.... I have added three languages to my kiddie white board today~

BTW, I rescued this off the side of the road one day. It was ruined with permanent marker scribbles on both sides- whiteboard and chalk. I used elbow grease, wipes and magic eraser to clean it- wallah!- I did buy several Step2 products over the years, so I thought this was worth restoring... and I was correct! For more saving and re/up-cycling ideas. See my other BLOG A Penny Saved Me... Thanks! On Facebook too with mostly different content.

As you can see, I used colored markers to represent the color in question. This did limit me, however I now have an excuse to buy more colors!

Please remember that though these may be cognates in WRITING, they may NOT SOUND the same. Happy coloring~

FIXED Cognates- French to Italian Days of the Week with PHOTO

Sorry guys, had a middle-aged moment. My eyes didn't catch the mistake but my brain kept bugging me about it. Checked and sure enough I was wrong and made a fix. I drank a full package of vitamin milk this morning. If you see a mistake- call me out on it. Thanks~

More Days of the Week cognates.... You can see that nearly every day is a close to true cognate on this list.

Saturday and Sunday are slightly different , but I have underlined some similarities. I hope this helps you . And I hope this helps you consider learning more than one foreign language.

More often than not, I believe most of us were forced to learn a foreign language because we only had one or maybe two options to pick from in public school. We really didn't get to pick WHICH language we wanted to learn. That hinders learning imho. Homeschool kids have more options. Period.

Just this last week, I have had two adult friends start learning new foreign languages. Brava!

As we get older, we have more choices. The Internet helps us have more choices also. Lots of free ways to learn on the web. My local school district ONLY offers Spanish as a foreign language option.

The way things have been politically, regarding illegal aliens in the US, I'm thinking it's about time to offer more choices.

Yes, I believe Spanish is a good choice if that's the language you're most likely to use for your workplace. I chose it over French because I thought I'd never have an opportunity to use it. I should have looked forward and MADE an opportunity for French. Anyway, when I had a CHOICE, I picked the German language to learn. Don't get me wrong, I happened to love learning Spanish. I just wish more schools would give options to their future world travelers.