SmartStory

Have a LOVEly Sunday ❤

It's from my new student at Young Author Experience.

You can still sign up your little one. The next time I'll be doing this programme is September.

Notes from the Young Author Experience Course...✍

I am asking my student
"Would you like to write and develop this topic...?"

My student answers "I'm finishing this chapter." 🤗

Wow! My student is truly inspired and motivated! 🤗😍

This week children will learn a story about a "Motanka Doll" and create a story of the doll that they will make at our workshop on Wednesday.

You can see an example of a Motanka Doll, a traditional Ukrainian doll, in my previous post.

If it's something that can spark your child's interest in learning English, register in bio and get the full info.

Unusual Workshop 👧
This time we will learn a story of making these traditional Slavic rag dolls that were made with love by women to protect their homes. A symbol of love and care of their homes.

My friends Julia creates them. You can check out her account for other beautiful things. My friend doesn’t speak English, so I will be your interpreter at the workshop. We will read a bit about tgem, make them and discuss. Your child will learn interesting vocabulary, as Julia has already sent me the description of special materials for this beauty, as well as instructions vocabulary or asking for help and clarification. Also, they will get a set of flashcards with the vocabulary for this workshop.

Dates: Wednesday, February, 9 at 7 p.m. EET and Saturday, February, 12 at 11:00 EET.

At the first classes of "Young Author Experience" I help children to plan the outline of their stories, so we don't get lost after writing a couple of chapters.

Don't believe yourself if you think (or your child thinks) that

💎you don't have anything to write about

💎your imagination is poor

💎you can't write anything creative

We all do have stories. Our minds are so overloaded with information and things to do, that we stop noticing our Life.

Our life has so many beautiful stories. We just don't pay attention to its details. We don't contemplate.

As my colleague Karina said "writing is thinking", it helps to take a break and reflect about our life, take a closer look.

The easiest way to start writing is to write a real life story - what happened to you? Describe one event.

Just like I did in my adventure stories about Nina and Eve. Everything that happened to my characters happened to me.

And we do it with children.

First, we discuss and I help them to find their story.

I'll start to work with a new group of children in March.

Book your spot in a mini group on bio ⤴

When I was a child I diligently did my school homework and had excellent marks on my tests and exams. Maths, English, Russian, Ukrainian, Science, those seemed so important subjects.

I have no idea why I thought and felt that some creative subjects like music and art were something out of this world and not for me. I just didn’t feel close to those worlds. One time our music teacher decided to give us a note dictation and I got a bad mark on it. But we never had done it before and never trained our listening skills. Even our essays had to be very close to the prominent critics’ opinion on literature.

One reason for not being creative at a younger age is that my interest to creative things was destined to wake up later in my life, and another is that I didn’t have a guide who could show me what I could do in those creative areas, even tiny little projects, a person who could give a personal support for my creativity.

How do you support your child’s creativity?

Do you want your child to be able to write?

Not a text message with shortened words and not fill in exercises.

Now, writing skills might seem outdated for the future, as even our email suggests logical endings of sentences. And, although, it's quite convinient,
does it serve us good?

We start to forget spelling of the words, sentence structures, even our concentration weakens.

I remember how many of my teachers at school and university used to tell us "the more you write with your hand, the more you remember". Do you agree on this point?

"their comprehension skills. As an English teacher, I highly recommend the books to any colleague who teaches pre-teens as well as parents whose children want to learn and practise English in a fun way." Thank you Marusya for this lovely review.

🔹Is your child an explorer?

🔹Do they love adventures?
(I am sure all children are.)

🔹Do they come back home excited to share with you what has happened to them?

🔹Would you like your child to turn their experience into stories 📚just like I did? 🖊📝

Sign up in bio ⤴⤴⤴ to join my adventure meeting this Saturday.

Something exciting in November 🍁

I am so excited to announce you that I’m preparing something really exciting for my young readers in November.

For now, we’ve been reading my stories and that
-improved my students’ literacy
-boosted their reading fluency
-they are used to having a regular reading session, therefore they have developed their reading habit
-broadened their knowledge about the world (the countries, where Nina and Eve travel, cultures of those countries)
-enhanced their enthusiasm about books as they got their Book Boxes with the paper book and souvenirs.

I know your children love my Adventure Stories, as they can easily relate

✔to the friendship between Nina and her dog Eve,
✔to the main characters’ love for exploring,
✔to the beautiful places around the world (Turkey, Vienna, Reunion Island).

They love reading or maybe they need a little motivation to read and Nina and Eve perfectly serve this purpose.

Since they love and easily relate,
🔹Can you say that they are true explorers in their lives?
🔹Do they love to get lost with their friends in the neighborhood?
🔹Do they come back home excited about their discoveries?
🔹Do they share their adventures with you?

Get back to me if one of your answers is “YES”.