Do This At Home Tip 2 - Use Wooden Puzzles

At Tribeca Language we use a mix of our proprietary QTalk Teacher Tools along with everyday items and toys found in any child's home.
I'll be posting a series of tips on the specifics of using every day toys and items you most likely already have in your home to practice the target language with your child(ren).

Use puzzles to practice vocabulary

The secret is how you use those items. For our classes, we use our own wooden matching puzzles for single word identification as well as our Sentence Puzzles for making whole sentences but the process works with any puzzle.

Pick up any children's puzzle you have and take out all the pieces. If you don't already know, find out what each piece is called in the target language.

Next, find out how to say "Where is the...?" , "goes" (third person singular),  "here"  and "very good" in the target language.

Let's say you are using a farm animal puzzle.
With all the pieces taken out, using the Echo Technique (Please see entry on Faux vs True Immersion - use of the Echo Technique), you ask your child "Where is the cow?" in the target language immediately followed by English. (Example, in Spanish: "Dónde está la vaca? Where is the cow?"  When your child finds the cow you help him/her say "here". Say "very good" and then say "La vaca va aqui. The cow goes here." and have your child repeat that sentence "La vaca va acqui." before he/she gets to put the piece into the puzzle.

Say the words and place the pieces

Continue with all the pieces.

You can begin removing the English translation by the 3rd or 4th round of "Where is the..." Try this activity with all your puzzles. You can change up the activity by changing the question from "Where is the..?" to playing "I see the..."

The puzzle is just a distracting way to get your child to practice the complete sentences.
Enjoy!