Hi my name is Shelby Buker and I am the Spanish teacher at Lincoln Park Cooperative Preschool! I have the awesome opportunity to teach the Three’s and Pre-K class every Tuesday. I have been an elementary school teacher for the last ten years– currently stepping away from a full time position to be home with my kids, both of whom are in Co-op classes. In my career as a teacher so far, I have had a variety of teaching experiences. I have taught Dual Language Kindergarten (Spanish/English), Third Grade here in the US and at the American Nicaraguan School in Managua, Nicaragua, and most recently I have been a Multilingual Teacher working with students in Kindergarten through 5th grade in the Issaquah School District. Teaching at LPCP has been such an enriching experience and I have learned so much alongside the other teachers.
A typical Tuesday looks just like any other, except we do it in Spanish! Our classroom is an active language learning environment; we do not concentrate on grammar lessons or verb conjugation. Instead, we talk, read, sing, and play in Spanish to cultivate curiosity, connection, and empathy. We start our day with a Spanish greeting song and as we transition to for free play, we participate in either a group Spanish lesson, read aloud or art activity. We end the day singing our “Adios” song to our friends as they head home from school.
Learning a second language should be fun and preschool is the perfect age to acquire some foundational skills, as students’ brains are sponges for information! The intention at LPCP is not an immersive language experience, but rather to expose students to a second language. This will help them develop some basic vocabulary that they can carry on with them as they graduate from preschool and move onward in their educational career.
When families begin the program, Teacher Shelby offers these 3 tips:
1. Keep it light and fun! Reading or singing in Spanish are developmentally appropriate ways to support language acquisition for this age group.
2. Exposure is a very powerful tool, the more time spent in environments where Spanish is spoken, the better!
3. Let your child be the teacher! Kids love teaching their parents what they’ve learned at school so ask them to teach you something in Spanish!
