Since (hopefully) enrolling Leo to start at pre-primary school later this year I’ve been thinking of what I can do to help him settle in. Although I’m trying to learn Greek and I know he will pick it up very quickly when he starts I want to do all I can to make it more comfortable for him.
Obviously his English is much better than his Greek but we have always tried to teach him things we know as we’ve gone along. We taught him to count in both languages at the same time, for a long time he didn’t separate the two, counting ‘one, ena.. two, dheio’ but now will count in whichever language you ask him to…. when he feels like it of course!
He knows colours in both languages and will often pick something up and ask ‘What’s this colour in Greek Mummy?’ to reply with ‘yes that’s right Mummy, that’s clever’ when you reply!
I’ve been following a great website now for a while - Greek For Kids and I’m certainly going to start using some of the ideas on there. I decided to start with making aCaterpillar Name tag with him as being able to recognise your own name has to be a good start doesn’t it! He can spell Leo, and read ‘Leonidas’ so now to teach him how to read Λεωνίδας.
As it turned out, Nana arrived just as we started and as she is a lot more patient than me at such things I let her and Leo get sorting letters and making his caterpillar. Leo really enjoyed it and he listens to Nana much more than me so they both had lots of fun. We had lots of circles over so we also made a small caterpillar that says ‘Leo’ and a ‘Leonidas’ in English. We have stuck them all to his bedroom door and he now proudly points out which is English and which is Greek.
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