Teaching Children About Poland

My children do not attend Polish school.  It's out of our budget and just too far from our house.  Because of that, I have to find other ways to teach my children about Poland.  I also am trying to foster in them a sense of belonging to Poland, a connection.

I found a link online to a free website run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

You can play this interactive site in English, Polish or even Chinese.

Right now, we are playing it in English until my kids feel comfortable enough with it.  Then, we will be switching to Polish and having them use their memory of the site and hearing it play in Polish so that they learn Polish with their visual reinforcing the language as they learn it.

http://www.kula.gov.pl/

So far, we have been exploring Wroclaw, since that is the city that my older daughter has visited and associates easily with Poland.  The mountain village we were at is not on this site, which I didn't expect it to be.

The site offers several different key cities throughout the different regions of Poland.  Each is represented with a key figure that helps children associate it with a piece of it's unique history.

Legends for some of the cities are shared, as well as several important details about each city. 

The first day I introduced the site to my children, we were supposed to go to the park after school but we ended up playing this site for 1 1/2 hours instead.  I couldn't get them away from it.  I'd say it's successful.

Also, a tiny detail of many that work in the site for my family's needs.  When loading each page, the words "momencik" comes up.  My older daughter asked what it means (one moment) and she is now walking around using it with me and her sister.

It might seem like a little thing, but in my experience as an immigrant child learning a foreign language, it is a culmination of many tiny such details that make the difference between a child comprehending a language or not.  The same goes for native speakers as children.

Na razie...





Disclaimer:  I'm not compensated in any way for sharing this site.  I was not asked to share this site.  I just found it and thought it was very well done and worth sharing with you.


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