Who Is Big Apple Kids?
Big Apple Kids is a New York City-based educational organization for children, specializing in the enhancement of children's intellectual and bi-lingual abilities, by offering foreign language classes to children ranging from one year of age to early elementary ages. Since 2003, Big Apple Kids students have ranged from the ages of one to five.

We offer French and Spanish classes in 12 to 14 week sessions throughout the year. Taught by native-speaking teachers who are great with children, each class is fun and packed with vocabulary that is interesting and appropriate for young children.

 

Our Curriculum
The curriculum for each session is carefully planned to engage kids at every level of understanding. They play with things they already love, just in a different language! We use games, toys, and other cool activities to reinforce and enhance learning the language. We have teddy bear picnics, play with musical instruments, learn fun songs, and play many other games to reinforce the topics and vocabulary. We have even included math games in French and Spanish! Our program is very hands-on, and each child plays with the toys as they learn the language. Classes are very repetitive, and the vocabulary is taught and reinforced each week through many different types of activities. After a few classes, virtually all children are speaking in the language of the class.

 

Our curriculum is designed not only to provide a wonderful foundation for children who eventually will learn a second language in school or travel to French or Spanish-speaking countries, but also to enhance the understanding for children who already speak or understand the language.

 

Who We Teach
Each of our students comes from a family that appreciates the benefits of knowing how to speak and understand a second language. Many of our students come from families where one parent or other family member speaks French or Spanish, and the family wishes for the children to be exposed to the language outside the home, where they can talk and play with other children in French or Spanish. In addition, we have many students from other countries whose families desire their children to begin to learn a second language that they would have been exposed to in their home country.

 

Why a Second Language?
In many parts of our country, unfortunately, children are not exposed to a second language until junior or senior high school - which is much too late to learn to speak it without an "American" accent. However, for children to learn to speak a second language without an accent, they need to start learning it before the age of six, in as many different settings as possible. Whatever YOUR reason for ensuring that your children learn a second language, many studies have shown that bi-lingual children score higher on tests, perform better in school, have superior problem-solving abilities, do better in math and science, understand the intricacies of their own language better, and adapt more easily to the language of learning. In today's highly competitive world, we cater to families who want to give their children every edge possible - and for our young students, we ensure that it's FUN! Check out this article, which states "the earlier and more intensively the languages are introduced, the better" and "if children are exposed to two languages from a very early age, they will essentially grow as if there were two mono-linguals housed in one brain." http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s720173.htm

Also, this article is a great read as well, and covers several aspects of raising bilingual children, one benefit being "how bilingual children gain cognitive flexibility and how that skill transfers over into other kinds of tasks."

 

Where is Big Apple Kids?
We're conveniently located on the Upper West Side. Children may enroll in any session throughout the year, and in many cases, children may enroll mid-session, since our curriculum is so repetitive and fun. On occasion, we allow registration for partial sessions (in lieu of trial classes), and always offer a flexible class make-up policy.