Working with kids in a Polish language school opened up my creative side. As an instructor, I sought to teach Polish in a fun and inspiring way. I composed my own songs and rhymes to help kids learn, memorize, and recite the Polish language.
One of the things I learned while teaching in Polish school is that many children have difficulty discerning and pronouncing the sounds of certain similar letters (e.g. dz, dź, dż, ś, si, ź, ż, etc.) It also occurred to me that I was never taught a Polish alphabet while growing up in Poland. Researching further, I confirmed that, unlike most languages, there is, in fact, no standard alphabet for the Polish language!
The reason for this was unclear to me, as an alphabet would almost certainly help kids learn the Polish language faster. So, I made one up! I created a Polish phonetic alphabet and paired it with images of fun animal characters that I made from clay. Each animal has a name that I selected specifically to demonstrate the differences between similar Polish letters (e.g. ś and si, ć and ci, ź and zi, etc.)
With each purchase of my flashcards, I have included a link to a song that I composed for use by parents or teachers to play alongside the cards. One way of using the song with the cards that I’ve found effective is to display all of the flashcards on a board and to point to each of the corresponding letters as the song is played. Children love to follow the animals along with the song. You will be amazed at how quickly kids will learn to read and write Polish using this simple technique!
These flashcards can also be displayed decoratively at school or at home in kids’ rooms, nursery rooms, etc.