I believe in learning through play

I’m an Early Years ESL teacher, a mama of three, and the person behind Little English Crafters.

I love working with children, reading stories with them and seeing what happens when you give them a few materials and let them get making.

Little English Crafters is something I’ve wanted to bring to life for quite a while now because it brings together two things I really enjoy: teaching English and crafting with children.

And I’d love to tell you a little about how it all started.

My Story

Before I moved to Germany, I already knew I wanted to teach English here, but wasn’t quite sure who I’d be teaching. So, I started with adults and later found myself teaching children, and I really enjoyed it

I realised that there was so much you could do with crafting, stories, songs, and things they could actually touch and explore. After my third child, I took a break from teaching for personal reasons, but I missed it dearly.

At home, I’ve been raising my three children bilingually. My husband speaks German with them, I speak English, and We’ve always read lots of English storybooks, and we do a lot of crafting together, amongst other hands-on skill-building activities.

Around the same time I stopped teaching, I discovered this Instagram page called Creative Crafting Club, and their vision really caught my attention. I loved how the children made things themselves, working with different materials, trying out their ideas and learning new skills as they went.

And I kept thinking about how much I’d love to do something similar, but with English as part of the whole experience. Not a craft activity followed by an English activity, or children sitting down to memorise words, no.

I wanted children to come together, create things, listen to stories, play games and hear English throughout their time with me.

It took me a while to finally give this idea a go, so I decided to start small, with just my own children.

Every Saturday morning, we’d have our little English and craft sessions together. We’d play vocabulary games, mould playdough, read stories and then finish with a craft. Before long, those Saturday mornings became something my children genuinely looked forward to, and seeing their excitement made me so happy.

As the weeks went by, I began to realise just how much English they were picking up simply by playing, creating and having fun together. And the more I saw how much they enjoyed it, the more I wanted to share that experience with other children.

That was one of my biggest motivations to finally take the idea beyond our home, and Little English Crafters is now inter-house.

I wanted to create a place where children could discover English in the same natural, playful way, through stories, games, songs and hands-on crafts. Somewhere they could explore, get creative, try things out and hear and use English along the way, without it ever feeling like a traditional English lesson.

And while It’s still a growing little club, I’m excited to see where it goes, because one thing I know is that I want children to enjoy being here, feel comfortable trying things and experience English while doing something they love – well, that’s three things, but you get me.

And that’s how Little English Crafters began.