About Us
🌱 About Us
Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center
El Bosque Encantado—el boh-skay en-cahn-tah-doe—is a Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center for children aged 16 months to six years.
We believe in a thoughtful balance of self-directed play and rigorous Spanish education, with an enhanced focus on literacy and language development.
The name El Bosque Encantado (The Enchanted Forest) comes from the rainforests of Guatemala, where our founder, Katie, participated in an exchange program as a teen, and has continued to visit regularly for more than 30 years.
Mission
We believe in a thoughtful balance of self-directed play and rigorous Spanish education, with an enhanced focus on literacy and language development, for children in their early childhood years.
Vision
Our bilingual students will be culturally aware and academically prepared for the changing demographics of our country.
Philosophy
El Bosque Encantado aims to be a second language immersion school that doesn’t isolate language learning, but rather incorporates it into the context of everyday life and learning. We strive to embrace the whole child, as well as each child’s family and the larger community.
We are committed to the following principles:
Second language acquisition
Academic and emotional success
Parent education and involvement
Community resourcing
El Bosque Encantado is founded on the premise that children have the greatest learning opportunities in the first five years of life. Studies have shown that when children are exposed to a second language during this optimal learning period, they not only acquire it more easily, but develop aptitudes that impact them in the future across all learning areas.
Learning another language is in the preschool years is easier because a young child’s brain contains so many neural connections—more than twice as many as an adult. Learning a second language in early childhood utilizes these neural connections; unused connections simply disappear children grow older.
This is why, even if your child is not going to attend an immersion elementary school, immersion early learning is still a tremendously enriching and worthwhile experience.
Second Language Acquisition
Best practices in Early Childhood Education target five key areas:
1. Social/Emotional Development
2. Academic Learning
3. Creative/Imaginative Play
4. Motor Skills
5. Cognitive Development
Each activity at EBE focuses on one or more of these areas, and within a developmentally appropriate framework.
The result is that your child will enter kindergarten prepared to excel, having been exposed to much of what is taught already—and far ahead in terms of language development skills.
Academic and Emotional Success
We believe that parents can learn a lot from their kids, and we invite you at any time to spend some time with us at El Bosque Encantado; sing songs or read along with us, have lunch, or volunteer.
Don’t speak Spanish? No se preocupe—no worries—you can learn when you are here! Research shows that the more connections that can be made between school and home, the more success students will achieve.
Additionally, parents, friends and extended family are strongly encouraged to attend the celebrations we host.
Parent Involvement
Consider El Bosque Encantado your community resource for everything Spanish-language related. If you have questions about cultural norms, events, language resource materials or anything else, please ask.
A True Community Resource
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