Elena Guthrie

I began my teaching career in 2015 in the city of Blagoveshchensk at the “Astea” studio, where I developed and successfully conducted the educational and developmental program “Yoga Mom + Baby.”

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From 2017 to 2020, I worked as a teacher assistant at the Russian Saturday School “Olimpus” (Maryland). Since 2022, I have conducted classes at the “Little Learners Childcare Center” (Poolesville, MD).

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I strive to make learning Russian both engaging and effective, so that each lesson brings joy. I use various types of didactic games, which allow students not only to absorb the material but also to relax.

Learning Russian in elementary school should, above all, be an exciting journey. In my lessons, I strive to turn the study of words, rules, and texts into an interactive game: we solve riddles, act out fairy tales, create stories, and invent our own verbal experiments. It is important to me that the child feels the joy of discovery and sees that language is not just dry rules, but a living tool of communication and creativity. Through this approach, children learn to think, express themselves, and listen to one another, while Russian becomes for them a true friend and helper in exploring the world.