Our playful approach towards Spanish led to the result that my kids think that Spanish is a fun language. It is a language for singing, playing and vacation time! Sure, their ability is very basic, but they seem to understand, they know their colors, counting, and basic sentences. When they absolutely have to they suddenly can communicate with the abuelos and the cousins over Skype.
In fact, am counting on the abuelos to come visit us soon. I hope we can implement a “Spanish only” time for as long as they are here. We have even talked about having one of The Hubby’s nephews or nieces come over and visit us as an exchange student. We are still discussing this option.
The birth of our youngest in April of this year triggered yet another Language Shift in our Family! We are discussing whether we should revert from English as family language back to strictly OPOL. Or maybe a mix of both: OPOL when we are alone with the kids, and English when we are all together?
At any rate, The Peeps is definitely motivating all of us to speak more Spanish.
The Hubby is crooning to him in Spanish. My daughter is singing Los Pollitos dicen to him. And Dominik has found in him the perfect audience for his chanting: “azul, verde, amarillo yyyyyy… morado!”
It looks like Spanish won’t go down the drain after all.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m glad! Isabella was a bit shy last time we tried to speak in Spanish with her, I hope it was only a phase and she’s over it.
Can you access Spotify in Austria now? I find myself searching for a lot of the music I know from my childhood: back then, there was a lot more stuff (TV, music) directed to children, safe, clean, fun. One of these artists, a clown called Miliki, even released an album a few years back directed to his grown up fans, called “A mis niños de 30 años”, and I have been singing those all day! Also other artists like Parchis or Enrique y Ana. And the songs from TV shows of back then… mmm, I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic, but it has been fun to listen to all those again. Let me know if you can get Spotify, and I’ll give you a list of albums I like in spanish for the kids, ok?
HI Maria, that was before we went to Ecuador and this really helped her open up more in Spanish! Now that she has Spanish class after school as well it also helps her to lose her shyness.
And yes, I tried the Spotify again several weeks ago and they STILL don’t have it in Austria. It sounds like such a good thing, though. I hope one day they will decide to open up Austria for this as well …
Hi Maria,
Would you be willing to share your list of albums? My children love listening to music in Spanish and I could really use some new resources. A number of years ago we found a great website http://www.songsforteaching.com They have a Children’s Spanish Music box set that my 1-5 year olds still love. We would love some fresh Spanish music in our house. Thanks so much!
Certainly!
The one I play more often is Miliki, which brings me right to my childhood. He released “A mis niños de 30 años” a few years ago.
Enrique y Ana were a duet who played children songs also in the 80s. You can see their albums here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_y_Ana
Our favorite songs are La gallina cocoua and Amigo Felix.
Parchis was a band of 5 children also in the 80′s . Very corny these days, but fun songs that I still think of with nostalgia: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parch%C3%ADs_(grupo)
I recently got a couple of CDs from my brother in law for my son with traditional children songs… they are in the car, but I will try to remember to bring them over
We love “Fiesta Musical: A Musical Adventure Through Latin America for Children.”
LOVE IT! I struggle so often, too, but one thing I definitely do is play a lot of children’s songs in Spanish and read a lot of bilingual books. I really am trying to find a more productive DVD set or curriculum to help me teach them Spanish.
Thanks for this post. Gives a lot of people hope, I think!
Monica´s last [type] ..Summer Learning Series- El Mar The Sea
Thanks for your lovely feedback, Monica. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE share when you have found that DVD set (I am constantly on the lookout as well) and curriculum! I am looking for something that goes beyond the basics (the colors, counting and como te llamas -kind of thing. My kids have THAT down for sure, lol).
Yes! You do what you can with what you have.
Have you seen the books published by http://bilingualreaders.com/?
They are in Spain. A bit closer to home for you.
Ana Lilian´s last [type] ..Your SpanglishBaby- Carolina
Aaah very interesting! Thank you for sharing, Ana Lilian!
Kudos to you for stepping in. There are several moms in my Spanish playgroup that, like you, are stepping in to try and do a little more (b/c for whatever reason hubby can not). I find it so inspiring when the journey is so important to the whole family. Spanish is only one of two languages for us yet I have found the birth of each new sibling to be a fountain on inspiration for everyone to really fall in love with Spanish all over again. Glad to see you are finding the same joy. If there are any Spanish resources in particular you are searching for please let me know and I’ll do my best to help.
Thank you for your comment, Maria H! If you find useful websites/ DVDs that help our children acquire Spanish, do share! Thanks!
Very inspiring post! Thanks! I’ve seen your website after visiting http://wheregoinghavo.blogspot.com/
We are a bilingual family (Spanish&Catalan) and live in Barcelona. Our little son is learning English and I think one day he’ll speak better than us
I love this sentence you wrote, it describes our relationship with the English language: “Our playful approach towards Spanish led to the result that my kids think that Spanish is a fun language. It is a language for singing, playing and vacation time!”
I think singing is a great tool for them to learn and for us to have fun too (after all, whatever tool we choose, we have to repeat things over and over again, so, it’d better be fun for us too
)
As for Spanish resources, Pocoyo is great! You can find him in many languages.
Marta´s last [type] ..Chocolate
Dutch is the step-child in our household, again since constantly travelling dad speaks it, and my children have to deal with Chinese at school (neither of us speak Chinese, although I’m learning) and English at home. They’re with their grandparents now getting some Dutch immersion for a couple of weeks.
We could make them go to Dutch school on a Wednesday afternoon here, but we figured that on the scale of things it’s a language that’s easy enough to pick up as and when they need it.
My daughter told me today that she’s understanding everything, but when she wants to speak Dutch, Chinese comes out.
gweipo´s last [type] ..Abundance
I know what you talking about I am now bilingual….English and German…I do some French and some Spanish and Italian…you know what I can pick up myself…colors, number up to 10-20…some days I feel I can even sport a WHOLE sentence…(ouvre la port or estoy aqui), but I wanna have fun and dont kill kids with multilingualism…even when people look at me like I am nuts throwing as a single parent all those around….I dont care i have seen how much it opens your own horizon if you make sure you get exposed to many things not just one language or thing early on…i do books (hoping for CDs and DVDs esp. movies)from the library in more specific and seldom used languages I have very little own knowledge like chinese(my son likes the show Ni-Hao so much so I learnt some words this hard languge I have bad hearing with intonation but it is magic sounds for them both,my kids are 3,5 and 2 now, given no writing lol…I would do russian,japanese and arabic on top of that for the kalligraphy alone….LOVE writing in those for sure!), keep up with whatever you are compfy with and the kids and let those nay sayers to themselves…i get heat from the social services they say my son is getting handicapped by me talking in English all the time, guess what no such thing, he chose not to speak to them… cant make him hello you know…he does understand them certainly sinc ehe syas words at home and granted he is not speaking in whole sentences….but I think it runs in the family on both sides the boy talk later with no issues whatsoever so i dont let anyone get to me they dont know my children like I do,trust me.
I never taught my son Spanish. He only speaks English. Spanish is my native language but it was easier to speak English my ex-husband then husband and his family only speaks English. My mother discouraged me to teach him Spanish as well to avoid discrimination. I live in the South/U.S. often times it is frowned upon to be heard speaking Spanish and I’ve even heard people say, speak English this is America, which I think is a terrible attitude to have.
C…´s last [type] ..Alternate Reality
Alice, I commend you for giving your children the gift of trilingualism. It’s a tough job to keep up with it, but it will pay off eventually. Hang in there.
We live in the US but decided to immerse my son in Spanish from birth. He is now 3 and picking up English very easily.
I’ve used many reasources throughout, but lately, you tube and many of the Apps for the iPhone/iPad have been fantastic. We watch plaza sésamo on you tube, videos about the vowels, etc. And he’s now learning to read a bit through a great app. We, of course speak to him in Spanish, sing, watch pocoyo (he used to love pocoyo) now watches Go Diego Go in Spanish and Diego teaches him a bit of English. My son loves books too and I’ve been reading to him some a bit more advanced and he loves them. My husband has a difficult time pronouncing all words just right, but my son doesn’t mind and helps him out too. As I think of additional resources, I’ll be happy to share. Best!!