Ana’s Blog

Do you have what it takes to raise a bilingual child? Pretty bold statement, huh? But the reality is that many parents make the decision to not teach their child a second language because they don’t believe they’re capable of doing it or they feel don’t have the resources they need. It could be that they feel that: they are not fluent enough in the second language their partner or family doesn’t support them not enough people around them thatRead More ...

How many of you held a cup this morning? How often do you think about what you pour into that cup? For me, a cup symbolizes the joy of a hot cafecito con leche to start my day. It’s one of the few rituals I always adhere to in my day. I’m also picky about my cups. I like them more like mugs than a standard cup because I love feeling the weight in my hands and the warmth ofRead More ...

  We all know how important it is to start off the day with a good breakfast. Sending our kids well fed to school makes a difference in how will perform in school that day.  But how often do we think about families who cannot send their kids to school with a good breakfast? That would actually be 1 in 5 children in the U.S. that go to school without breakfast everyday. In reaction to this need, Kellog’s announced today aRead More ...

My family and I arrived in Cancun last night to attend a good friend’s wedding in Playa del Carmen. We used to live in Playa – as it’s fondly known – in 2005 when hurricane Wilma destroyed Cancun. The year my husband and I spent here has been the most magical in our lives and the friendships we made still remain strong. My husband’s sister and her family live here as well, so we’ll take any excuse to come downRead More ...

I thought I knew *a lot* about dual immersion schools because I’ve been researching them for both the blog and our book for almost four years now, but now that my daughter has been in one for almost four months I have a whole new understanding of them. I know the topic of bilingual education as a whole is so confusing for parents because there are so many different programs (ELL, ESL, full immersion, partial immersion, etc) and because, dependingRead More ...

Today we’ll all be making history together as we join a new movement called #GivingTuesday. We’re all way too familiar and entrenched with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but what about a day honoring the tradition of being grateful that we can even enjoy those “celebrations” and give back to others as much as we were able to get deals for us? That’s exactly the idea behind #GivingTuesday, a concept I learned about back in September when I was invitedRead More ...

Last week my family and I were lucky enough to be invited to see for ourselves the transformation the Disneyland Resort goes through to celebrate the holidays. Simply put, it’s magical and the festive holiday feeling is all around you. In true Disney style, no detail is spared and the result is the feeling that the holidays are here. We were there just for one day, so we focused on seeing and doing as much of the special holiday attractionsRead More ...

My daughter has been attending her dual immersion school in Spanish for almost three months now and I can honestly say she’s made a lot of progress. I think the most noticeable improvement has been in her increased self-esteem and the value she’s now given to speaking Spanish.  She tries much harder to complete sentences in Spanish and doesn’t get frustrated when I nudge her to speak it. My husband keeps insisting that she’s speaking way too much English andRead More ...