Daily Blog

Editor’s note: In the next months, we’ll be bringing you interviews with those who have first-hand experience with dual language immersion schools or programs: the parents who have their kids enrolled in them. The idea is to give you a closer look at what these programs are really like, how and why they work, as well as some of the challenges they face. Thanks to our contributor Elsie for coming up with this great idea! After sharing my experiences investigatingRead More ...

When should academic centered schooling begin? This has been the question I have been grappling with for weeks. My daughter is not quite 3 and was accepted to a private dual language school for this coming fall where academics and inquiry-based learning is at the heart of what they do. This past January is also when we switched her to an “English school” where a play curriculum is at the heart of how children’s curiosity is nurtured. She is emotionallyRead More ...

One of my favorite things about belonging to the SpanglishBaby community is the opportunity to meet other families who are also raising bilingual and bicultural kids. I have met online friends and local friends through SpansglishBaby Playground where families have been organizing local playgroups all over the nation, from South Jersey to Orlando, from Philly to Colorado you can find local groups wanting to meet, play and speak Spanish! Find your local Playground and join us today! Tri State Mamas:Read More ...

I just got back from PBS’ annual meeting, which took place in Miami this year and where I had the pleasure of meeting “Mando,” Sesame Street’s newest bilingual cast member who is Latino. Ismael Cruz Córdova (Mando) is a charming and very talented 26-year-old actor who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and learned to speak English thanks to Sesame Street. I also had the chance to interview Carmen Osbah, who plays one of the other bilingual cast membersRead More ...

  For almost two years now, I’ve been taking Vanessa to a monthly Spanish children’s book club started by a bilingual mom I’m lucky to call my friend. While I’ll never get tired of raving about the benefits of joining a Spanish-speaking playgroup, once kids get a bit older and start school, it’s not as easy to participate in weekly meetups for the kids to be immersed in Spanish. Enter the idea of a Spanish children’s book club. If yourRead More ...

el apodo (m): Nombre que suele darse a una persona, en sustitución del propio, normalmente tomado de sus peculiaridades físicas o de alguna otra circunstancia Although certainly not unique to the Latino culture, los apodos, or nicknames, are ubiquitous in Spanish-speaking countries whether it be on the playground, within families, or of course, in professional sports. These clever and silly names are an inherent part of Latino culture, yet usually misunderstood by outsiders and miscategorized as offensive. As the definitionRead More ...

At my son’s preschool, they periodically do developmental screenings. I have never given much thought to these assessments since, having been a teacher for almost 20 years, I felt pretty confident that a learning disability or developmental delay would be obvious to me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that he had failed the speech and language screening. While discussing the evaluation with his teacher, I was shocked to learn that all of the children who spoke Spanish had failed.Read More ...

Will Spanish Thrive or Decline in the U.S.? from NPR’s new blog Code Switch — Our contributor Chelsea touched upon the points made in this article regarding the future of Spanish in the U.S. Check it out and let us know if you agree. Cinco de Mayo No Hecho en México, Actually from The Wall Street Journal — Another take on the future of Spanish in the United States from the authors of the forthcoming book “The Story of Spanish” (whichRead More ...