Daily Blog

My son Santiago turned two a month ago and I am blown away by how his vocabulary has exploded. Like his sister, he was an early talker. But the real expansion in his repertoire of words has taken place in the last couple of month. He loves music. Not only to dance to it, but also to sing it. Just last night, he was serenading me right before bedtime and even after I could hear him signing through the monitorRead More ...

Living in Orlando, Florida, provides a multitude of opportunities to speak Spanish. Everywhere I go, I hear Spanish speakers. At the bank, I often notice that not a single person is speaking English when I walk in. Sometimes, I find myself jumping in to translate for monolingual Spanish speakers in the grocery store or at the mall. There is one place in which they are not being accommodated, though: education. Latinos make up 24% of the K-12 population of Florida, yetRead More ...

Spongebob Squarepants is not good for your 4-year-old’s brain – at least that’s what a new study from the University of Virginia says. Researchers divided sixty 4-year-olds into three groups. The first group watched a 9-minute clip of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants, the second watched a 9-minute clip of PBS’s Caillou, and the third group drew pictures for nine minutes instead of watching television. When the nine minutes was up, each group was tested in what psychologists call “executive function.” TheRead More ...

If you’ve been reading us for a while, you know that every so often I like to rave about my kids’ Spanish-speaking playgroup here in Denver. We’ve been a part of it since it began and although we don’t get to go to the meetups on a regular basis like we did at the beginning, the friendships both my kids and I have made are strong enough to survive our absences. Plus, as is the case of Vanessa, many of theRead More ...

Editor’s note: I am so happy to announce that we’ve invited one more regular contributor to our SpanglishBaby familia. Vanessa, of the beautifully written and illustrated blog De Su Mama, recently accepted our invitation to join us and we know you’re quickly going to see why we are thrilled. Vanessa has a different kind of story to tell, starting with what she writes about today. We hope you all welcome her to our family! My grandparents immigrated to the UnitedRead More ...

Editor’s note: This is our last post in our Back to {Bilingual} School week. While we tend to talk a lot about younger children, this post is perfect if you have upper elementary or even older bilingual kids. We hope the variety of posts we’ve presented here this week will help make the back to school transition easier regardless of your kids’ schooling situation. Oh, don’t forget to enter the awesome giveaways we’ve put together for you… you still have time. The bus screeched toRead More ...

Editor’s note: We’re dedicating this whole week to Back to {Bilingual} School. We have a variety of posts that we hope will make the transition easier regardless of what your kids’ schooling situation is. We hope you come back all week to read the posts by our amazing guests and to enter the awesome giveaways we’ve put together for you!  Today´s post is must-read advice from a dual language program. Every Fall, monolingual parents ask me how they can support their children inRead More ...

Editor’s note: We’re dedicating this whole week to Back to {Bilingual} School. We have a variety of posts that we hope will make the transition easier regardless of what your kids’ schooling situation is. We hope you come back all week to read the posts by our amazing guests and to enter the awesome giveaways we’ve put together for you! I have always joked that I was born with a book in my hands, but this wasn’t my choice. Someone had toRead More ...