Daily Learning

This is a sponsored post from One2One Network and ICAN. All opinions stated are our own. As parents we only want the best for our babies. We know that for the first few months of their lives they are delicate little beings and we want to make sure no harm reaches them. We take time to arranged their cribs with soft blankets, bumpers or teddy bears to create a comfortable and loving environment. But what if the place where we thoughtRead More ...

We all make mistakes, right? Especially along this journey of parenthood, we know that we constantly just don’t know and we try our best every single day. There really isn’t a single parenting manual that is a one-size-fits-all or that’s customized to your particular child and/or parenting journey. But we do have each other. We have other parents that are open enough to share the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, and do it without giving orRead More ...

The U.S. does not have an official language. English certainly plays a vital role and I would be lying if I thought it wasn’t a necessary part of an individuals’ linguistic repertoire in order to succeed in this country. That being said, children at an early age pick up on the high status English carries in their everyday interactions. My nena, for example, already pegs anyone outside her home as “English-speaking.” I have very few friends and family that, inRead More ...

  I have nothing against technology when raising bilingual children. Apps, online games and movies in Spanish are a great supplement in this journey — but they’re just that, a supplement. It is a mistake to think that just sitting your child in front of the television set to watch a show in Spanish or to let them mouse around with a bilingual computer game will expose them to the kind of vocabulary needed to become proficient in the minority language.Read More ...

I’m not a huge breakfast eater — unless I go to the French bakery by my house, which is run by a couple from the south of France who moved to Denver five years ago. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but the bakery is on my way to Santiago’s preschool and so I stop in there regularly to devour freshly-baked croissants and the best baguettes I’ve ever had outside of France. But one of the other reasonsRead More ...

Handy Manny was the first to render me speechless. My twins were toddlers, and my mother-in-law had given them a Handy Manny tool box for Christmas. Awesome gift, hours of play time ensured. We ripped it open, started in with all of Manny’s tools, his martillo, his…his…. A whole set of toys were splayed before me and I didn’t know the Spanish word for any of them. El serrucho y el destornillador - somehow those words never made it into theRead More ...

When Aidan (my now 4.5 year old) was 3 years old, he decided that he was going to refuse to do anything “Chinese”. He used to lower his head and shove his hands deep into his pockets when asked to speak Chinese. He one day declared that he didn’t want to speak Chinese anymore. My son decided Chinese wasn’t cool, or hip, or relevant to anything he was interested in. Everything fun was in English, his Chinese friends all spoke EnglishRead More ...

Parents and bilingual teachers have a problem. At the beginning of a relationship, kids establish the language they want to use to communicate with an adult. Once established, it is not easy to convince the children to speak another language with them. Given this situation, what can parents and teachers who want to use two languages with the children do? One solution is to introduce the children to a puppet that only speaks the target language.  Many adults remember aRead More ...