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Hola,

I am a native English speaking mother of 4 (almost 5) children.  I learned to speak Spanish while living in Guatemala for 1 1/2 years.  My husband is a native English speaker who learned to speak Spanish (well, Castellano) in Argentina.

In the past we tried to only speak Spanish, but failed miserably.  Recently we have started to introduce Spanish to our children, again.  However this time we are doing Spanish Lessons that I prepare and teach the children.  For a little while I had a Spanish Speaking teenager come and play with the kids, but it didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

We are actually having a lot of success with our children learning Spanish, just through our lessons.  During the lesson time I only speak Spanish (unless they become completely frustrated, then I quickly explain in English what is going on.) Then during the week I try to reinforce the lessons that we have already taught.  One of my proudest moments was listening to my 8 year old daughter translate a Spanish tape, that we listen to in the car, to her friend.  Until that point, I didn't really understand how much she had already learned.

I post our lessons on our blog at http://www.saturdayspanish.blogspot.com

We are about to incorporate our dinner time conversations to be only in Spanish.  I have been very nervous about this, but I would like to see them use their new language in an everyday setting.  But after reading about other people's success, I am getting excited for this next step. 

I am very happy to find this site!  I don't know anyone else who is trying to raise their children bilingual, and it is nice to see just how many people are out in "Cyberland."