It’s time for our fourth SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout and we’d love for you to join us tomorrow. This time around we’re discussing bilingualism and children with special needs. For those of you who’ve never joined a Google+ Hangout, you should know that it’s just like hanging out with a bunch of friends, except that you’re not all in the same room.

WHAT: In our fourth Hangout we’ll be discussing the basics of bilingual education and dual language immersion programs as part of Google’s #SpringIntoEducation movement.

WHEN: Thursday, March. 28 at 1 p.m. EST.

WHO: Joining Ana and I will be Liza Sánchez, a bilingual education specialist and founder and board chair of Escuela Bilingüe Internacional (EBI) in Oakland, California. EBI is the first independent school in California to offer a Spanish-English dual language program, extending from pre-K through 8th grade.

Melanie McGrath the coordinator of dual immersion and transitional bilingual education programs in Southern California. She provides professional development training and assistance to parents, bilingual teachers and administrators in the areas of biliteracy development, bilingual program design and English language development. She can also be found blogging on Multilingual Mania.

There are many ways for you to be part of this Google Hangout online.

1. First of all, RSVP on the event page.

2. Add the SpanglishBaby Google+ Page to your Circles.

3. On Tuesday, March 12, starting at 1 p.m. EST, the SpanglishBaby Live Hangout will go on air and you’ll be able to watch it on the event page and on our YouTube channel.

4. The hashtag for all our SpanglishBaby Live Hangouts is #BilingualKids and you can use it on Google+, Twitter or Instagram and we’ll find you!

5. Once the Hangout is over, a recording of it will be made available for all to view, share and/or embed on the SpanglishBaby YouTube channel.

If you’d like to have your question related to raising bilingual and/or bicultural kids answered by ourselves or one of our experts, please fill out this form. If you’re interested in participating in one of our SpanglishBaby Live Google+ Hangouts, you’ll be able to let us know in the form too.

If you want to learn more about Google+ Hangouts On Air, check out this page. Feel free to leave us any questions or suggestions in the comments area below, on the event page or our Google+ page and Community!

We’re getting everything ready for our third SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout and we’d love for you to join us tomorrow. This time around we’re discussing bilingualism and children with special needs. For those of you who’ve never joined a Google+ Hangout, you should know that it’s just like hanging out with a bunch of friends, except that you’re not all in the same room.

In case you missed them, in our first Hangout we discussed dual language immersion programs and in our second one we talked about the very popular concern most parents raising bilingual children have at one point of their journey: the rebellion stage — when your kids refuse to speak to you in Spanish. Ana and I are loving how these are turning out and we’re looking forward to many more episodes to come!

WHAT: In our third Hangout we’ll be discussing whether or not it’s possible to raise bilingual children with special needs and we hope to dispel a few myths along the way.

WHEN: Tuesday, March. 12 at 1 p.m. EST.

WHO: Joining Ana and I will be Gabriela Simon-Cereijido, a bilingual speech-language pathologist at California State Universtiy, Los Angeles — and three moms of children with special needs:

Kim Lane, our regularly month contributor, who is the mother of 7-year-old twin boys, both of whom have special needs and are in full-time special education programs.

Eliana Tardio a mother of two children with Down syndrome who promotes bilingualism as a tool for stimulating learning and development in kids with special needs.

Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz whose daughter speaks in both English and Spanish and being diagnosed with autism has not stopped her from communicating in both languages. Paula is the founder of www.GrowingUpBilingual.com.

There are many ways for you to be part of this Google Hangout online.

1. First of all, RSVP on the event page.

2. Add the SpanglishBaby Google+ Page to your Circles.

3. On Tuesday, March 12, starting at 1 p.m. EST, the SpanglishBaby Live Hangout will go on air and you’ll be able to watch it on the event page and on our YouTube channel.

4. The hashtag for all our SpanglishBaby Live Hangouts is #BilingualKids and you can use it on Google+, Twitter or Instagram and we’ll find you!

5. Once the Hangout is over, a recording of it will be made available for all to view, share and/or embed on the SpanglishBaby YouTube channel.

If you’d like to have your question related to raising bilingual and/or bicultural kids answered by ourselves or one of our experts, please fill out this form. If you’re interested in participating in one of our SpanglishBaby Live Google+ Hangouts, you’ll be able to let us know in the form too.

If you want to learn more about Google+ Hangouts On Air, check out this page. Feel free to leave us any questions or suggestions in the comments area below, on the event page or our Google+ page and Community!

UPDATE

Below is the full Hangout. We learned a lot!

In our first ever SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout we discussed dual language immersion programs and it was a success. Now we’re ready for our second one! We hope you can join us tomorrow as we discuss another very popular topic for parents raising bilingual kids. For those of you who’ve never joined a Google+ Hangout, you should know that it’s just like hanging out with a bunch of friends, except that you’re not all in the same room.

WHAT: In our second Hangout we’ll be talking about the infamous “bilingual rebellion” stage. From why bilingual kids go through this to what you can do if your children refuse to speak Spanish (or their minority language), we’ll share anecdotes, tips and take questions from you.

WHEN: Our second Hangout will be Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 1 p.m. EST.

WHO: Joining Ana and I will be Jeannette Kaplun a recognized journalist, mom of two bilingual kids and founder of Hispana Global. She was also the founder of TodoBebe.com and a co-host of the Emmy-nominated Univision show, ¡Viva la Familia!

We’ll also be hanging with Jennifer Manriquez, a bilingual educator, mom and founder of Bilingual Fun.

HOW: If you’d like to have your question related to raising bilingual and/or bicultural kids answered by ourselves or one of our experts, please fill out this form. If you’re interested in participating in one of our SpanglishBaby Live Google+ Hangouts, you’ll be able to let us know in the form too.

There are many ways for you to be part of this Google Hangout online.

1. First of all, RSVP on the event page.

2. Add the SpanglishBaby Google+ Page to your Circles.

3. On Tuesday, Feb. 26, starting at 1 p.m. EST, the SpanglishBaby Live Hangout will go on air and you’ll be able to watch it on the event page, here on SpanglishBaby and on our YouTube channel.

4. The hashtag for all our SpanglishBaby Live Hangouts is #BilingualKids and you can use it on Google+, Twitter or Instagram and we’ll find you!

5. Once the Hangout is over, a recording of it will be made available for all to view, share and/or embed on the SpanglishBaby YouTube channel.

That’s it! If you want to learn more about Google+ Hangouts On Air, check out this page. Feel free to leave us any questions or suggestions in the comments area below, on the event page or our Google+ page and Community!

We did our very first Google+ Hangout yesterday and we’re super happy with the results. It felt great to just be able to hang out with a group of moms — including our expert — talking about a topic we’re so passionate about and that we’ve invested in so much.

For our fist session of SpanglishBaby LIVE, we tackled the always popular subject of dual language immersion programs. And there was so much to talk about! From the many DL options available to why you have to be willing to take a leap of faith if you want your child in one of these programs, we spent a good half an hour talking about this type of education.

First off, we’d like to thank our amazing guests for joining us in our first Hangout:

Simona Montanari, PhD, Associate Professor in the Dept. of Child & Family at California State University Los Angeles, specialist in first and second language acquisition in childhood. Simona has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of the Italian immersion program at Franklin Elementary, Glendale Unified School District.

Xochitl is one of our contributors and manager of  SpanglishBaby Playground. Her son is in a DL program in Berkeley where she has volunteered for the last four years and is part of a group of parents and teachers who successfully achieved the consolidation of all the DL programs in Berkeley into one school which will start in 2014!

Rebecca Bernard is the Chief Cultivator of TheCulturedSeed.com, a digital resource for parents that value cultural enrichment and want to grow globally-minded children. She’s also a founding parent of a new Spanish-immersion charter school that will open next year.

Although I feel like I’ve written and researched this subject a lot, I can’t believe I learned so much from this conversation. The two topics that caught my attention the most were standarized tests for kids in DL programs and what happens when a child goes to a DL elementary school, but there’s no such thing at the middle and high school level. You can watch the entire conversation here:

I hope you can take the time to watch it because I promise you’ll learn something new. And be on the lookout for the announcement of our next session of SpanglishBaby LIVE. We plan to discuss another popular subject: how to deal with the bilingual rebellion stage.

February is a great month not only because I get to celebrate another year of life, but because it also marks SpanglishBaby’s anniversary. We’re on our fourth year now and in our constant effort to offer even more resources for parents raising bilingual and bicultural children, we’re super excited to announce our very first SpanglishBaby Live Google+ Hangout.

WHAT: An opportunity for you to ask questions and discuss topics on bilingualism LIVE with Ana, myself and one of many experts on bilingualism, including many who contribute to our Ask an Expert series, on a biweekly basis. If you’ve never joined a Google+ Hangout, let me explain that it’s just like hanging out with a bunch of friends except that you’re not all in the same room.

WHEN: Our very first Hangout will be taking place next Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 1:00pm EST.

WHO: We’re super happy that the first expert joining us is also the very first expert who agreed to work with us for our Ask an Expert series: Simona Montari, PhD. Simona is an Assistant Professor of Child and Family Studies at California State University in Los Angeles. She is the department’s expert in early multilingual development and has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Southern California. Simona is Italian and she’s also a mommy to trilingual daughters aged 3 and 4 1/2. In addition, she conducts a workshop titled: “How to Raise a Bilingual Child” in the Los Angeles area.

In our first Hangout On Air, Simona, Ana, myself and other special guests will be discussing the very popular topic of dual language immersion schools and what parents can do to make these programs a reality in their communities.

HOW: If you’d like to have your question related to raising bilingual and/or bicultural kids answered by ourselves or one of our experts, please fill out this form. If you’re interested in participating in one of our SpanglishBaby Live Google+ Hangouts, you’ll be able to let us know in the form too.

There are many ways for you to be part of this Google Hangout online.

1. First of all, RSVP on the event page.

2. Add the SpanglishBaby Google+ Page to your Circles.

3. On Tuesday, Feb. 12, starting at 1:00pm EST the SpanglishBaby Live Hangout will go on air and you’ll be able to watch it on the event page, here on SpanglishBaby and on our YouTube channel.

4. The hashtag for all our SpanglishBaby Live Hangouts is #BilingualKids and you can use it on Google+, Twitter or Instagram and we’ll find you!

5. Once the Hangout is over, a recording of it will be made available for all to view, share and/or embed on the SpanglishBaby YouTube channel.

That’s it! If you want to learn more about Google+ Hangouts On Air, check out this page. Feel free to leave us any questions or suggestions in the comments area below, on the event page or our Google+ page and Community!