photo by: timsamoff

Raising bilingual children in the United States can be challenging, but having a plan in place, significantly increases your chance for success. If you are not lucky enough to have a bilingual school to support you, creativity and effort are necessary to help your child acquire Spanish.

In my head there was always an informal idea on how I would raise my children to speak Spanish, but now that they are in preschool, I am re-evaluating my action plan. To make sure the boys continue to speak Spanish I am addressing how, when and where they will be hearing and speaking Spanish to be sure that there is enough time spent in the language. In order to reach our language goal, I have decided to use a variety of different contexts and strategies to help them become bilingual.

Spanish Speaking Playgroup

I joined my Spanish speaking playgroup when my now 4-year-old was only six months. Through the years, my sons and I have made some great friends. I think the power of the playgroup comes from the joint goal of the moms to provide our children with the gift of a second language. The kids are exposed to Spanish from many different people and a variety of different situations. They hear the moms speaking Spanish, and they play with their friends in Spanish. Now that the children are getting older, we are trying to incorporate some more structured activities to expose them to Spanish by doing art projects, singing and dancing to music, reading and discussing the stories in Spanish, and of course we always make time to just play.

Media

My husband speaks to our boys only in German, and I use Spanish with them. To support our linguistic endeavors, I only let my sons watch TV and movies in Spanish or German. They are still young enough that this has not yet been an issue; rather they are just thrilled when I let them watch a program. Fortunately many movies have a Spanish language tract, and there are quality children’s programs in Spanish on TV too. The internet has also been another great resource to find programs in other languages.

Spanish Classes

I currently take my sons to a Spanish for Spanish speakers class. The teacher is wonderful, and they love to go. The class is taught completely in Spanish. Having been unsuccessful at finding a bilingual preschool in my area, I am happy to have found a structured class that builds on many of the literacy skills they are learning. As they get older, I am hoping to keep them in Spanish classes. If I am unable to find classes that meet our needs, I will teach them to read and write on my own. I know it will be a challenge, but I hope to make learning a fun and enriching experience for all of us.

Religion Classes

When I was young, I attended catechism classes, and I am raising my children Catholic too. Fortunately our church offers religious education classes in Spanish, and I plan on enrolling my children in them when they are in first grade. I plan to be a volunteer too, so that I can help organize even more events and religious celebrations in Spanish.

Books/Music

I read to the kids in Spanish every day, and we always listen to children’s music in Spanish. When they get older, and even when they are reading on their own, I still plan to read to them or have them read to me. I have many happy memories of my mother reading to me and my siblings, and I want to create those memories with my own children. Reading together does not have to end when your child learns to read, rather it can evolve into an activity that the whole family can enjoy.

We listen to a lot of children’s music in Spanish, and when they are older, I also plan on introducing my sons to popular Spanish music. I often use music in my classroom and was pleasantly surprised this year when the students asked me to bring my iPod to the movie night I was chaperoning. They liked the music from class so much, that they even listen to it in their free time.

Vacations

Our trip to Peru last summer did wonders for the Spanish of everyone in the family. My husband and I are hoping to take a trip to immerse the children in one of their languages every summer. We want to stay with home-stay families instead of in hotels, take Spanish classes, become a part of the local community, actually experiencing the culture of the country we are visiting. There is really no better way to improve language skills than to be immersed in the country and its culture.

I know that it will at times be challenging to raise my children in Spanish, but I love the language. I am convinced that my motivation, and by having a plan in place, we will succeed. I am sure that my strategies will adapt and change as the kids grow, but by having a plan in place, we will reach our bilingual goal.

We will always jump at the chance to be invited to talk about our favorite topic of all times:  Raising bilingual and bicultural kids and the rewards and challenges that come with it.

One of our constant partners and promoters is Vme TV.  We have been organically writing about Vme ever since we launched, even before they believed enough in us and you to sponsor SpanglishBaby, because we´ve always believed they have the best free educational programming for Spanish-speaking kids.

One of their most popular shows is TuBebé, hosted by Minerva, Venezuelan mom of a 2 YO boy being raised in Miami. TuBebé covers topics concerning pregnancy, maternity and babies. The producers called me to set up an interview via Skype since I´m in L.A. and their studios are in Miami.  It was the first time they were doing this, so it was a great experiment for all of us.

As you can tell in the video, I had a great time talking to Minerva and totally forgot this was going to be broadcast to hundreds of thousands of viewers!  Her and I just got chit-chatty about our kids, their Spanish, las familias and everything the SpanglishBaby community is about.

Hope you enjoy it!

Disclosure:  Although Vme is a SpanglishBaby sponsor, this is not a sponsored post or part of an advertisement commitment.

Photo by Tinkrbrad

Some months ago I wrote a post featuring 9 handpicked apps for bilingual children; it has since become one of our most popular and shared posts.  Since then, more and more great educational apps for children have been created and we realized we needed to share our finds more consistently.  So, we’re starting a new monthly series where we’ll showcase a few of those educational apps we feel you will enjoy.  This time they are all iTunes based, but we plan on including Android apps as soon as we get our hands on some. (Update:  Android Apps for Bilingual Children post by contributor Susan Stephan.)  Problem is both Roxana and I only have iPhones, so we’ll need to figure out how to review the Android apps.

I also recently was presented with the results of a study commissioned by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and PBS KIDS Raising Readers, through an initiative funded by a Ready to Learn grant and the United States Department of Education that investigated young children’s usage and learning with mobile devices and apps.

The study concludes that some of the implications for the use of mobile media in education are:

1.  Optimize children’s time with mobile devices.

2.  Use mobile devices as supplemental tools.

3.  Surround children with high-quality educational resources. There’s definitely a “mobile media revolution” spreading around the globe, and our children are directly impacted by it.  I always prefer to embrace technology and understand it so I know how it affects my daughter and how we can use it effectively.  That’s the reason why I choose educational apps that she enjoys and that can help advance her learning.

3 Educational Apps We Recommend

1.  PBS Kids has been leading the way with a series of educational apps for the iPhone, iTouch and iPad based on some of their most popular shows. At 3, my girl is still a bit behind when it comes to letter-recognition and alphabet skills and I’ve found that watching Super Why! on PBS Kids, and playing with the app on my phone, has helped her advance in that area.  Since there’s nothing like Super Why! available in Spanish media–where kids can learn the super powers of words, reading and letters–we actually encourage her to watch this in English. With the Super Why! app, kids will play with their superheroes Alpha Pig, Princess Presto, and Wonder Red and “come to the rescue in four unique games using special powers such as alphabet skills, rhyming, spelling, comprehension and vocabulary.”

Download the SUPER WHY! app on the iTunes Store. 2.  Dinosaur Train is another popular PBS Kids series that promotes science and math skills for pre-schoolers through the adventures of a lovely family of dinosaurs.  The new app, DINOSAUR TRAIN Eggspress! complements the show’s educational objectives, while guiding children through three prehistoric eras and various exciting games including a Dinosaur egg hunt. Camila has seen the show a handful of times, but was really interested in the app because this week she’s learning about dinosaurs at pre-school and she’s been going around the house singing “Dinosaurs are really, really big.”  The apps skill level is just right for her age, recommended for 2-5 year olds.

The app is available from the App Store on iPhone and iPod Touch for just $2.99.

Recently released where Disney Channel’s first ever apps for preschoolers “Handy Manny’s Workshop” and “Flicker’s Flashcard Fiesta.” 3.  We actually downloaded  Handy Manny’s Workshop app on Papá’s iPad and the experience feels very dynamic.  The delightful animations, professional narration from the cast of the hit television series, cool sound effects, and all the “Handy Manny” characters will captivate preschoolers.  The app is made up of 5 different zones where your child can choose to play with puzzles, coloring pages, a memory matching game, a search activity and a sing-a-long video. The Handy Manny Workshop app is available for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch for $2.99 from the App Store.

4.  Handy Manny Flicker’s Flashcard Fiesta app promotes language acquisition in Spanish and English for preschoolers, a personal fave of mine!  When you launch the app you will have the option to touch either the “Learn Spanish” or the “Learn English” button and then be taken to an immersion-experience with two interactive activities to choose from:  Word Bench Game and Flashcard Fiesta, with six categories of colorful flashcards to choose from.  This app is ideal for the bilingual child that is learning that every object has two names and to immerse them in both languages with one very fun game.

Handy Manny Flicker’s Flashcard Fiesta app is available for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch for $2.99 at the App Store.

If you would like to check out these apps yourself, leave us a comment telling us which one you want to try out first and why.  We’ll give away four of the Disney Channel apps and two of the PBS Kids  apps to randomly selected winners.

Disclosure:  We received codes to download the apps for free in order to write the review.  All opinions are my own.

Photo credit: Hitchster

While some of you might have read these articles from the links we recently posted on our Facebook page or tweeted about from our Twitter account, I figured that, in case you missed it, it’d be nice to compile the latest media content regarding bilingualism in just one post. So if you didn’t get to read any of these, here’s your chance to find out what the latest studies say about bilingualism. (Hint: we’re on the right track!)

From The Wall Street Journal: Do Bilingual Preschools Make for Smarter Kids? and Building a More Resilient Brain

From BCC News: ‘Mum and dad made me multi-task better‘

From The Los Angeles Times: Can Bilingualism Improve Brain Power?

While I was putting this list together, I kept clicking on links that took me to even more articles about bilingualism which I thought would be a great read (or listen) for SpanglishBaby followers, so I decided to include them:

From The Wall Street Journal: Chinese on Menu for Elementay Kids and Parents Debate the Rise of Mandarin at Elementary Schools

From PRI’s The World: Learning in Two Language (this includes a very well done report on English Language Learners) and really any other article/podcast from The World in Words

Don’t forget to check out the comments left on these articles and, if you’re up to it, maybe you can even leave your own and hopefully we can help spread the word about the awesome benefits of bilingualism.

Also, if you come across any article, podcast, video, story, or research regarding language and bilingualism, we hope you’ll share it with the rest of us, (via FB, Twitter, email, comment, forum) as we can all benefit from learning more about this topic we’re all so passionate about .

I admit I tend to get a bit nostalgic when it comes to sharing Spanish-language music with Camila. I rely a lot on the classics I grew up singing during my childhood in El Salvador. One of those songs is La Gallina Turuleca. Now Camila can learn the song while watching the animated video we found from the Spanish clown, Miliki-member of the famous clown act Gaby, Fofo y Miliki.

I can’t remember seeing any other gallina with so much personality! She dances, prances and lays dancing eggs on stage. Click here for they lyrics to sing along and teach your little ones to count eggs from one to ten in Spanish with La Gallina Turuleca.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvoXw5llbTo

Have you found any videos of children’s songs in Spanish that make you nostalgic? Mind sharing the link with all of us?

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