When my daughter Vanessa was born in July 2006, we decided to raise her bilingual even though I knew little about bilingualism except that I grew up with two languages and it was the best gift my parents gave me. By the time SpanglishBaby was launched, Vanessa was 2 1/2 years old and all she spoke was Spanish. We were using the mL@H method — meaning that we spoke Spanish (the minority language) at home — and since I stayedRead More ...
My son Enzo recently started day care. Because I was afraid that full time day care or nursery school would introduce too much English too soon, I decided to go with a part time program. I feel I’ve made the right decision because It’s only been about a month and he already throws around English words in our conversations. I do not act surprised or scold, I simply say, “¿quieres decir _____? ” and insert the word in Spanish. HeRead More ...
Recently my husband and I decided to go through the process of trying to get our daughter enrolled in a prestigious and private dual language school in our city. I honestly did not imagine having to go through what seems like a rigorous process this early on in her academic trajectory. She is almost three, which means she qualifies for the primary school grade classrooms. We learned that there were a limited of spots (~30) with over 125 applicants! WeRead More ...
You may remember I recently made the decision to send my 3 1/2-year-old-son to preschool full-time. Up until January, Santiago had only gone to his all-English preschool three times a week starting last fall. The rest of the time — and prior to him going to preschool — he had been staying home with a Spanish-speaking nanny. Needless to say, Spanish is his first language… but things are starting to change. When I reluctantly made the choice to send himRead More ...
Lately, I have seen posts by our SpanglishBaby familia about whether or not a Spanish immersion program is the right fit for their child. Well, interestingly, it is a topic that has been something my little familia has also been debating. Even before I had Sabrina I was scoping out our foreign language schools options. I got on several waiting lists and eventually got into all of them! In fact, I keep my nena on a rolling waiting list becauseRead More ...
Ana
Roxana
We are two Latina moms – best friends since college – who are extremely passionate about ensuring our children not only speak both our languages, English and Español, but that they also grow up proud of both their cultures, Latino and American. Over three years ago we realized there's was a lack of information available for parents raising bilingual + bicultural children, so using our background in media, we launched SpanglishBaby.
