preschool

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 ...