Bilingual Fun's Spanish for Children Program

Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month
September 15- October 15

Our Bilingual Fun language program which focuses on teaching Spanish to children, celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month with cultural activities in our Spanish classes. Our students have a great time as we celebrate with fiestas, musica, comida, and more!

Test your trivia knowledge with us!

Did you know?

1.Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15, the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18.

2. 45.5 million is the estimated Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2007, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority.

3. 132.8 million is the projected Hispanic population of the United States on July 1, 2050. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 30% of the nation’s population by that date.

4.Many adopted Spanish words are food terms, such as tamale, taco, salsa, cilantro, guacamole, enchilada, oregano, and burrito. They are usually used in their original Spanish forms. Others, such as tuna, which comes from the Spanish atún, are variations of the original.

5.The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore what is now the United States, and the first to found a permanent settlement here (St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565). From Alaska's Madre de Dios Island to Mexico, Maine, the United States is dotted with Spanish place names. Others include: Las Cruces ( New Mexico)- the crosses, Boca Raton( FL)- mouth of the mouse, Los Angeles ( CA)- the angels, and Nevada- snow covered.

6. El cinco de mayo is commonly misinterpreted as Mexican Independance, but it is actually the victory of a battle in Puebla.

7.The first female Hispanic astronaut was Ellen Ochoa, whose first of four shuttle missions was in 1991.

8.Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner was Oscar Hijuelos, 1990, for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

9.Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee: Carlos Santana, 1998.

10. Geraldo Rivera was Broadcaster of the Year in 1971.

Test your cultural Spanish knowledge. Try this quiz.

Looking for more activities to do with your family or children? Try these Hispanic Heritage Resources.

Putting the FUN in Bilingual Fun

By nature, I just love to have fun. As a child I was always dancing around and loved being goofy and creative. I really enjoy playing with my own children and it is proven that playtime enriched with stimulating and educational themes is very beneficial for children.

While living in Mexico, I worked with young children in a Casa Hogar. My Spanish was decent, but certainly needed stimulating and opportunities to practice. By playing and having fun with the children, the interaction was natural and I learned so much Spanish! Using music and playing games was a large part of my own language learning experience, and I am intentional about incorporating these aspects in the our Bilingual Fun language program. My students and my own children love to sing, dance, and play hands on activities in the target language. One of my favorite activities to do with my students is to sing our ¿Cómo estás? song. We make a big deal out of using the gestures with our 'manos' and the expressions with our 'caras'. It is so funny to see the kids mimic my expressions!

Movement is an excellent way to not only stimulate young children, but by teaching to the multiple intelligences, the children are picking up the language through various methods. Our final goodbye song includes shaking our maracas ' arriba y abajo'. Parents often tell me that they children now say arriba or abajo now when they go up or down stairs.

Whether it is games, singing, creative crafts, hands on activities, or just dancing,I strive to put fun in our bilingual fun learning each day.

Feel free to share your thoughts or tips on how to keep the fun in the language learning experience.

Spanish Fun for February

As I clean glitter glue, small tin hearts,and many, many sequins off my kitchen table this week, I thought about how we incorporated some bilingual fun Spanish into our Valentines. My 2 young children don't have too many expectations for Valentine's day, but the marketing and colors we see in the stores certainly lead them to believe it has a lot to do with candy and the color red! The class set of Valentines that we are taking to both my daughter's kindergarten and my son's preschool have all been decorated and sealed. Now we are in the midst of making handmade cards for various family members.

My children's abuelita speaks Spanish, so it is customary for them to make her cards in Spanish. However this year, as we made our other Valentine crafts, we did all commands and conversation in Spanish. Common words that we used are : cortar el papel, las tijeras, los corazones, las tarjetas, escribir palabras, dibujar con marcadores, chocolate, te quiero mucho, etc. Earlier this week, we counted and sorted candy hearts by color and number in Spanish. Since chocolate is a favorite of my children and also one of their favorite Spanish songs, we sang "Chocolate" as we mixed the batter for our heart cupcakes. Lastly, my daughter and I took turn drawing ' corazones' on a piece of construction paper. Then we counted together and we had 76 corazones!

Any practice you can do at home to reinforce your child's language development is beneficial to their learning. Although my children are constantly exposed to Spanish, often times we need to take the time to make things fun!

Valentines are fun way introduce some Spanish Fun in your February! Here are some additional ideas/links to do with your children.
Crafts/Cards in Spanish.
Hear words of Love in Spanish:

If you live where there is snow ( like we do), building a snowman can be a fabulous reinforcing activity. Body parts, descriptions, and clothing offer the perfect opportunity for practicing Spanish while you freeze outside en la nieve! We made one this week on a snow day. Every day when we pull into our driveway, I ask " como esta el muñeco de nieve?' Usually they answer ' esta contento or esta bien". Fortunately for us, but unfortunate for the snowman, it started to warm up today. So, today my daughter told me ' esta muy triste y esta mal".

Any other ideas? I am always looking for additional ways to keep the language alive for my own kids in fun, creative ways.

Bilingual Storytime

One of my favorite things I do with my company Bilingual Fun, is to host free bilingual story times. We host these events in various places throughout the community; coffee shops, libraries, play centers, and bookstores. Like most parents, I love to find fun, educational activities to do with my children. Therefore, we offer an opportunity to expose your children to the Spanish language, with interactive and communicative activities. We really enjoy having new families join our story times, so that we may share our passion for teaching Spanish to children. Music, stories, puppets, dancing, and more always accompany our story time events, so that the language comes alive for the children. We offer a free bilingual story time at least once a month, and many communities offer similar programs. Check your local newspapers, libraries and community education for opportunities and events. Likewise, if you want to continue your child's exposure to the Spanish language, I have found a great interactive story time online, called StoryPlace: The Children's Digital Library. Literacy in all forms is an effective and essential part of a child's bilingual development. Allowing children to actively participate is also a beneficial way to keep their language development growing. Our most recent story time was hosted during the Grand Opening Festivities of a brand new Borders Store in Canton, MI. Kids and parents alike had a fabulous time, as we read numerous books, sang songs, and danced together!