Taking Control of My Life with Bilingual Fun

My family and I really try to live up to the title of our business. We are bilingual and we love to have fun. But I do have to say, the life with young children and running a business definitely takes a toll on our ' fun' factor. I have learned a few things about being a stay at home mom/work at home mom/entreprenuer. It is hard work!!! I have also learned that sometimes while in these roles, you don't often have spontaneous, exciting, opportunities. Well, luck fell in my lap last week in the form of Good Morning America's Take Control of your Life Tour!

GMA made a stop in our hometown and Tory Johnson did her usual motivating segment about finding and sustaining work in today's society. I met inspiring women and had the opportunity to share my story with many interested parents. I got up way before dawn, drove throuth the dark city and joined an exciting group of people for a live TV segment. It was a huge pick me up from my day to day grind. Additionally I had the fantastic opportunity to be interviewed so that I could share my passion about The Bilingual Fun Company and why I think it is so important to expose young children to languages. Here is the video clip if you want to take a peek. Click here.

So, now that my 3 minutes of TV interview is over, I am back to having fun with my bilingual children and students. I am such an advocate for teaching our society's children to speak multiple languages, and I am so excited and motivated when I get parent feedback about their interest and drive as well. Even if it is for a very short time, exposure and repetition help tremendously for the young learner.

Bilingual Fun and Charades

Who doesn't love a good round of Charades? I remember as a child, this was often a favorite wintertime game for the family. We would gather in front of the fire and act out silly things. My 5 year old received a kids version of Charades for Christmas this year. As always, we are looking for ways to make our children's bilingual development fun and natural. So after one round of English, we made a new rule: Spanish only.

Both my 3 yr old and 5 yr old had a blast! Using actions to reinforce language is a common technique I use in my language program. Otherwise referred to as TPR ( total physical response), you teach actions and movements that are associated with words or phrases in Spanish. When children are actively participating in the language learning, vocabulary is often absorbed more easily. My daughter picked out the cards, which had pictures only on them and acted them out. I guessed in Spanish, and this was an excellent reinforcement for her comprehsion. Then we switched and I acted out the words, and she had to make the guesses. Again, producing the words in the target language is more difficult, but she was able to do it with ease. Then my 3 yr old was able to act some out as well. We guessed in Spanish and he was able to tell us if we were right or wrong, showing his grasp of the language comphrension.

Charades for children is a perfect way to keep the language learning fun and relevant to their lives. The words we acted out were things that are common in their little worlds, such as truck, ball, dancing, ice cream, jumping rope, etc. Even if your child doesn't not have fluency in the language, they should be able to recognize and produce simple words and phrases with this game. It is good practice for the parents too!
This is going to be our new evening activity when we need some action and bilingual fun!

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.

Spanish Story Time

By Bilingual Dad ( husband of Maestra Jen)

"Make sure you take him to the restroom”, my wife reminded me as she walked out the door to enjoy a few, very much needed hours free of her mom/teacher job. I was confident I had it under control and I was sure he would let me know when he needs to go. It is a never ending process of chaos and drama, as we are both diligent and frustrated with the potty training process of our precocious, stubborn, 3 year old son! We were busy playing and having a great time ( of course, I had forgotton to take him to the restroom). Well, my wife was right as usual. Here I was running to the bathroom with toddler in tow scrambling to reach the toilet in time! All the while, my son is squirming, whining and just being a generally uncooperative.

Suddenly I found myself in one of those teachable moments, as I think to myself, “Would this be a good time to practice Spanish story time”? Well fortunately, we had a copy of Como aprenden los colores los dinosaurios, which is a pretty cool story about dinosaurs. I immediately got my son’s attention and he actually listened intently to the entire book. He even asked me to read it again. Of course the second reading included a few questions en español to reinforce the vocabulary and story line. We even had enough time to read another favorite libro en español, Tortillitas para Mamá.

We are making huge strides in potty training my son to the delight of my wife who spends most of her day with him, while simultaneously running a business. However, this is not the purpose of this blog. So, aside from providing a couple of potty training tricks, the real moral of the story is capitalizing on the many opportunities we have throughout the day to reinforce and practice Spanish. It is easy to forget but extremely important as repetition and frequent (almost constant) exposure is extremely important in raising bilingual children. We have many other times that we have Spanish story time with our children (besides during potty training); such as bedtime, on road trips, plane trips, afternoon quiet time and when my daughter pretends she is the Spanish teacher. We like to make learning fun and relevant to their lives. As parents raising our kids in a bilingual household, we try to take advantage of every teachable moment regardless of the setting!

Bilingual Fun: Idea Exchange

Bilingual Fun: Idea Exchange

Idea Exchange

Learning languages is more exciting and effective for children when games and interactive activities are incorporated. As a teacher, I have always been of the mindset that sharing and exhanging teaching tips makes things fresh and exciting. When I come up with a new lesson or game that is effective, I can't wait to tell others about it!

In the language program that I run, I create and implement all of the lessons and activities for the students ranging in age from 18 months to adults. They cover a multitude of topics and themes, and I am always creating and searching for other fun ways to teach the language. Here are some of my favorite activities that work well in class and at home with my own children:

1. Colored Mats/Dancing: I use the mats from the CandyLand DVD game and play upbeat music. When the music stops, we all run to a colored mat. I ask " Qué color?". The kids all shout the color in Spanish. We do variations of dancing, marching, jumping, spinning, running, crawling,etc.

2. Duck, Duck, Goose: I choose 2 vocabulary words pertaining to our current theme. ( ex: perro/gato). The kids play the game using the Spanish vocabulary rather than the original. This is a great way to get the kids active and actually say the words aloud.

3. Latin Pop Music: this works best with tweens-adults. I choose a popular song from a popular artist ( some of my faves are Juanes, Ricky Martin, Shakira, Gloria Estefan, Elvis Crespo, etc). I make copies of the song and we listen and sing it each day. We talk about relevent grammar and vocabulary. At the end of the week, I white out specific words in the song and test the students by having them fill in the blanks. Not only is this an excellent reinforcement of pronunciation, fluency, and listening comprehension, it is a great way to infuse some culture into the lesson.

4. The Cup Game: take 5 or 6 plain white plastic cups. Depending on the vocabulary you want to reinforce, attach either a picture or word to each cup ( animals, numbers, colors, etc). Turn all cups face down and hide a small object under one. Kids then have to guess where the object is. I always make a big deal of having all of the students ask the question " Dónde está el carro?". Then each child takes turns and has to guess by using the correct Spanish word on each cup. I use variations of this game for all ages and levels.

These are just a few fun ideas that have been popular with the children and teens that I work with. We would love to hear your input and experiences! Do you have any games or ideas that work well with your children at home?

Bilingual Fun Parent Quiz

Whether you are a bilingual parent already, or you are learning alongside your child, take our quiz to test your knowledge.

Expressions:

1. How would you respond to ¿Cómo estas?
a. gracias b. estoy bien c. estas bien

2.If you were hungry, what expression would you use?
a. tengo frio b. tengo sed c. tengo hambre

3. Another way of expressing 'adios' is:
a. nos vemos b. de nada c. buenos dias

Grammar:

4. Mis amigos __________ altos.
a. es b. somos c. son

5. Te gusta el chocolate? Si,____________
a. me gusta b. me gustas c. me gustan

6. Ayer, nosotros _________ a la escuela.
a. vamos b. fui c. fuimos

Culture

7. What is the capital of Spain?
a. Barcelona b. Madrid c. Valencia

8. Vicente Fox is the former president of which country?
a. Mexico b. Peru c. Argentina

9. What does 5 de Mayo commemorate?
a. Mexican Independence b. Spanish Independence c. Victory at the battle of Puebla.

10. In Spanish grammar, is it correct to capitalize the names of the week?
a. si b. no

Answers/ Las Respuestas
1.b 2. c 3. a 4. c 5.a 6.c 7.a 8.a 9.c 10.b

How did you do? If you are an advanced speaker, was that too easy for you? Let us know if you have questions about anything regarding learning Spanish. Would you like additional practices or do you have comments about how you and your child are learning? We would love to hear from you!