Preschool Spanish?

[smokeylo]

Hello,

I've recently made some big life changes and it's likely that I will be mostly at home with my daughters -- ages 4 and 2 -- next year. This is a good thing. I know my 4 year old is itching to learn, but we aren't sure if preschool will be an option for us (my schedule is subject to change, so it's hard to commit to a set school schedule), and I'd like to do some at-home preschooling for both of them. Both of my girls are really excited to use Spanish words and I'd like to continue and do this with more focus. Are there any resources/materials for teaching Spanish to small children, especially if you don't know Spanish yourself? Anyone ever done this?

Thanks!

[dogmom327]

Subbing. My kids are 4.5 and 2.5 and we would like to all learn Spanish this year. We may be moving to Texas this fall so besides it being an important language to know anyway, it might be about to become extremely useful.

DH and I are likely going to end up using Fluenz or Rosetta Stone to get the basics but I know our kids are too young for that method. Eventually I'd like to find someone who can come to our home an hour or two a week and practice with us (turns out there are plenty of people and it was way cheaper than I was thinking).

[greenemami]

I am hoping to use Sonrisas Spanish school:  http://www.sonrisasspanishschool.com/ next year for my 5-year-old, but I think it could be easily adapted for younger kids as well. I do know Spanish fairly well (not fluent) though, so you'd have to take a look at the sample lesson to see if you thought you could manage it-I think you could so long as you could find a source to make sure you are getting the pronunciation correct :)

I wanted something interactive instead of just a computer program/dvd or worksheets, and this fits the bill with lots of songs and crafts, games, etc. I'd love to just be able to tailor a Spanish lesson to whatever our main lesson is, but alas I am not there yet in terms of organization, so I think I will try this if we can get together the cash-it is a little pricey!

Good luck, I"ll keep an eye on this thread in case anyone else has any good recommendations!

[mrsmischief]

I have used Rosetta Stone to learn Korean together with my daughter. We just began Spanish RS at the beginning on this year. To supplement RS I use/d Tuttle flashcards,Teach Me Everyday series song CDs, and also regular picture books in the respective languages. I also occasionally hired a local university student who is fluent in Korean to have conversations with us (real life immersion) and will be doing the same with Spanish. Spanish has proven to be far easier to learn than Korean using all of these resources and I'd recommend all to anybody who wants to learn a new language themselves and/or teach their children. 

For my own benefit I watched movies, cartoons, and television programs online to be sure my understanding of the language was good and I wasn't goofing up my daughter's learning. 

[flightgoddess]

My 3 yr old LOVES little pim videos. You can turn on the subtitles for yourself as you don't know any spanish yet. Ther is repetition of words/concepts, and then a mini review/recap after the 'episode' and each disk has multiple episodes. And the disk will sometimes reuse images/words/concepts from other disks and add/build on them. There is no english  (except for reading the subtitles) and it is constructed in a way for pre-literate kids to grasp concepts easily.

I found them at my public library too.

Also, at the public library, you could request books on tape/cd to listen to, then read the story and listen to it in spanish.

For music cds, I like Jose Luis Orozco

[xekomaya]

We are just getting started with French in our home.  I really want the kids to be raised bilingual (actually trilingual - going to add Italian in a couple years) but my husband and I both have pretty terrible French. We were told how impossible it would be without being fluent speakers that we (I) totally gave up. Recently, however I have been renewed and seen lots of examples of families learning languages together successfully.

Here are some general ideas I found:

*Learn Spanish yourself as quickly and efficiently as possible. The FSI courses are available free online and will take you far. fsi-language-courses.org  Many people can't take the dry drills but they suit my personality and the amount of time I have available. Assimil also has a good course that is only ~30$.. Your library might also have good resources. You will make a lot of progress in 12-18 months if you keep at it every day.

* Use Anki or another smart flash card system. Use it especially to learn all the nouns around your house as well as the topics of picture books. Teaching kids requires a different vocab set than you will find in most adult courses - the name for all the farm animals for example

*Shoot for an hour of language every day. It is hard in the beginning but try to increase in quantity and quality as you get more comfortable. 

* Try to set a time to converse in Spanish. Bath time is a popular recommendation because you can learn the necessary sentences "Take off your clothes, get in the tub, wash your hair, etc" and keep improving with different tub games. 

*And then the obvious - try to expose your kids to a much Spanish as possible - native speakers, Spanish speaking kids, media from Dora to the Spanish channels to switching to the Spanish language track on their favorite dvds.

[dogmom327]

Originally Posted by xekomaya 

We are just getting started with French in our home.  I really want the kids to be raised bilingual (actually trilingual - going to add Italian in a couple years) but my husband and I both have pretty terrible French. We were told how impossible it would be without being fluent speakers that we (I) totally gave up. Recently, however I have been renewed and seen lots of examples of families learning languages together successfully.

Here are some general ideas I found:

*Learn Spanish yourself as quickly and efficiently as possible. The FSI courses are available free online and will take you far. fsi-language-courses.org  Many people can't take the dry drills but they suit my personality and the amount of time I have available. Assimil also has a good course that is only ~30$.. Your library might also have good resources. You will make a lot of progress in 12-18 months if you keep at it every day.

* Use Anki or another smart flash card system. Use it especially to learn all the nouns around your house as well as the topics of picture books. Teaching kids requires a different vocab set than you will find in most adult courses - the name for all the farm animals for example

*Shoot for an hour of language every day. It is hard in the beginning but try to increase in quantity and quality as you get more comfortable. 

* Try to set a time to converse in Spanish. Bath time is a popular recommendation because you can learn the necessary sentences "Take off your clothes, get in the tub, wash your hair, etc" and keep improving with different tub games. 

*And then the obvious - try to expose your kids to a much Spanish as possible - native speakers, Spanish speaking kids, media from Dora to the Spanish channels to switching to the Spanish language track on their favorite dvds.

Awesome ideas! I just found this. Doesn't seem to work on a smart phone but still pretty good: http://spanishflashcards.tripod.com/

[smokeylo]

Thank you for all these tips, I don't know why I didn't think about the public library as a source for language learning. I'll definitely be looking into that.

I did figure out that Nick Jr Boost has games that focus on Spanish, if that's something people are interested in. The games are ok, about the same as PBS kids games, but you do pay a monthly fee.

[Seana]

Gato Y Perro on HBO is MUCH better than Dora, IMO. We watch it on YouTube. If you have an iPad, there are some decent Spanish-learning apps, as well.