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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Who Incorporates Spanish? Do You Use A Program?
SunflowerMama 09:02 AM 08-12-2013
So I'm starting to transition my daycare a bit to be a little more curriculum heavy and preschool oriented. I'm even considering transitioning completely from full-time care to a MDO 8a-2pm program in the Fall of 2014.

My kids are all 2-4 so I'm thinking about incorporating some Spanish a couple of days a week. The only problem is that I don't know a lick of Spanish myself. The preschool program I use has a Spanish word or 2 each month but I'd love to supplement that quite a bit.

So if you incorporate Spanish lessons into your program do you use any sort of online assistance or DVDs, etc.?
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MarinaVanessa 09:28 AM 08-12-2013
Originally Posted by SunflowerMama:
So I'm starting to transition my daycare a bit to be a little more curriculum heavy and preschool oriented. I'm even considering transitioning completely from full-time care to a MDO 8a-2pm program in the Fall of 2014.

My kids are all 2-4 so I'm thinking about incorporating some Spanish a couple of days a week. The only problem is that I don't know a lick of Spanish myself. The preschool program I use has a Spanish word or 2 each month but I'd love to supplement that quite a bit.

So if you incorporate Spanish lessons into your program do you use any sort of online assistance or DVDs, etc.?
I incorporate it but I am fluent in Spanish (it was my first language) and I don't use DVD's or flashcards so I'm not aware of anything of that sort that you can use. If you decide to try to introduce simple ASL (american Sign Language) as well (which is great for your non-talkers) you can use Signing Time Videos (my daycare kids love it) along with some flashcards to learn a few words in ASL (I like the Baby Signs flashcards) and then also teach the word in Spanish.

This is what I do. I take a word in ASL to introduce beginning with words that are most relative to them at daycare (eat, hungry, drink, water, milk, poop, sleep etc) and we sign them as I say the word in English first and then in Spanish. If you don't know how to pronounce the word in Spanish you can look it up in Google Translate, most words that you type in have a playback button that says the word for you.

I would also try to get audio books that are both in Spanish and in English like Hello Ocean, Hola Mar which you can also just watch on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BvgikW_zU. You can find audiobooks that are relative to your theme/curriculum and then take particular words to focus on.

Here are our other favorite English/Spanish books:
Before You Were Here, Mi Amor
The Moon is La Luna: Silly Rhymes in English and Spanish
Abuela (English Edition with Spanish Phrases)
The Iguana Brothers, a Tale of Two Lizards
Paco and the Giant Chile Plant (like Jack and the beanstalk)
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SunflowerMama 10:30 AM 08-12-2013
Originally Posted by MarinaVanessa:
I incorporate it but I am fluent in Spanish (it was my first language) and I don't use DVD's or flashcards so I'm not aware of anything of that sort that you can use. If you decide to try to introduce simple ASL (american Sign Language) as well (which is great for your non-talkers) you can use Signing Time Videos (my daycare kids love it) along with some flashcards to learn a few words in ASL (I like the Baby Signs flashcards) and then also teach the word in Spanish.

This is what I do. I take a word in ASL to introduce beginning with words that are most relative to them at daycare (eat, hungry, drink, water, milk, poop, sleep etc) and we sign them as I say the word in English first and then in Spanish. If you don't know how to pronounce the word in Spanish you can look it up in Google Translate, most words that you type in have a playback button that says the word for you.

I would also try to get audio books that are both in Spanish and in English like Hello Ocean, Hola Mar which you can also just watch on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BvgikW_zU. You can find audiobooks that are relative to your theme/curriculum and then take particular words to focus on.

Here are our other favorite English/Spanish books:
Before You Were Here, Mi Amor
The Moon is La Luna: Silly Rhymes in English and Spanish
Abuela (English Edition with Spanish Phrases)
The Iguana Brothers, a Tale of Two Lizards
Paco and the Giant Chile Plant (like Jack and the beanstalk)
That's a great idea! We already do Baby Signing Time and Signing Time so that would be a great way to incorporate some Spanish vocab words. I will definitely try that and maybe also look up day of the week month of the year Spanish songs that we could incorporate into our circle time songs.
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Blackcat31 10:34 AM 08-12-2013
Sometimes I leave the closed captioning on Spanish when they watch a movie/TV.

Does that count?

* sorry....I am feeling snarky/sarcastic today.
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MarinaVanessa 10:52 AM 08-12-2013
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Sometimes I leave the closed captioning on Spanish when they watch a movie/TV.

Does that count?

* sorry....I am feeling snarky/sarcastic today.
Ha ha, too funny!!

You know, this may work if instead of playing a movie or video with Spanish captions you play the movie in Spanish. This could work well if it's a movie that they are already very familiar with. Even if they don't understand all of the Spanish words you can make it a game for them to point out words that they can figure out. Plus, everything sounds funnier/new when you play it in Spanish.

For example: In the movie Shrek (the first one) when Donkey tells Shrek "...and in the morning, we're going to make waffles!" when you play it in Spanish Donkey says "tamales" instead of "waffles". I found that extremely funny .

Y el la manana, vamos a hacer tamales!"
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craftymissbeth 11:25 AM 08-12-2013
We are little by little learning Spanish and ASL. I am fluent in Spanish, but it's my second language and I'm not all-knowing

My husband is Hispanic so it is important to us to incorporate both of our cultures into our home.

He learned to like meatloaf (kind of) and I learned to like menudo (kind of)
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EntropyControlSpecialist 11:50 AM 08-12-2013
We do a little bit of spanish here.

We'll do songs in english and then in spanish. We read books in both languages. Currently, we are working on identifying body parts in spanish. We just discussed colors.
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Starburst 08:18 PM 08-12-2013
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Sometimes I leave the closed captioning on Spanish when they watch a movie/TV.

Does that count?

* sorry....I am feeling snarky/sarcastic today.
I actually heard putting closed captions (CC) on the TV for kids can help with literacy (read it in a Women's World article "Make Your TV Work For You"). I always have the CC on since I was a kid because it sometimes helps me process what they are saying better. But it drives my family nuts because sometimes I do it on Netflix and they don't know how to undo it . But I don't like the 3 line rolling CCs or when they don't match what they are saying, sometimes I get bummed out because some shows or movies don't have CC.

But anyway, I plan on teaching some Spanish and ASL (simple phrases, simple words). I want to mostly teach the kids about diversity/culture so I have some instrumental music- right now I mostly have classical, Celtic, jazz, and Caribbean music (that's all they currently have at my local $1 store). I have thought about looking into getting like salsa music and some children's songs sang in Spanish or different languages. The only kids song I know in a different language is "Frère Jacques" and I only know it in French. My brother knows it in Spanish and my Nonna knew it in English. Onetime we all tried to sing it in the language we knew- it didn't work out well

When I regularly babysat for 2 siblings I tried to teach them colors, numbers, and verbs in Spanish but the little sister was a little under 2 and the brother was 4 but delayed. His favorite verb was correr (to run), unfortunately I would ask him what other verbs meant (Balar= to dance, caminar= to walk) and he would always answer "run" .
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Lyss 08:31 PM 08-12-2013
Originally Posted by EntropyControlSpecialist:
We do a little bit of spanish here.

We'll do songs in english and then in spanish. We read books in both languages. Currently, we are working on identifying body parts in spanish. We just discussed colors.
Us too. We also do everyday things in both languages so sometimes my DCKs ask for agua or can't find their zapatos but my Spanish is really rusty so its basic words/songs and nothing really too in depth.

I know ASL and French so sometimes I throw that it but really I try to stick to the basic Spanish. My infants/early toddlers know a lot of ASL but as they get older we don't use it as much and focus more on words.
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Familycare71 05:30 AM 08-13-2013
Originally Posted by Starburst:
I actually heard putting closed captions (CC) on the TV for kids can help with literacy (read it in a Women's World article "Make Your TV Work For You"). I always have the CC on since I was a kid because it sometimes helps me process what they are saying better. But it drives my family nuts because sometimes I do it on Netflix and they don't know how to undo it . But I don't like the 3 line rolling CCs or when they don't match what they are saying, sometimes I get bummed out because some shows or movies don't have CC.

But anyway, I plan on teaching some Spanish and ASL (simple phrases, simple words). I want to mostly teach the kids about diversity/culture so I have some instrumental music- right now I mostly have classical, Celtic, jazz, and Caribbean music (that's all they currently have at my local $1 store). I have thought about looking into getting like salsa music and some children's songs sang in Spanish or different languages. The only kids song I know in a different language is "Frère Jacques" and I only know it in French. My brother knows it in Spanish and my Nonna knew it in English. Onetime we all tried to sing it in the language we knew- it didn't work out well

When I regularly babysat for 2 siblings I tried to teach them colors, numbers, and verbs in Spanish but the little sister was a little under 2 and the brother was 4 but delayed. His favorite verb was correr (to run), unfortunately I would ask him what other verbs meant (Balar= to dance, caminar= to walk) and he would always answer "run" .
Now I'm trying to remember the English version! Lol- I knew the song in both French and English when I was young
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Lyss 07:48 AM 08-13-2013
Originally Posted by Familycare71:
Now I'm trying to remember the English version! Lol- I knew the song in both French and English when I was young
"Are You Sleeping" (or "Brother John") is the English version
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Familycare71 07:54 AM 08-13-2013
Originally Posted by Lyss:
"Are You Sleeping" (or "Brother John") is the English version
Thank you!!!. I remember!! . Guess what we will be singing
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DaisyMamma 12:21 PM 08-13-2013
I really want to do this too. We use brainy baby movies here for educational tv and they have a spanish one. Also I'm just going to teach the English and spanish word for each color, number, shape, etc. into my curicculum.
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