Teaching Spanish

Hi,
I teach Spanish to children in several home daycares. I have recently started a blog with ideas and the materials I use for the providers and parents. I thought it might of interest to some of you. It's called Spanish Playground and the url is www.spanishplayground.net

I would appreciate any feedback!
Thank you,
Jenny Brunk

Thank you for posting that. I always enjoy new resources. My husband is a native Spanish speaker so we have always used Spanish casually within our home daycare. We just haven't been able to nail down a formal routine. We tried one summer, and it just fell flat, but I guess we didn't really have our eye on the prize and were kind of looking for short term rather than long term.
I've been most consistent with food because those are the only time I really have a captive audience and they seem to be the most receptive and get a kick out of it. Milk is hardly ever just "milk", now it's "LECHE"!
Maybe some posts of food and utensil vocabulary and basic requests and pleasantries during dining (yes please, no thank you, would you like more?).

Thank you again, it's a great site.

[originalkat]

Thanks for listing your site. I had a mostly spanish speaking girl start last August and we have all learned a lot of words and phrases. Immersion truly is the best learning tool. I find myself answering all the children with "Si" instead of yes just because it flows more easily. HHEHEHE. Although I dont speak a lot of spanish I understand a lot more because of her (she mostly speaks "spanglish" now).When I have more time I will be sure to check it out in more detail.

Thank you so much for responding. I agree that food and related vocabulary should be one of my first "units" I've been grouping the material in posts more or less the way I present it in classes, although I'm not sure that's the most useful format. Food is up after house vocab I think.

As you can tell, it's a brand new project. I really appreciate your input!

[Carole's Daycare]

It's awesome to see daycares incorporating Spanish into their curriculum. I originally planned to teach Spanish, but funding for languages in my area is practically nil- and with 1 job in the entire area- she'd have to get hit by a bus, along with several others who used to teach Spanish in the area for me to have a chance as even a sub- so I incorporate it into my childcare. I encourage anyone who is considering trying to go for it- even if your skills are minimal. Early exposure to foreign language improves their ability for languages later in life. Enchanted Learning's website also has Spanish Resources that are downloadable.

[TGT09]

Thanks for posting the link! I would love to incorporate it at least on a weekly basis. I myself am not fantastic in Spanish but I do know most of the basics. I lived in Germany for a bit so most of my language strong-suits are in that.

[MarinaVanessa]

My dc parents think that having a bilingual program is great also. I am a spanish native speaker (I didn't learn english until i started kindergarten in school since neither of my parents knew how to speak it) and was having trouble getting my little girl (5) to learn it until I had the rediculously obvious idea of teaching it to all of the other dc children also, duh . So far it's worked out great and the dc parents seem to really appreciate it and best of all my little girl all of a sudden has an interest in everything having to do with spanish lol. Even has grandma and grandpa talk to her only in spanish and has learned her left and right in spanish (derecha y izquierda) but can't remember them in english .

I think it's great to learn other languages and have even started to incorporate simple american sign language using flashcards. I'll say something in spanish and sign the word and we'll use it as often as we can. It's fun and simple and the kids seem to really enjoy and learn spanish better when using it with sign language. What's amazing is that for my really littles that can't talk yet can sign some things when said in either english or spanish. For example, when they're done eating I'll say "Quieres mas?" (do you want more) and sign the word for more and the babies will sign "all done"!
These are the moments that remind really remind me why I do this.