Spanish was my fist spoken language. Now, all I speak is English. My vocabulary in the English language is broader, and more diverse then the spanish one. I’m bilingual and can have a full conversation in spanish, but it’s not as easy as when I’m communicating in English. It’s difficult to speak fluently when you’re so used to the English language.

My toddler can only speak English. The minimal spanish she does know is “agua”(water). You can hear her American-English accent when she attemps to pronounce the complex syllables that are in the spanish language. While English is said to be the most difficult second language to aquire on this website, I would have preferred that my daughter followed along my footsteps. I wanted her to learn spanish first and then English. This was the only time I wanted her to emulate me. Fail!

It’s all my fault, we only have about 3% spanish books in the house as opposed to English or French books. The spanish that I do speak around her, happens when I remember I need to speak to her in spanish. My husband and I attempted to make sunday our spanish speaking day, but that was a catastrophe. I’m even thinking of dropping her off at my mom’s house for a few weeks (she only speaks spanish).

There are spanish immersion schools that could help, but there are so few around my neighborhood, and they’re expensive. I’ve also attempted to meet up with a few spanish speaking friends and create a spanish class where all of our toddlers practiced certain activities. Colors was our subject for about 3 weeks,  but because we are so busy, it was hard to meet frequently and we’ve kind of lost our momentum.

In our small group we used play based methods to teach the colors. We had the kids throw colored bean bags at a matching colored felt sheet. We also used multi-colored straws and blocks. The lesson plan was fun and entertaining for the kids. The problem that we did experience was when the kids lost their interest and we had to jump around and engage them again. We also used a puppet to catch their attention.

One class a week is great, but we still had to reinforce it throughout the week, and that is where I lose it. I am working on an alphabet box. It’s amazing! Of course, it’s only in english. :C I’m going to try to make it bilingual. Here is the box:

I cut out an amazon box to make my small 12 cabinet container reversible.
Here are a few options available:

(Affiliate link.)

I wish I would have found these when I was looking! I fill the boxes up with safari toob items, and with these. I get them from Daiso! They’re tiny little cute erasers that cost $1.50. Not only do you get more than 3! They’re so adorable!

This alphabet box is primarily english. I have not organized it so that it’s a bilingual box, but, I feel that I need to. I’ve printed out spanish flash cards from this free website. I also bought these books:

(Affiliate link.)

She loves these books! I try to read them daily, but I dont make it a habit. I’m going to keep trying the alphabet box and I’ll hopefully have a successful post on this subject next month!

What activities and lessons do you try to teach your child/friend a second language?