Hi all,

My dd (4 1/2) really, really wants to learn Spanish, so I want to teach her - only problem is, I remember precious little of my high school and college Spanish unless I hear or see something to jog my memory.

Those whose preschoolers are learning Spanish, what materials or games or whatever do you you use? Any you tried and DIDN'T like? I found this http://bilingualteacherstore.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=B&Product_Code=TMT112&Category_Code=AV and it looks like fun for both of us - thoughts? Opinions? I'm really excited about this - dh is completely supportive too, and I think it could be our first step to homeschooling!

Thanks!

The link didn't work for me, but Sesame Street online has a Spanish word of the day. You could check that out. Also we have Usborne 1st thousand words in Spanish book, which is pretty good.

You could tape index cards to objects in house with the spanish word. This would be more for you at this stage. So you could have the spanish word for chair taped on the chair, and every time you pull the chair out you can say the word in spanish.

Hope that made sense and helped somewhat.

Is there any way for you to brush up on your Spanish? My kids are both learning German just from hearing Dh and I use it to talk over their heads. I figure if I put even a tiny bit of effort to teach it, they would both speak it pretty easily. Is there any way you could just start using some sentences repeatedly? For example, "Time for dinner" or "Wash hands" or whatever, just learn a sentence a week and start using it and she will certainly start picking it up.

If you are a DVD watching family, a lot of children's DVD movies have the option of spoken language Spanish, so your child can watch his/her favorite movie and listen to it in spanish. My kids love to do this. Mary Poppins is forever playing in Spanish or French here.

our local public library has those Teach me Spanish sets you linked to. We've checked them out before. I thought it was sort of hard to follow what they're saying/singing, but some people think they're great. Have you checked your library?

My newest plan is to learn some fingerplays in Spanish and introduce them, one at a time, during circle time. My kids get a kick out of circle time (stuff like I'm a Little Teapot, Ring Around the Rosy). I think you could use some of the Teach Me Spanish stuff for that -- I think they have a Spanish version of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, for instance. You could listen to it, using the print version to help you hear what they're saying, then teach it to your child.

BTW, our library has stuff like the Usborne First Thousand Years. I check stuff like this out to contemplate if I'll actually use it. I never do, sigh.

I love the idea of doing circle time in Spanish!

Katie loved playing Jump Start Spanish when she was 2.5-4ish and she learned to count beautifully and learned a bunch of words.

Gosh, I never even think of our library here! I'll take a look and see what they have. It's an underfunded, understaffed, undersized little place, but I'll give it a chance.

I probably should just re-learn some Spanish myself, but dh doesn't know any and at this point it would be easier if we could both work with her on it, which is why I'm interested in something like a print/audio combo. I really like the idea of circle time with some familiar activities in Spanish, though, so I'll see what I can find to help me out with that! Great idea. Thanks for all the input!

I just remembered that I had this site bookmarked.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/spanish.shtml

There's lots of Spanish Themed activities.

We LOVE Jose Luis Orozco, he has some videos and songs- the newest one he came out with is a DVD that has spanish songs, then the same in English- and it's great.

I also use cards, asking Adriana what it is in English, and then making the older kids tell me in Spanish (although, she is usually answering with them. LOL)

That said, we don't use a real formal Spanish curriculum, or push it because dh and I speak Spanish (spanglish is more like it) primarily at home, and all of my kids understand it, although ds1 is really the only one who speaks in it. (And only because he wants too now, he used to refuse to) and Adriana does about half and half, but she's starting to use more English than Spanish now.

I just got his Diez Deditos CD a couple of weeks ago. I asked the bookstore to order the book to go with it, as I'm absolutely clueless on some of these songs...it's still not here. I wish I'd realized he had a DVD -- that would've been simpler than putting together all of these bits and pieces.