Homeschooling in Español

I mentioned in my previous post our quest for beginning to integrate Spanish in our homeschool curriculum.  At our last weekly visit to our local library, Lil G picked up a “Learn Spanish” DVD.  I didn’t know where he had grabbed it from, but I was thrilled at his willingness to learn more. In the car, we popped in the DVD and I began listening as the boys began to practice what was being taught. It was more of a conversational Spanish lesson to help tourists venturing in a Spanish speaking country and it sounded like the boys were doing well when they repeated each phrase.

I got comfortable in my seat to listen some more and smiled from ear to ear at the impromptu homeschool moment in the car.

As we got closer to home, I heard Lil Dude say, “Yo quiero una copa de vino, por favor”  (I would like a glass of wine please). OMG! Did you hear that? They didn’t even know what they were asking for. They may have shown a picture of a wine glass (I can’t see what they were watching from the front seat of the car) and a drink so they might have interpreted it to mean just a regular drink!

My sweetie and I looked at each other and busted out laughing.  I mean it was one of those good ole, “I’m laughing so hard, my stomach hurts”  laugh.

We got home and began talking seriously about our options. I’ve been hesitant in teaching Spanish only because I never really found the right curriculum.  We spend a good chunk of our homeschool curriculum budget on the rest of our curriculum (Saxon, Sonlight, books etc.). So, with that being said, I began searching for other bilingual homeschool bloggers and other websites for help.

Here’s what I found:

http://teachingespanol.blogspot.com/ – Great resource! Lot of printables for free! I like a lot of their preschool stuff too.

http://www.spanglishbaby.com/ – This website includes various articles for raising bilingual + bicultural children. Last year, they hosted a week series dedicated to bilingual homeschooling.

http://2pequenostraviesos.blogspot.com/ – I love the name of this blog since I have 2 pequñeos traviesos also (2 little rascals).  Since our boys are about the same age, I am thrilled to find such great inspiration and ideas in our homeschooling venture.

http://www.whistlefritz.com/index.html – This might be THE ONE.  Everything about it, the way it talks about Spanish immersion, the characters don’t look babyish (a key for our 2 boys who think they aren’t babies anymore) and the examples are just perfect.  The website also includes a link for homeschooling in Spanish.  There are FREE printable lesson plans correlate to the Adentro y Afuera (Inside and Out) DVD for $19.99 so I think I might check this out.

Ah, progress in our goal to help our boys become bilingual. Stay tuned for more!

To be continued…