Thursday, May 13, 2010

Spanish Lessons

So yesterday I wrote about the new addition of Spanish to our homeshooling. It is amazing how quickly I am remembering my High School Spanish teachers lessons. "Clase, por favor, repita este" It has come full circle for me. I got out my Spanish book and started to study! And I have to say it is really exciting. Today we went from math in English to math in Spanish! I was thinking this is exactly right. When I taught my daughters to speak- I used picture books and pointed to items and told them the proper names for each item. That is exactly what is going on here. We use a lot of flash cards for numbers, letters, small words- etc. I have been going over them in English and then again in Spanish. It is a simple way to do vocabulary in both languages. Pretty cool!! I found a free Spanish (for kids) website http://www.123teachme.com that has the game memory for colors, numbers, letters etc... in Spanish! My daughter went crazy with it this morning. Now my two year old is trying too! It is something else to see your four year old reciting numbers and letters in two different languages! What a blessing! I am not looking forward to the grammer aspect of Spanish as that is where the greatest struggle was for me but I think my husband will be a great help with this. He loves rules of the written word. So glad I married a smarty pants!! Hasta pronto, mi amigos!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Homeschooling Momma!

So my next door neighbors do not speak English. This has made neighborly relations difficult as there is this huge communication barrier. Russ and I have each had plenty of Spanish classes between high school and college but cannot form a sentence beyond "How are you" or "Where is the bathroom". So a few weeks ago my oldest daughter told me that she was interested in saying a few words in Spanish. Sure! No problem. We started out with the small sentences that I knew. Now she wants to know the alphabet and the colors. Suddenly, I am teaching Spanish. It is amazing how that happened. Something I love about Homeschooling is that we can run with anything my girls are interested in. I am clearly stretched by all this but I am kind of enjoying it. We actually had a small conversation with my Spanish-speaking neighbor a couple of days ago. How cool is that!!