When Carbon was just around two years old, I tried some of those foreign language videos they have for babies. Supposedly, babies will pick it up because they are actively learning language - and the argument even goes further that if they don’t get it before they are 3 they will never be “natural” or “fluent” in the other language. I have no doubt that if I had been able to expose him to a foreign speaker, he would have picked up some of the language. But that option wasn’t available to me, and the tapes did nothing. So, no effortless acquisition of spanish for us!
I waited to try again, since he was so busy expanding his english vocabulary. Now, he’s starting to see words as labels for things and he can understand that there can be different kinds of labels for the same object. This is great, because that means I can work with him to “artificially” learn a language. We picked Spanish because that’s what I took in college so I have some idea how to pronounce it, and because my husband’s sister and stepfather both speak Spanish (and they have a house in Mexico we can go stay in). It also seems like a really practical second language since so many people speak it in nearby communities and countries.
To begin, I’m just focusing on nouns. We got a “First Words in Spanish” book from the library, which he likes to flip through. I also have made two posters: En el bano and Mi Cuerpo. For Mi Cuerpo (my body), I had him lie down on a big piece of paper and I traced the outline of his body. He drew features on the outline, and we labeled them all in spanish. Then we sing “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes” as best we can in spanish and play the “point to your …” game. For En el bano, I printed clip art of stuff we have in our bathroom, and he cut and pasted it onto a large piece of paper. Then we labeled it all in spanish. I haven’t come up with any good games yet - any ideas?
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Currently my kids are 2,4,6
