June 2008 - Posts

• Successful trip to Spain

  Lana Privitera is the proud Mom of a fun-loving, bilingual "chatterboy" that likes to spice his speeches in English with long-winded Spanish words. Her goal for 2008 is to pack also some French and Italian in his very expandable 3.5 year old brain. Lana still qualifies as a SAHM but uses her "spare" time working as a watercolor artist and Spanish/art teacher. Visiting Spain last month was the best move I’ve made since I said yes to my husband’s marriage proposal: just 2 weeks of mingling with Spaniards turned my son Nickey (who’ll be 4 in August) into an active speaker of Spanish! Before we went to Spain he understood everything I said but only dropped a few words here and there in Spanish mixed in with his English. He could only string 2‐3 easy words in a row in Spanish before getting stuck and reversing the syllables. He could say a few standard sentences, of course, and also enjoyed saying long words like "zapatitos” ,“zanahorias” ,“chiquititos” but he would never speak Spanish in public. The difference is that now, without any prodding from me, he chooses to talk to me in Spanish, sometimes stringing together sentences of as many as 7‐8 words and with the right grammatical structure! Of course, he’s still filling in the blanks in his Spanish vocabulary with English words, but that’s happening less and less often the last few days. I would say that he’ adding at least 10‐20 new words/day. We’re now at the stage 70% Spanish‐30% English –but just when we are alone. Last night at a party he made me so proud when for the first time ever he spoke to me in Spanish in front of strangers! He came to me with a beautiful calendula –plucked roots and all from my friend’s beloved garden‐ and said to me with perfect accent and diction: “Mama, esta flor es para ti! Put it en agua!”(Mom this flower is for you. Put it in water) Just hope he still brings me flowers and addresses me in Spanish in 10 years time! Lana PS: Here there are a few links your children might find interesting. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/hispanic/pinata/game.htm http://youtube.com/watch?v=QYNXXgwjWgY&feature=related http://youtube.com/watch?v=2QFfzI2tJDg&feature=related http://www.montessorihome.com/ladybug_es_door.htm   Posted Jun 29 2008, 04:45 PM by Webmaster with no comments Filed under: spanish, multilingual

• Amazing results!

  Lana Privitera is the proud Mom of a fun-loving, bilingual "chatterboy" that likes to spice his speeches in English with long-winded Spanish words. Her goal for 2008 is to pack also some French and Italian in his very expandable 3.5 year old brain. Lana still qualifies as a SAHM but uses her "spare" time working as a watercolor artist and Spanish/art teacher. Yesterday our little friends Madigan and O'Malley came over and, to my surprise, greeted us with a perfectly enunciated: "Buenos dias! Como estas?" Then proceeded to sing several short songs about body parts, days of the week and numbers, all in very clear Spanish. Later, while we played some word bingo in that same language, Madigan, who is only 6, surprised me again by reading the upside‐down words in my board across the table! Not only she can read already in Spanish but knows and/or guesses an incredible amount of words in a language her parents don't speak at home. By asking the girls I gathered that their teacher was a Non‐ Native speaker of Spanish and that she only teaches 2 days a week at their school. Of course these girls are incredibly bright and have an interest in learning whatever they find in their path, but still illustrates my point that anyone can learn any given language even with limited exposure to it. You don't have to be a native speaker of "X" to start introducing your child to that language. Maybe you are just somewhat familiar with it from your years in College or your grandparents tried to teach it to you when you were a child. Just think of what a great family project it would be: you can learn it together and create yet another bond between you and your children! There's a wealth of language teaching programs out there. You'll have to pay for many of them, of course, but you can also get plenty of materials online...for FREE. It's really easy to find websites that cater to the younger set as well as sites that tend to focus more in helping skilled readers. Here there are two of my favorite ones: http://www.literacycenter.net/lessonview_es.htm (Infinite possibilities!) http://montessorihome.com/readingcards/common.shtml (Choose subject, then language, then the guy lifting the maximum weight)   NOTE:  To comment on this or any blog here at HVParent.com, you need to register and log in at the top of the page. Posted Jun 13 2008, 12:05 PM by Webmaster with 1 comment(s)