Emma is learning her letters in Spanish. I actually am amazed at how quickly she picks them up. She has A-O down pretty well, although she sometimes mixes up J and L.

She associates each letter with the name (or sometimes a word) of someone she knows. 

Check out this awesome website! I haven't read it all the way through, yet (New baby is keeping me on my toes and I have sadly neglected my own study of Spanish as well as this blog.) But now that she is a month old and we have a bit of a routine, (ha! as routine as you can get with a toddler and newborn) I am going to start back up doing my own personal study of Spanish as well as making sure to incorporate more direct learning with Emma.

From first glance and a few clicks, it looks useful...Maybe one of you have more time and will get a better look at before I do. If so, let me know if it is as good as it looks at first glance.

Anyways, here it is!

How to Learn Spanish

I found a few kids music CDs at the library and I am loving listening to them with Emma. Plus it's helping me learn more songs in Spanish to sing to Emma, so I don't have to revert to English ones.

For other non-native speakers: I have found a good way to learn, or to help you understand better is to listen to music and write down the words or translate it. Kids songs are a good place to start, since they tend to anunciate more and have simpler topics.

Side note: I am thinking of maybe teaching some of the kids (if their mom's are interested) from our playgroup Spanish. Nothing big, just the colors, animals, etc. Partly, again, to help me get Spanish into my head, but also to help show Emma that it's fun to speak Spanish and also to help me get used to speaking Spanish in front of them. Obviously, since they are 1-3 year olds it would be a short 10-15 minutes with lots of music, visuals, and maybe a game.

Anyways, on one of the CD's I borrowed there is a song about farm animals, a song about colors, a song about dancing and different body parts. So I think it would be fun to use it to teach Emma, and maybe her friends. I was thinking of printing out pictures or finding stuffed animals or figurines for each of the different topics to help. When I do it, I will make sure to take some pictures or something and let ya'll know how it goes.

It is no secret. I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I've read all the books who knows how many times. So, I want to try to cast a spell to help me....just kidding. I wish it were that easy.

By reading, what I am really hoping for is to help me start to think in Spanish more often and pick up some new vocabulary while I am at it. I would also like to listen to the book on CD, but they all seem to be pretty pricey and our library doesn't have them in Spanish. If you have any leads as to where I can find at least one of the books for cheap, that would be great!

Because I have read it so many times, I know what's going on even without knowing the exact translation of all of the words, so it is helping me learn new vocabulary. After reading for a good stretch of time, I find myself thinking more in Spanish as well, so it's working! Now I just gotta use those new words!

Something I struggle with, however, is that different words have different meanings depending on what country you are from...so I am always afraid that I might be swearing in one country when really, I am just trying to implement innocent

I have also set a goal to speak to Gavin more in Spanish. With Emma it's a lot of repetiion of the same things, and even though I think she is a brilliant 2 year old, our conversations don't go very deep. So by speaking to Gavin more often in Spanish it will also (hopefully) help me to think more in Spanish and learn or re-learn different conjugations for different words.

And just to be accountable, I feel like I am doing pretty good about speaking to Emma in Spanish at least 80% of the time, usually more. I have done much better while out in public, though I still struggle in more intimate settings, like when a smaill group of friends or family are at our home or we are at someone else's home. I need to work on that.

Emma loves playing on the iPad. I have downloaded a bunch of Spanish kids apps, so I don't feel too bad about letting her play on it.

One of her favorite things to do, though, is look at pictures and videos that I have taken. So, taking an idea that I have seen on a couple of bilingual blogs, I decided to video us singing some Spanish songs.

This was fun, and was done in just a few minutes. Nothing fancy. The first one I did with just me, but I found that she likes seeing herself more, so I put her on my lap and we did the rest of them together. I think I might print some pictures for the songs that don't have hand movements so she can have a visual of what we are singing about.

This won't replace me singing to her one on one, but when I am trying to get things done, this will just be another helpful Spanish resource to keep her entertained.

Over the last few days Spanish and raising Emma bilingual has really been on my mind. Which is good, because it's helping me focus on speaking Spanish to Emma.

As I have been thinking and reading other's experiences I decided I need to put a greater effort into helping her learn. Because I am a non-native Spanish speaker and because I haven't been consistent, it still doesn't feel "natural" most of the time to speak Spanish to her and I really have to put in a huge effort to consistently do it throughout the day.

So, today, I got on the internet and started looking up Spanish games, songs, and activities that I could use throughout the day. I have linked almost everything I have found here. So you can go check those out and see if there is something that catches your eye.

Anyways, I think I am going to try to do more of a structured schedule for us throughout the day to incorporate specific activites geared towards learning Spanish. I hope this will help keep me in the Spanish mindset throughout the day as well as help Emma pick up on it more.