Over the years I have attempted to include Spanish instruction through a variety of methods including Rosetta Stone that we installed on the laptop computer and the Duolingo app on the iPad. At the beginning of 2020 I purchased a video based curriculum called Excelerate Spanish. I had been very hands-off when the kids had used the computer or iPad to learn Spanish, but I was very involved with the video lessons. We only made it about half-way through the first level of Excelerate Spanish, but I decided to try something else this fall. Jen, a friend from a local homeschool group, spoke positively about Talkbox.mom. I hadn't tried it previously because of how much it cost, but since many things were cancelled in 2020, I decided we could afford to buy the first four boxes. To be honest, I still think the price tag is a steep for what is included in the boxes, but we are actually speaking in Spanish at various times throughout the day. Success! My goal is that we will eventually be truly bilingual. Yvonne's kids are also learning Spanish so my kids could even use their Spanish with their cousins and Tia Yvonne and Tio Joe! They are planning to move to Ecuador sometime in 2021. Some of their kids might be fluent in four languages - Turkish, English, Spanish, and Farsi. Wow. I'll just be happy if my kids can speak English and Spanish before they graduate from high school. This past Sunday I taught the 1st/2nd grade boys class during the second service at church, and it was the first time I caught myself about to say something in Spanish and had to remind myself to only use English. I was thrilled about that. I hadn't told Nadia that story, and she told me that she had the same experience at youth group on Sunday night. Yahoo! Ian has prayed entire prayers in Spanish. Ian uses Spanish at home more than his siblings.
The first box focused on foods and other words related to eating. We didn't learn all of the foods on the chart they gave us because we don't eat a lot of the foods on the chart, but we've been learning the words and phrases that are useful for our family. This week we've started on the second box which focuses on a variety of verbs and also rooms around the house. One person closes their eyes and waits for the other three people to go somewhere in the house. The person whose eyes were closed then asks each person, "Donde estas?," and each of us answers in Spanish (ex. "Estoy en el cuorto familiar.") and the person who asked the question is supposed to identify where that is. Today we did a version of "Simon says" where one person would give commands in Spanish (ex. "Levanten las manos"), and everyone else is supposed to do that action. We might play a game for a few minutes, but primarily the way we are learning Spanish is by attempting to use Spanish instead of English as much as possible all day long. There are nine boxes in the program, and after you purchase all of them you gain access to their "academy" online which covers more vocabulary and grammar. If you visit our house, you will see lots of little laminated cards taped all over the place to help us learn more words in Spanish. So far my kids have no idea what is meant by the expression "conjugating verbs", but they are learning they use a different verb if they are speaking to one person versus more than one person, and they know "tengo" means "I have" whereas "tienes" means "do you have". The program is meant to mimic how we learned to speak our native language. Here are some of the phrases we have been using the most often:
- Te amo, Te amo tambien (I love you, I love you too)
- Gracias (thank you)
- De nada (you're welcome)
- Por favor (please)
- Sientate en la silla, por favor. - I think this is the one I say the most often each day because my boys have a hard time staying SEATED during meals.
- Tienes hambre? (and the kids answer by saying things like "tengo mucha hambre")
- Quieres cereal? (or queires bagel or sandwich or manzana or uvas, etc.)
- Quieres mas? (do you want more?)
- Tender tu cama. (make your bed)
- Es hora de cenar (or del lonche or de desayunar) - it's time for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
- Ponte la ropa (get dressed)
- Buenos dias or noches
- Es hora de ir a la cama. (time to go to bed)
- Lavate las manos con jabon. (wash your hands with soap)
- Cepillate el pelo (brush your hair)
- Cepillate lose dientes (brush your teeth)
- Conejillos de indias necesitas agua. (the guinea pigs need water)
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| William Howard Taft's house |
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