The Truth About Learning Spanish With Kids

Learning Spanish with kids can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.  Whenever I begin to doubt myself or hear that voice in my head that says “Impostor! You don’t know Spanish!” I channel all the good vibes from the mothers I have seen help their children learn English, even though they only speak a few words of it themselves.

Fear holds me back from probably more things in life than I realize.  For someone who MAJORED in Spanish in college, you wouldn’t think teaching Spanish to her children would be an issue.  But it is.  And I want to be honest about that because, well honestly, that’s why I’m here in this little corner of the internet.  1) I need encouragement and ideas myself, and 2) I want to share those with you and say, “We got this!”

Are we perfect at it?  No.  Will our kids gain native-like fluency from us.  Probably not.  But can we get them excited about learning a second language?  Yes.  Can we give them a head-start in second language learning now, so it’s not so hard for them when they’re older?  Yes! 

Sometimes I forget, it’s as easy as 1 – 2 – 3.

All I did here was make a little set of cups with the numbers written in Spanish.  If you need help knowing how to spell the numbers 1-20 see the chart below.  These cups took me about ten minutes to make. 

I actually made them for a Spanish play-date we had a while back.  They sat on my office counter for a while, and then somehow drifted to the kitchen table.  They were just sitting there. My two-year-old started playing with them (because that’s what 2-year-olds do, right? Mess with anything in sight) and that’s all it took!  I saw he was interested, so I jumped in and started counting with him.

I decided to take a video (which got him even more involved, because who doesn’t love watching himself on camera, amiright?) to give an example of how we do these kinds of activities.  They are very bilingual, and yes I mess up!  But I believe the excitement I’m showing my kids about the Spanish language is the best thing I can do to help them learn it.  This reminder is for you AND me: keep it simple, keep it fun, and keep them learning!