spanish for little kids

[Elizabeth86]

I've looked at curriculum for spanish for my 1st grader, buy haven't loved anything really. My question is, at this age do you think just learning things like numbers, colors, food, places, things like that is good enough. Does actual curriculum help do abetter job really teaching the language or is this the kind of thing he would be learning with curriculum for his age group.My goal is to do this for him because he wants too and I suppose it would be helpful for him when he is older if he decides to learn Spanish.

[Jackie]

It sounds like you're looking for exposure more than mastery/fluency.

 

Salsa Spanish from Georgia Public Broadcasting streams free online and is a fantastic early elementary introduction. The featured voacbulary is fairly simple, but they use more complex vocabulary and verb tenses throughout.

[Miss Tick]

If you have any Spanish in your background you could approach it the same way you taught English - read books, have small conversations, watch videos, sing songs. Whatever you've got. That would expose him to a wider variety of vocabulary.

 

One of the libraries near me used to have Muzzy online. That is similar to Salsa, for a bit of variety.

[MyLife]

We watched Georgia Public Broadcasting Salsa and each week entered the new vocabulary in Quizlet. I was using it more for exposure, but my 7 year old definitely picked up a lot of vocabulary...numbers, colors, greetings, food, animals.

 

I am outsourcing Spanish next year but will probably let them continue to watch Salsa.

 

ETA: and it's free

Edited May 22, 2017 by MyLife

[bluejay]

"Foreign Languages for Kids" DVD / online streaming looks good.  We've seen free previews and really liked them.  Problem is, they seem pricey for what they have to offer.  If it were cheaper, I'd get it  Wish they'd make it available at the library like in Hoopla.

 

Unless you spend a lot of time actually speaking the language (immersing the kids in it), then colors, numbers, etc. are what they'll remember.  I'm fluent in another language but since I keep forgetting to practice it and I speak only English, my kids forget too. :laugh:

[Ausmumof3]

We're not doing Spanish but Italian. We've used dino lingo but they've really only retained nouns and mostly the ones that are similar to English.

 

A lot of language people say you want to follow the way people normally develop language. First repeated nouns and greetings then simple verbs then actual correctly formed sentences then writing skills.

 

I think the critical thing for us is we really have to do it several times a week for retention. Occasional study doesn't work. The kids are also more likely to retain the words of I pay attention to what they are learning and actually use the words here and there through the day but pronunciation is a major issue as I'm not a native speaker.

 

I have no idea if they are good but the build your bundle sale has a couple of Spanish programs in the bundles. One is Dora and Diego and then some other fun Spanish program or something.

[Ausmumof3]

Also just wanted to say dino lingo is really fun but super exxy I'm not sure that it's worth what it costs.

[fralala]

A good first grade curriculum doesn't look that different from what can be done informally-- lots of repetition of songs and rhymes and stories with expression. I made the mistake of signing my first grader up for expensive immersion style language classes, and while it's nice to enjoy the social aspects of language, there was nothing covered that she hadn't already learned just from watching YouTube videos (and library videos-- our library has a huge collection of Spanish languages resources for Spanish-speaking kids AND for English language learners).

[happybeachbum]

Have you considered Muzzy from the BBC?

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

We liked Song School Spanish and foreignlanguagesforkids.com.  Also, duo lingo is a free app for great exposure and learning a language.  If you just want to learn a series of lists, you can find a good picture book, and enchantedlearning.com has some good worksheets for food, colors, etc.

[SilverMoon]

My 6yo has been playing on random apps I found on Amazon Appstore. There are zillions. I just looked for apps that didn't require him to spell words.

 

Song School Spanish may be a bit easy for him, but the small amount of writing should be just about right for first grade. (He has good exposure to basic vocab through older siblings taking Spanish.) His reading and spelling have really taken off and I think he could likely start Duolingo slowly this fall too. So the plan is...

1st grade: Song School Spanish from Classical Academic Press (approx. 1 workpage a day), 15 minutes or so on Duolingo daily

2nd grade: The Fun Spanish from Brookdale Press (approx. 1 workpage a day), slightly increase Duolingo time

3rd grade: Spanish for Children A, continue Duolingo, add Memrise if he finishes the Duolingo tree

[goldenecho]

My son, at that age, really liked the videos by Foreign Languages are for Kids (we didn't use their supplementary stuff).  He also liked playing with toys while I pretended that one of them only spoke Spanish and talked with him (I'm not a native speaker, but I could come up with enough...and we had another toy that I also played that knew how to translate when necessary).

 

He also liked Perry y Gato on youtube (be warned, when searching for that you will also get videos of real dogs and cats in...um...birds and bees gone wrong sort of situations, so find the videos when your child isn't in the room, then bring him in).

 

[bluejay]

Hey, I've seen Spanish for kids on Hoopla Digital.  Might be free through your library!  Don't know how good it is though.  But there's a lot of Spanish there for young and old alike.