Mabelen Posted March 26, 2008 Share Posted March 26, 2008 This would be for my 11 yo daughter to do to improve her second language, Spanish. We followed the One Parent One Language approach during her earlier years, I was the Spanish language parent, my husband the English language parent. Now that both my daughters are older (11 and 4) our family and schooling language is English, but I still talk with them in Spanish when it is just the three of us or when we have Spanish speaking company. We also read in Spanish, watch movies in Spanish, etc. During our Easter Break I am having my 11 yo dd do a little bit of Spanish every day. It is always based on a book that I read to both my dds or that my oldest reads out loud to her little sister and myself. So far these are the activities I have had my daughter do: Choose passage, copy and illustrate it, then write a summary (in Spanish, of course). Do a cross word, word search or fill in the blank type of exercises based on vocabulary and phrases found in the book. Read the story out loud then write down any words she didn't know. I give her the translation if she can't guess it from context. Then illustrate it and write the English equivalent. Any other ideas? I am just trying to get her to do a little bit every day, but I want to make it fun and not too repetitive. Thank you for any suggestions. Mabelen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mabelen Posted March 26, 2008 Author Share Posted March 26, 2008 No more ideas? I am bumping this up hoping someone will have some new ideas for me. Even if you are not a bilingual household, what activities would you have your children do for English? I am sure I could adapt them to our situation. I am focusing mostly on expanding her vocabulary but spelling and grammar suggestions are also very welcome. Thank you again. Crossing my fingers... Mabelen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renai Posted March 26, 2008 Share Posted March 26, 2008 Hello, Not another suggestion, but a different view of one that you want to do. If there is a word she doesn't know, do not give a translation. Give her the definition in simpler Spanish terms. (I still remember the time I first heard 'Largate!'- I was watching a novela :glare: - dh told me it meant 'Vete', which is a word I knew.) Get Spanish language dictionaries, not English-Spanish. This is immersion language arts. It helps with thinking in Spanish, instead of in terms of translating back and forth. It is also a way of improving vocabulary. Writing the English equivalent is a separate activity and skill. Well, I guess the English-Spanish dictionary would come in handy here :D if she can't think of an equivalent on her own. And, it's ok if she works on Spanish a little every day :001_smile:. Hope this helps. Renai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mabelen Posted March 26, 2008 Author Share Posted March 26, 2008 Thank you, Renai. You are right about not giving the English equivalent. I am doing that for the most part, but I have to be more mindful and not jump to the English equivalent too soon. Yesterday there were two words she didn't know, "desovar" and "juncos". I defined "desovar" for her in Spanish and she got it, but for "juncos" I gave her the English term as soon as I realized she couldn't guess it even by looking at the illustration in the book. Thank you again for the reminder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renai Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 One of the dictionaries I have is Diccionaria básico de la lengua española by Santillana. I don't remember where I got it, though :001_huh:. Either through Scholastic's Club Leo (more likely) or the Santillana catalog, or maybe Borders. It has most words I need to look up and simple definitions (junco has two 1) Planta de tallo recto, liso, flexible que crece en las orillas de los rÃos. and 2) Barco pequeño con velas rectangulares, musado en los mares de Oriente.). Would either of those definitions have helped her with the picture? Also, do you have Spanish enciclopedias? They have saved us more than once, especially when watching Discovery en español and they use a word even my husband isn't familiar with. Explanations and pictures - can't beat it ;). I bought a set through Scholastic (probably paid too much, but "I" needed it - Spanish is my second language), then someone gave me a different set through freecycle. I also had a bunch of "Diccionario didáctica de español elemental" someone gave me, but I gave most of them away already. If I come across an extra, I'll drop you line to send to you. Here's some links I've posted in my group a while back; maybe there will be some ideas for you: La Lengua Española http://www.geocities.com/szamora.geo/ La pagina del idioma español Gramatica. You can also subscribe to La palabra del dÃa http://www.elcastellano.org/gramatic.html Lengua y literatura en primaria Some links don't work, but there are a few that are still useful - vocabulary and ortografia http://adigital.pntic.mec.es/cpr.utrillas/enlaces/lengua.htm OrtografÃa - reglas Spelling rules - good resource! http://roble.pntic.mec.es/~msanto1/ortografia/index1.htm Wikilengua.org pagina web para despejar dudas del uso del espanol http://www.wikilengua.org A lot of these links I haven't gone to in a while. The ideas you've already listed are great- she'll be doing the grammar stage of Spanish language arts (copywork, dictation, narration). Do you know about the yahoo group Educando en Familia? They are also a great resource. Most of them live in other countries, homeschooling their children only in Spanish, so have a bit more experience in the language arts area. Hope this is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renai Posted March 27, 2008 Share Posted March 27, 2008 No more ideas? I am bumping this up hoping someone will have some new ideas for me. Even if you are not a bilingual household, what activities would you have your children do for English? I am sure I could adapt them to our situation. I am focusing mostly on expanding her vocabulary but spelling and grammar suggestions are also very welcome. Thank you again. Crossing my fingers... Mabelen I'm going back and rereading and thought I'd mention what I'll be doing with my then-3rd grader next year. I'll be using Classical Writing with Spanish models (I'm finding- or trying to - myself). It goes along with what you are planning to do, I think. When you find a passage you want to work with, you can also pull vocabulary, spelling, and grammar out of it to work with. Maybe some of the links I posted may give you ideas of the spelling and grammar you'd like to emphasize. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mabelen Posted March 28, 2008 Author Share Posted March 28, 2008 Renai, thank you so much for your suggestions. I have a new question about teaching reading and spelling in Spanish. My 11 yo dd is a natural for languages. She learned to read and spell very early on both in English and Spanish by herself, so I have no experience teaching to read and spell. My 4 yo dd is proving to be totally normal in this area. She is recognizing some letters and asking a lot of "What does this read, mom?" questions, but so far she is not reading herself. I am guessing I will have to teach her to read in Spanish. What did you use for teaching reading? How about spelling? Thank you again for those links, I will explore them at leisure. Mabelen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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