Practicar, practicar

Graphic: Google image search, from Greenburg-art.com

  
I still keep waiting for that memory click for Smarty Pants when it comes to speaking Spanish.  For the first 5 years of his life, Spanish is the only language he heard.  Sweet Thing heard it for 3.5 years and Drama Mama 2.5 years.  I'm not sure it will ever happen, although I think it will ultimately make (re) learning Spanish easier.

If there is one thing I regret in my parenting, it is that we did not keep them fully bilingual.  Once Smarty Pants started school and felt like speaking Spanish was a bad thing, it just became easier for us to slide into English only.

After living in Puerto Rico for nearly two years and only seeing a minimum improvement in their speaking skills, Papa and I are serious about buckling down.

Last weekends experiment was really rather successful. The kids were able to use more Spanish than I think they thought they were capable of! It gave them enough confidence to agree to continue on Sunday.  We've now decided that every weekend we are going to speak in Spanish only.

I even turned my FB page over...Spanish settings and all my posts/comments were in Spanish. 

Overall, it was a good change for the family.  Even Goofy Girl and La Loquita participated in it, limited as they were. 

We signed up all the older 3 for Duolingo and they've all been practicing.  123TeachMe has also been a good tool for us, but we needed something extra. 

I have a Spanish Word A Day email from Dictionary.com that I've gotten for years now.  So we are now adding 5 new words/verbs for the kids to write down and define.

We have taken this challenge seriously.  By the end of the year, I want all 5 kids to be speaking Spanish fluently. 

I want this to by one of my greatest parenting successes!

Hablame en español

Hoy, tenemos hablar en español solamente.  Los niños saben muchas palabras, pero nunca usarlas.

La regla nueva de Papi: Todos los fines de semana nosotros podemos hablar en español solamente.

Sí podemos!!

Papa Means Business

So Papa had the day off today...many jobs in PR did.  A remembrance of Jose De Diego, a huge political activist for Puerto Ricans.

We have really been buckling down on the Spanish at home....insisting the kids use it more when at Abuelo y Abuela's house, etc. 

Since Papa was here today during our school time, he was able to observe the kids attitude about it all. 

Smarty Pants is full of confidence at home, but refuses to speak it to anyone.  Sweet Thing is full of confidence and will use it all the time, not worrying about how wrong she might be saying stuff.  Drama Mama butchers every word she says, has no desire to even try to speak Spanish.  Goofy Girl and La Loquita think 'gibberish' from the show Pingu is Spanish..yikes!

Papa announced that on Saturday, he is giving a test.  A Spanish test.

I have no idea what he's going to ask them, but he told them it would be stuff they very much should know. 

The winner(s) will get $10 toward their Kindle acct for whatever they want to download.  And those games will not be put on anyone else's Kindle for 2 weeks.

The loser (s) with more than 5 mistakes will lose their Kindle access for two weeks.


Now this hits particularly hard for Drama Mama who JUST got her Kindle this week (for her birthday on Friday).

Hope they work hard this week and take Spanish class seriously!! Papa was not so happy with their joking/goofing off attitudes today!

IR

The verb of the week is IR. 

The kids have to remember how to use/say/spell all forms for present and past tense.  It's a work in progress to say the least!

Hablas español?

I realized how much we really do speak Spanish in the house when we were on vacation! I had to constantly remember to use English when around my parents!

We went to dinner at the local Mexican restaurant the night before we left and I was able to hold a decent, fluent conversation with the workers there.  Not something that happens often there! The kids were able to speak some too!

It was a good visit, but we are all glad to be back home in Puerto Rico!

Feliz Día De Qué?

\

Feliz Día De Amor y Amistad?

Feliz Día De San Valentín?

I asked Papa Loco...what do they use here in Puerto Rico...I've seen it both ways by other puertorricans...

His reply?

Whatever they want!

So felicidades de amor, amistad, y San Valentín!

La Biblioteca

Woohoo! I've finally found a library here where you can CHECK OUT BOOKS! I know, it is such a common thing in the states, but here in PR, most of the libraries only allow you to look at books at la biblioteca, not take them to your casa! Well we found one, a small one, with a family memebership for $25 and the ability to check them out!

En lunes y miercoles, Smarty Pants, Sweet Thing, y Drama Mama tienen clase de arte a la iglesia (have art class at the church).  Goofy Girl, La Loquita, and I have been going to the library during that hour to look at their books.

I've only explored the children's section, which is one small corner, but there is a good selection of books, most in ingles, but a fair number in español too.

So excited to get the membership next month! Now...how NOT to lose the books once we bring them home!