The Spirit of Halloween (no pun intended!)

I love Halloween although I didn´t celebrate it much as a child but I can´t wait to pass this slice of British(well, Irish really!) and American culture and tradition on to Chloe. I even thought about doing a party for her but then decided that she´s just a teeny-tiny bit young for a Halloween party at the moment.The week before Halloween it was my turn to host the bilingual playgroup at my house and I decided to do a Halloween theme. I don´t think there are many traditional Halloween nursery rhymes or songs or at least I didn´t know and couldn´t think of any  so we just did some pretty normal ones, Head,Shoulders,Knees and Toes and Row,Row,Row Your Boat. Unfortunately, Chloe was not very cooperative that day....I don´t think she was too impressed with all the other bilingual bubbas in her house,playing with her toys!!! Plus I think she was really tired! Oh and even better is that another of our bilingual bubbas and her parents joined us, increasing the group to 5 bubbas and 6 parents!!! I then read the story Owl Babies, not really a Halloween story but as it´s about owls and the pictures are quite dark, it was close enough without being scary. To end our Halloween bilingual playgroup, we finished off with a fingerprint spider craft (fun but messy and I think us, the parents ended up doing most of it but I think the children enjoyed it anyway!)I´m not sure I´ll be rushing to get the fingerpaints back out again for awhile yet though!!You can see our efforts in one of the photos!

The day before Halloween Chloe came home from nursery with her face painted, a paper pumpkin on a straw and a Halloween poem in English...I´m not sure if the native English people who work there made it up or whether it already existed but I´ve never heard it before...it goes along the lines of "Run,run,run, Halloween is fun, walk, walk,walk but don´t talk, play,play,play,Halloween is today!" I like the fact that although Halloween isn´t really a Spanish tradition(although it is rapidly increasing in popularity!)that the nursery is embracing it as it´s great for her to get extra imput on British/American culture.Also, on the 31st October, they had a Halloween party and it was optional to dress up. I definitely had to dress Chloe up and found a cute little witch´s costume complete with headband with a little witch´s hat on it. She came home with a little witch that they´d made at nursery.It was even in matching colours as Chloe´s costume!!!You can see Chloe´s costume and her witch in the photos above.

Thursday was a Bank Holiday as Spanish people tend to celebrate All Saint´s Day although my husband´s family don´t really tend to celebrate it so I took the opportunity to make some Halloween  Eyeball cupcakes. I tried to get Chloe to help me mix the green icing but she just wanted to eat it and put the spoon straight to her mouth,then lost interest and went off to find Daddy!! I´m looking forward to making and decorating other Halloween treats together every Halloween...it´s going to be a tradition!!So, all in all that was Chloe´s first Halloween. Hopefully I´ll be able to take her trick-or-treating in the future but it´s going to be difficult as I work in the afternoon/evenings so don´t know how I´ll get round that little loophole!

First week at nursery school!

This week was a difficult and emotional one because it was Chloe´s first week at nursery school and her first time ever really being apart from us.As I work in the afternoons,she is going to nursery school in the afternoons for about 4 hours. Unfortunately,many nursery schools where I live are shut in the afternoons and due to the crisis, even more are choosing to shut in the afternoons because there is little or no demand for nursery schools in the afternoons. After my search for a nursery school which you can read about here, I´m very happy with our final choice. It´s one of the best nursery schools in my city, is open in the afternoons, does activities in the afternoon and is the nursery school that is the closest to being a bilingual nursery school.

The first day came and we dressed her in her little nursery uniform(a bit ridiculous a nursery school having a uniform but at least her clothes will keep clean!).They have a summer uniform till October, girls wear a little blue and white striped dress, boys wear a blue and white striped knickerbocker/shorts type thing....I haven´t really paid as mcuh attention to the boys´uniform!!In winter, they have a different uniform...not sure what it´s like yet, plus a" baby",which is like a smock, to protect their uniform.That cost 50 euros already and we haven´t even bought the winter uniform yet!

When it came time to drop her off,she screamed, cried and tried to cling on to my husband for dear life. It was awful and we felt so bad leaving her. We rang after an hour to see how she was and they said she was ok but she was having her moments of crying.We went to pick her up after two hours and she was very happy to see us. This scenario was repeated the following two days although on the third day,she did stop crying for a little while but started again when the nursery nurse took her off me.She didn´t go the rest of the week as Wednesday night she started with a high temperature(which could´ve been down to teething though too!) and she was full of a cold...I hope it´s not a sign of things to come!!!

When we spoke to the head of the nursery school, she told us that she liked being sung to and that she had stopped crying when she heard English!We were given a list of materials we had to provide which included glue,crayons (and they had to be a certain brand!!!),a pad of different coloured card, non-slip socks, white finger paint, glitter gel,EVA rubber, 500 sheets of blank paper...I think that was everything!!I was really surprised....I never had to buy all that stuff for school,never mind for nursery!!!She´s only 1!We also paid for the "books" they use "El Conejita Juguetona"(another 35 euros!), which also comes with a CD with all the songs she´s going to learn, animal sounds and everyday sounds such as breathing etc and two English nursery rhymes "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and " Pat-a-cake,Pat-a-cake". My daughter is already familiar with these two rhymes as I sing them to her occasionally.

The nursery has two English speakers,one of which is native English and the other is bilingual although she speaks English with a Spanish accent. I was disappointed to learn that the native only works in the mornings and that children who go in the mornings get 5 hours of English, in other words they have 1 hour of English every day whereas the children in the afternoons only get 2 hours of English per week(and with the bilingual person not the native unfortunately). I don´t see why kids that go in the afternoon should suffer and get less than their morning peers but I suppose the afternoons are shorter! So it´s definitely not as bilingual as I´d have liked!Maybe I will see if she can go once a week in the mornings too although  it probably doesn´t matter so much as she´s still going to hear a lot of English off me!

I´m hoping that her time in nursery will encourage her speaking in both languages and that her talking will come on in leaps and bounds....we´ll just have to see how it goes!!

In search of a good (bilingual) nursery school-Update

As I mentioned in my previous post, we are looking for a nursery school for Chloe to attend next year, if possible I´d like her to go to a bilingual nursery school but unfortunately I don´t think one exists in my city! The word bilingual gets bandied around quite a lot here, a lot of schools call themselves bilingual or have a bilingual project but they aren´t as bilingual as I´d like and in many of these schools, the teachers aren´t bilingual and often only have a passing knowledge of English,some don´t even have the basics! However, there are other teachers that do have a high level of English. I think that these "bilingual schools" or "projects" don´t seem to be all that successful as through my job as an EFL teacher, I teach a variety of kids from the "bilingual" schools and from schools that don´t have a bilingual project and I don´t notice that much difference in their English abilities.You can find kids with good or bad levels from both types of school. Kids that attend bilingual project schools often know specific vocabulary for example eyebrow but don´t know basic verbs such as have got etc. To tell you the truth, I think it´s a bit of a gimmick!Often I think these schools don´t start with the bilingualism early enough,which is one of the reasons they aren´t successful, which is why I´d like to get Chloe started off as soon as possible in a bilingual nursery or as close to one as I can find!!!Most nursery schools offer English among their activities but in my opinion bilingual nursery schools should do 50% of activities in one language and 50% in the other language. From what I´ve read some bilingual preschools in the States take their bilingual initiatives quite seriously.

I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent there! We have been to see three nursery schools now. The first one we went to look at is the best nursery school in my city and is probably the closest to a bilingual nursery that I´ll come across in my city. It is situated in a lovely family-style house with a front and back patio.The back patio is larger and has slides etc to play on and a swimming pool/paddling pool in the summer. There was a comfortable, cosy atmosphere when you enter. Downstairs is for the older children, the babies are upstairs and have cots, changing tables with nappies etc and on the bottom floor is a kitchen, gym complete with tunnels for the kids to crawl through and a stage with scenery for plays etc. Everything was spotless and clean. There were a lot of nursery nurses (about 5 or more I think) working with and looking after a small group of children (about 5 or 6) and none of the kids were crying...they all seemed to be having fun and listening and joining in. One of the teachers had a guitar and they were singing Spanish nursery rhymes but just before they left I heard them singing If You´re Happy and You Know It.Plus the activites which the children participate in during the morning are repeated in the afternoon. The facilities are excellent and what really sways it for me is that they also have two native English workers!!! However, it is quite expensive especially as my daughter will be attending in the afternoons as I work in the afternoon/evenings so she´ll only be there 3 -3 and a half hours and it costs as much as if she were to attend the whole morning! It even has a school uniform, that alone costs 80 euros, as they consider themselves as an infant school rather than a kindergarden.

The other two nursery schools we´ve seen are quite similar to one another. One is bigger but is quite far away. It didn´t seem quite as clean and tidy as the first nursery school and there are more kids to a nursery nurse, the ratio was about 13:1. They do offer English among their activities but there are no natives and they don´t do the activities in the afternoon so it´d mainly be playing. It just didn´t present as well as the first either. On the other hand though,you have the option of only paying for the hours your child is there,making it a much more affordable choice. The third kindergarden was similar to the second, again they have a high ratio of kids to carers, 20:1, 13:1 and again English was among their activities on offer but yet again these activities are not offered in the afternoon...and no native English people either! Plus the price wasn´t that much cheaper than the first nursery school as you don´t have the option of paying by hours.

We have a few more nursery schools to check out but I think we´ll probably end up sticking with the first even though it is pretty expensive. I just don´t understand why more nurseries aren´t open during the afternoon and why they don´t offer the activities in the afternoons too.Ok, I understand that maybe there aren´t as many kids in the afternoons so it might not be worth having activities but I don´t understand why there aren´t more kids in the afternoons as many people have a split timetable and shops etc open till 8pm and what about doctors and nurses who work shifts?It´s difficult trying to work around these little inconveniences! Maybe I´m just going to have to work more hours to help pay the nursery fees or try and find a morning job (easier said than done in my line of work!) Does your child go to a bilingual nursery or a normal nursery? What is your experience or opinion about it?

Billingual Nursery or not, that would be the question & Babeltots

Luckily, I haven´t had to send Chloe to nursery so far as I only work part-time in the afternoons so I look after her in the mornings and speak to her in English and her daddy looks after her in the afternoons and speaks to her in Spanish as his job is quite flexible. However, we are considering sending her to nursery school next year so she can mix with other children and in preparation for starting school.Also, it means that her daddy will be able to do more research and work.

I´d have loved to send her to a bilingual nursery school but am pretty sure there aren´t any where we live! Hmmm, a possible new business for me to open although I´m not sure if it would be my cup of tea!! I have seen that there are a few nursery schools that offer English but I´m not sure how good they will actually be and whether the "teacher" will actually have a decent level of English and English pronunciation.Maybe they will only teach the colours and not much else so I don´t know whether it will be worth it. Then, on the other hand when she is with her Daddy, she only hears Spanish so there´s not much difference as she´ll still be hearing English from me.I´d like her to know though that it´s not just Mummy,Granny and Grandad and a couple of Mummy´s friends that speak another language though and any extra minority language input would be great,right?We also want to send her to nursery in the afternoons as I want to spend my mornings with her and it seems that it might be more difficult to send your child to a nursery school only in the afternoons. I suppose, I´m just going to have to do more research so watch this space,I´ll be updating you on our search for a nursery school. I´d also love to hear about your experiences, opinions or thoughts about bilingual nursery schools or nursery schools in general!

I´ve noticed when I´ve been looking at some websites about Bilingualism etc that 1) they either no longer exist 2) have not been updated for a very long time or 3) have maybe moved address.I am only going totry and only include resources that are up-to-date and useful. This brings me to the next resource which some of you might find very handy. I´m very lucky as it is fairly easy to find English or bilingual Spanish/English toys and books but for those of you who might struggle more,particuarly depending on the language(s) you speak: I´ve heard about the following UK-based company Babeltots on the Multilingual/International Parents group on Babycentre so thought I´d check it out (Click on the link for more information). They sell a number of bilingual toys and books for various languages from Finnish & Dutch to Swedish. Unfortunately the down side is that currently they only ship to the UK and they don´t sell any toys or books for languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Russian.