Spanish Resources for Non-Native & Native Parents

Although I´m the minority language parent which means I mainly speak English to my daughter and sing English nursery rhymes and songs and read English books but it occured to me that Spanish resources may be hard to come by. Even my Spanish husband, sister-in-law and mother-in-law seem to stick to the same old Spanish nursery rhymes...Cinco Lobitos and Palmas Palmitas....I did learn Pica Pica Pollito too off my cleaner but my husband doesn´t really seem to know many nursery rhymes and even though my daughter will probably learn a lot of nursery rhymes at nursery school and school, I thought it might be a big help for those non-native and native parents alike to have a list of Spanish resources. I hope you find this useful!!

Here is a Spanish version of the English lullaby "Rock-A-Bye Baby" called "Duérmete niño", which has the Spanish lyrics and the English translation.I also found another version of Duérmete niño on YouTube. The material for nursery came with a CD which includes some popular Spanish nursery rhymes such as "Aserrín, Aserrán"....there also appears to be many versions of this nursery rhyme, here´s one version and here are some other versions. Another is Date,date,date, which uses gestures to play with baby.I keep telling my husband he has to learn them so he can sing them to her!

The CD also has some traditional or popular stories on it. Garbancito is Spain´s answer to Tom Thumb (at least that what it seems like!).Here are two versions, one in YouTube and the other written so you can tell it to your children yourself.Another tale is the story of La ratita presumida which tells the story of a vain mouse who finds a coin,you´ll have to listen to the story to find out what he spends it on and what happens next!

Cartoons and TV programmes are also a good way to increase your child´s imput of a foreign language and at the same time raise culture awareness too. My daughter mainly watches cartoons etc in English as that is the minority language but sometimes I let her watch cartoons in Spanish too, especially if they are of Spanish origin. Some good Spanish cartoons are Los Lunnis, which is shown on the Spanish children´s TV channel, Clan and can also maybe be accessed online and on Amazon es.Los Lunnis is a series of brightly coloured puppets that sing and dance etc and are similar to The Muppets or Sesame Street!Pocoyo is another cartoon about a little boy called Pocoyo and his friends and their adventures, the characters don´t speak much and much of the story is told by the narrator.Again, Pocoyo is shown on Clan and here is a link to the official Pocoyo webpage.

I´m sure there are many more traditional songs and nursery rhymes, stories, books and cartoons and TV programmes from Spain and South America but these are just a handful to help non-native and native parents alike! If you have any more you can add or suggest, I´d be grateful.

Bilingual Babies: 13 months

I should name this Bilingual Toddlers as Chloe is now a toddler,she´s no longer a baby and is even walking but I don´t think it has the same ring to it as Bilingual Babies!!!So now she´s walking and she´s always on the go and hardly ever wants to sit still! She´s been concentrating on her new skill so much that her talking skills have been a bit put aside. However, saying that she is still babbling and chatting away to us, albeit in her own particular language, and she is also interacting as if she´s having a conversation with us.

Her understanding is increasing day by day and I´d say she probably understands at least 50% of what we say to her, if not a whole lot more. She dances when she hears music and if we say the word dancing or bailando,she´ll dance all the more!She understands the word no, dog, biscuit and many more words/sentences. One day she put her finger in her nose so I was saying "disgusting" and pulling it out but I did it in a jokey way so it encouraged her to do it all the more!! Anyway, another day I said to my husband something was disgusting or I was telling him what she did later the same day (in English!) and she put her finger up her nose so she obviously recognised the word and associated it with putting her finger up her nose!!

The only words she definitely says are Mama(and she calls everyone Mama lately even my husband...I think she also says it if she wants something), Papa...or Dada occasionally and ma, ma when she´s eating, which sounds a lot like más (more in Spanish but without the "s")but she also says this when she wants something. She also says words that sound like "yasta" which is like I´ve finished or all gone or I´m ready in English. We´ve been reading Where´s Spot?, a lift-the-flap book, and Dear Zoo, another lift-the-flap book and also The Bedtime Bear, yet another lift-the-flap book, all of which have animales including a lion and a snake and we´ve been doing the animal noises with her. All these books are in English but my husband does the books with her in Spanish but luckily a lion and a snake make more or less the same noise in both languages and she´s been repeating the lion roaring and the snake hissing. It´s so cute! If fact for a short time, if you asked her "What does the lion say?" she´d do her little roar but then for some reason, she stopped doing it and only does it now and again when we look at the books and see the lion. She would only ever answer this question in English even though my husband spent many a time trying to answer the same question but in Spanish! It´s all very interesting to see how she´s picking up and processing both languages.

I´ve also been singing all the usual nursery rhymes and songs I´ve mentioned in other posts as well as Row, Row, Row Your Boat, we do this song sat on the floor and bend backwards and forwards as if we are rowing and she loves it! As we trying to encourage her to do the animal noises, I´ve also been singing Old McDonald Had A Farm, Baa Baa Black Sheep and How much is that Doggie In the Window?. I´ve found a Spanish version of Old McDonald too on You Tube but have yet to play it to Chloe, here´s the link: En la granja de mi tío. I´ve also been pointing out all the cuddly toys or ornaments we have which are animals and saying "This is a dog. A dog says/goes "woof,woof"What does a dog say?" "Can you say woof,woof?" to try and encourage her to say them. I got this idea from the book "Quick & Fun Learning Activities for 1 Year Olds" which I borrowed from the public library in Spanish. Dog is a hard one as it makes different sounds in English and Spanish, in English a dog goes "woof-woof" whereas in Spanish it says "guau, guau"!Sometimes she does try and say them but not always!

Here are some other resources I´ve also found that could be of help to other bilingual or multilingual families. The website Bilingualism-Matters is an organisation formed by a group of researchers at theUniversity of Edinburgh and their website offers advice and links to other resources aimed at bilingual or multilingual families.Here is a link to the webpage Infanaj Kantoj, which has a selection of songs and nursery rhymes for children in German, English, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian and Welsh.

A Bilingual Birthday & Pressies Galore

I can´t believe it! A couple of weeks ago,Chloe turned one. I can´t believe how quickly the past year has gone! It has been an enriching year full of joy and happiness.

 My parents came to stay with us so that they could celebrate her first birthday too. We decided to have a BBQ and invite family and our friends, especially those that had kids too, including our bilingual bubbas. Unfortunately, only one of the bilingual bubbas could make it and the rest of the kids were monolingual.There were only 7 children in total.

Parties are hard work, I can tell you! I spent most of the day preparing food...decorating the cupcakes and the birthday cake(both of which I had made a day or two ahead!), making two salads and the dressing, one salad was a typical Spanish-style salad with tomatoes, tuna, lettuce leaves and the other salad was more my type of salad, mixed lettuce leaves, apple,dried cranberries, cheese and a creamy garlic dressing etc. The worst thing about it was that because I was so busy preparing the party(even though I had a lot of help!) it meant that I didn´t get to spend much time with Chloe! Next year we might just go to a ball pool place where they do the food...it´ll be so much easier! My parents had brought pork pies,puff pastry, sausage meat to make sausage rolls with. I also did a cheese and pineapple hedgehog,which was typical of birthday parties when I was little. My mother-in-law made two Spanish omelettes and we bought olives and sliced meat such as chorizo, Iberian ham and Spanish salami so we had a mixture of both cultures food wise. The sausage rolls were a big hit with the Spanish but the pork pies didn´t go down quite so well!We actually did too much food but never mind!Here are some photos of the birthday cake, a ladybird cake which I was very proud of!

We sang Happy Birthday followed by Cumpleaños Feliz, then Porque es una chica excelente and the English version, For She´s A Jolly Good Fellow, before the candles were blown out and the cake was cut. The only birthday cards,my daughter got were off English family and friends, there isn´t much tradition of cards in Spain but she got lots of presents.

She got quite a few books but I´ll be doing another post about them and I want to highlight some of the toys she got,particularly those that are great for language learning. One of the toys I bought her was My Puppy Pal Violet from Leap Frog, a cuddly puppy which can be connected to your computer and can be personalised to say your child´s name and will also spell it, favourite colour, favourite food and favourite animal. It also plays lullabies and songs which you can also download and change.This toy has won many awards and so far is proving to be a big hit with my daughter, especially now that she has learnt how to press it´s paws. She loves the music and dances along and the lullabies have soothed her to sleep on various occasions.It is aimed at babies from 6 mnths to 3 year olds.It also has a British accent so it´s great for further English exposure. The only downside I have come across is that the batteries run out pretty quickly.Here are some customer reviews from Amazon.

Another toy which I think is going to be great for Chloe´s English and learning in general is the VTech Alphabet Apple, an apple-shaped electronic toy with buttons for each letter of the alphabet. Each button has a little colourful drawing of an animal that begins with that letter plus the name of the animal in smaller print on it so for example A has a picture of an alligator and the word written below.Although this toy is aimed at older children, 2+ year olds, I bought it as a present that my daughter wouldn´t grow out of too quickly. As well as teaching the alphabet, animals and their characteristics, spelling, it also has a clock to help teach the time. The child can select different activity modes by sliding the icon up or down to do spelling games, clock quizzes, alphabet activities and listen to animal facts. There is also a music mode and each letter plays a different tune. My daughter loves pressing the buttons, turning the hand of the clock, the flashing lights of the buttons and the music although she doesn´t really play with it as such yet.The pronunciation of the letters and all sentences are spoken in a British English accent and they are very clear and accurate. Both My Puppy Pal Violet and the Alphabet Apple are great value for money and as I bought them on Amazon UK and they were both eligible for Super Saver Delivery, there were no additional costs for shipping, which is always a bonus!


My mum got her a couple of presents also from Amazon, which included two Melissa & Doug jigsaw puzzles, one of  the numbers 1-10 and the other is of the alphabet.They are both colourful and beautifully illustrated,particularly the alphabet puzzle as each letter has an illustration of something which begins with that letter, for example A has pictures of apples in it.Although again maybe a bit old for her, she will get a lot of mileage out of these puzzles and they will really help with learning the alphabet and widening her vocabulary.

Bilingual Babies: 9-12 months

I´ve been meaning to update you on Chloe´s progess sooner but seeing as there isn´t really much to report,plus I´ve been really busy, I´m finally getting round to it now!Chloe´s understanding of both Spanish and English is really taking off now as well as the phrases I mentioned in this post, she waves when we say bye,bye and adiós, shakes her head when we say "No" and gives us things when we say "Give it to Daddy", "Dale a máma". I´ve also started to include phrases like "How big is Chloe?" and moving her arms out wide and "How tall is Chloe?" and stretching her arms up high above her head and her Daddy has been doing the same in Spanish so she is starting to put her hands up high when she hears the Spanish phrase...I need to work more on the English phrases!!

I´ve been trying to teach her parts of the body so I´ve been touching parts of my face with her hand and saying the word and singing "Head, Shoulders,Knees and Toes" to her and just recently she is starting to touch her head when I say head.I´ve also been singing and doing Round and Round the Garden and This Little Piggy with her a lot.I´ve also been singing and doing the actions to Incy Wincy Spider a lot too and I have also discovered that there is a Spanish version of this nursery rhyme so she´s listened to that a couple of times too.Our cleaner sings her the Spanish nursery rhyme Pica, pica Pollito.

As far as speaking goes, she´s still not saying much.She babbles and sings loads and there´s a lot of "da-dada-da"ing and there was the proud moment,when she first said "ma-ma-ma"...however I don´t think she calls us mama or dada indistinctly. She definitely says "da-da-da" more than "ma-ma-ma" and sometimes when she says "ma-ma-ma", it´s when she´s eating so I´m not sure if that´s what she´s saying or she´s actually going "yum,yum,yum!"She´s also starting to say "pa-pa-pa" too and some of her babbling noises sound like words like "aqua" or "daddy". I´m hoping our trip to England this summer will really improve her speaking,particularly in English!

I have discovered a couple of new resources that you might find interesting. The first is Mantralinga, a publishing house based in the UK, which sells bilingual books and other resources such as posters, Talking Pens and Talking Labels in 52 languages. I haven´t bought anything from their website yet but I think their products sound very useful. Another website is Multilingual Children´s Association, which gives you tips and advice on bringing up children bilingually or multilingually, from starting your own bilingual playgroup,immersion programmes, learning tips to resources and it also reccommends books to help you on the way. You can also read and comment on issues that concern you in the forums and download a directory with classifieds, favourite resources etc.

Bilingual Babies: The first seven months

This post is about the first seven months of a bilingual baby. Obviously during the first seven months a baby can hardly talk but its language is developing so it is also an important time. When Chloe was born my parents came to stay with us for three months so Chloe was hearing English not just from me, but also from my parents 24/7. I even had to remind my husband that he had to speak to her in Spanish!!! My parents were continously talking to her and singing her nursery rhymes etc so I hope that this stands her in good stead for understanding English.

I keep up a constant stream of conversation with her, and ask her questions, just like in a normal conversation even though she can´t answer back e.g. when getting dressed Do you want to wear this pink dress? You like pink, don´t you? etc and have maintained singing typical English nursery rhymes or songs to her. Her father talks to her in Spanish and her grandparents, cousins and Aunt sing Spanish nursery rhymes or songs to her (mainly Cinco Lobitos & Palmas Palmitas!)

I had read that it is good to start reading to babies from about 4 months as it helps their language acquistion so from 4 months onwards we started reading to her in English and Spanish. I read to her in English of course and her Daddy reads to her in Spanish. I´ll be posting more about reading soon.

From about 3 months onwards, Chloe started squealing and babbling and around 5-6months added singing to her repertoire. She is very vocal and can be very loud. I think maybe that we are going to have a good communicator on our hands (at least I hope so!)Apart from the usual babbling sounds, such as ah-goo or ajo , we haven´t heard any da-da´s or ma-ma´s yet. I have been trying to encourage her by repeating da-da,da,da,da Daddy, Mu,mu, mu,mu mummy to her but so far no success. My mum said she heard her say Na, na once but I´ve never heard her say it so I´m not sure. Sometimes when she´s babbling though it sounds like she says aqua or hola and hello but I think that that´s only coincidence or wishful thinking!!! I´ve also started to say "All gone!" after she´s finished her breakfast/lunch/dinner and "ta" when I give her the dummy so she can get used to saying thank you, plus ta is much easier to say than "Thank You".
When did your little ones first start making vowel sounds or saying their first words? What were their first words? How old were they? I´d love to hear about any of your experiences!