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.