Re-introduction

It has been a long time since I blogged, and since that time many very informative bilingual blogs have popped up. I hope it means that the movement is growing, and more families are homeschooling their families in more than one language.

We are bilingual household, with me the native English speaker, and my husband the native Spanish speaker. We started out with each of us speaking our own language to our oldest daughter, and using Spanish between us.

I homeschooled the oldest mainly in Spanish for prek-grade 2 or 3, using Spanish for language arts and math, 50/50 for science and read alouds depending on resources found, supplemented history with books in Spanish. In 4th grade, I switched math to English. When she attended a bilingual charter middle school, she placed at grade level or above in both her languages, despite having dyslexia. This year we started homeschooling again, but she was accepted into an Arts high school and is now part of their dance department. We are trying to figure out how to continue her Spanish studies to earn a bilingual diploma through the school, as the school does not have a native Spanish class.

I also have another daughter, age 4. She seems to following a different path than her older sister. Whereas the oldest had Spanish as her stronger language for a long time, the younger uses mostly English. For a while, she would say she did not want to speak in Spanish at all. However, since dh will only speak Spanish to her, she needed to learn. I had placed her in a bilingual preschool at the beginning of the year, and her Spanish took off! She is still not as proficient as her older sister at this age, but she is willing and learning. I pulled her out of the preschool after winter break.

With the youngest, I am using Sonlight's Core P3/4. She is loving the stories! I substitute or supplement in Spanish, although not as much as I should. We play a lot and do structured activities in Spanish. She also is motivated to learn to read in Spanish. My oldest likes to join in at night, remembering many of these same stories I read to her when she did Sonlight!

Also part of the family are our Spanish-understanding cat, Gitana, and bilingual dog, Chavela :). The hamster, Bubbles, is just cute.

I'm looking forward to chronicling our journey again, this time with the youngest homeschooler. It will be interesting to see the path we take with her.

This post is part of the Sonlight 25th Anniversary Blog Party!

Comments

  1. Nice to meet you and your family. :)

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  2. I'm fascinated by your bilingual homeschool! I am bilingual myself (English and Italian) and have tried to raise my children speaking both languages but haven't succeeded very well. They understand a lot but they don't speak it much. My middle son is taking an online class through Landry Academy and I help him with the grammar. My daughter has decided on Spanish as her other language (my father in law is from Spain) but her knowledge of Italian vocabulary helps her a lot with Spanish. Anyways, it's very nice to meet you!

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    1. My oldest daughter wants to learn Italian so bad! She says she plans to go to Italy one day, perhaps on a dance tour :). We are also able to figure out some Italian because of our Spanish background. Even if your children aren't speaking Italian, understanding it will go a long way in biliteracy if they decide to pick it up later. In our area, there are many who take heritage Spanish classes in college because they grew up understanding, but not speaking, the language.

      Thanks for visiting!

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  3. I would love to be able to teach another language to my children. Only trouble is I'd have to learn it first myself. Maybe we should delve in to learning a language together? Your children are very lucky to have such talented parents!

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    1. Learning language together is fun! I've taught my girls a smattering of different languages, and for a while I was (re)learning Japanese along with my oldest using a tape series of children's songs and a lyrics workbook, and videotapes. It's a nice adventure!

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  4. So nice to meet you, Renai. I love how even your pets are bilingual! Thank you for participating in the Sonlight blog party. I look forward to reading more of your posts throughout the year.

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    1. My pets are so funny! The cat will only answer to Spanish. I had another dog that passed away a month before youngest was born, and I can say he was truly bilingual! I hope to be able to keep up with blogging, at least doing the monthly Blog Party posts.

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  5. Hi There. Just hopped over from the Sonlight blog link. I am fascinated that you your bilingual homeschool. That is so great!! I am looking forward to seeing more posts throughout the year. Blessings!!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! Quite a few bilingual blogs have popped up since the loss of my original blog, so I hope I still have something to offer.

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