Teaching the kids

Teaching the kids Spanish as I am learning has been both harder and easier then I thought it would be.  My son is 4 so he is pretty much set in the way he speaks but is still somewhat open to new words.  I really thought it would be easier with him because he is still so young.  He does pick up the meaning to words pretty quickly.  I only need to translate twice to him but for full sentences, he still needs translation unless I say that particular bunch of words all the time like "wash your hands and face".  I guess I thought he would just "get it".  My daughter is 2 so she is still pointing at things and asking their names.  It is super easy to insert a Spanish word instead of English.  I am not worried about her not getting enough English, she hears it from her daddy and brother all day long.  We decided that only I would speak Spanish to the kids so that they would not get too confused and because my husband does not know Spanish and does not have the time or desire to learn.  I am amazed that my daughter got this so fast.  She never tries to speak Spanish to her daddy, or to other people, only to me. 

I started with just inserting Spanish in to my everyday speech with the kids.  I have read that this is not a good idea but my kids (and my limited vocab) needed to start slowly.  I began to see the words that I would need, to be able to speak to my kids in all Spanish and made flash cards on my phone to help me learn them.  I keep moving along with my Pimsular lessons to help fill in the "in between" words such as: us, them, the, he, she, because, etc and how to conjugate verbs and put together sentences.  I found a great website that had a list of common things you say to children in Spanish:
  http://www.biculturalmom.com/2011/04/13/infant-toddler-spanish-pt-1/#axzz1xWJwM8Ek
I printed it out and carried it around with me. 

Today I decided to just jump in and try to speak all Spanish to the kids, all day.  I am amazed at how well I did.  I have only been studying for almost 2 months and I was able to speak Spanish to the kids 80% of the day.  I did have to stop and consult my list sometimes but not as often as I thought I would.  This also tells you that I do not have "deep" conversations with my children although when my son did want a complex answer I switched back to English.  I am impressed that my kids did so well with it too.  My daughter used some Spanish words that she had not before and my son did not get annoyed with me.  All and all a success!  I think I will keep it up.  My goal is to speak 100% Spanish 100% of the time to my kids.    

Learning Spanish on my own 2

I took Spanish about 5 years ago in college and was very surprised at how little I knew by the end of two courses.  So this time around I am not eager to get back in to a classroom.  I started by going to the library.  I picked up a starter Pimsuler set with 10 lessons on CD and some books meant to help children with their Spanish.  After just 5 of the CDs I felt like I had already re-learned everything I learned in those classes.  I was pretty impressed.  I don't memorize easily so anything that could get me to remember something was worth looking in to.  I found the entire Pimsuler Spanish set lesson 1-90 on Ebay for $100 on a memory book chip.  I jumped and took a chance buying them.  It takes me about 3 days to finish a lesson and I couple that with reading Spanish children's books, listening to music in Spanish and watching tv shows and movies in Spanish.  I also make flash cards of animal, body, food, house, and any other words I might want to say to my kids with the Anki app I have on my phone.  It have been about a month now and I must say I have come a long way.  The Pimsuler is really working well for me.  All of the words I have learned are words I can use when speaking to the kids and words that I here all the time on tv.  I am only on lession 17 and already can keep up with some tv shows.  I don't know everything that is said but I catch enough to understand what is going on.  I feel like the shows are a puzzle that is becoming clearer with each lesson I go through.     

Learning Spanish on my own (and teaching it to the kids)

I have always wanted to learn Spanish and have always been ridiculously jealous of anyone who can speak more then one language.  My grandma spent many years in Spain and my mom was born there.  Both my mom and grandma used to know a lot of Spanish but they never spoke it to me.  I was never able to take Spanish in school due to a scheduling conflict with band.  I did take two classes of Spanish in collage and really learned very little.  I remember watching some movies in Spanish in class and we were all shocked at how little we understood.  After going through 4 hours of class for 3 days a week for two months straight we thought we would understand at least 10% of what was said but it was closer to 1%.  Now I have a little time on my hands an a strong motivation to finally just do it.  I want to teach my kids.  That is the mantra that is going through my head every time I think I am just crazy for even trying to learn Spanish.  No one else can do it, it has to be me.  If I can teach myself how to run a small business office, and make cheese then certainly I can do this.