Bilingual Together

And so begins YEAR 7 of our bilingual homeschool!

Today is our first true Spanish day, and friends, the truth is that we not spoken Spanish AT ALL since May.

We took a break from our weekly tutor over the summer mostly because of our move, and the kids are FEELING IT. 😢

SO, today is all about fun and games, and simply SPEAKING Spanish again.

(And reviewing our Spanish Curricula for the year, and reading good books in Spanish.)

Did anyone else slack on the minority language over the summer?

Narration in our bilingual homeschool:

When we read in Spanish, we narrate orally in Spanish.

However, this is my 10yo’s 4th grade year, and his first year doing written narrations. Because of this I let him chose what language to write in and he mostly always chooses his stronger language: English.

Another thing to note, is that I do not require proper spelling. We use All About Spelling (we’re in level 4), and my son is actually a very good speller…WHEN HE IS FOCUSED ON SPELLING.

But when he is writing narrations he is focused on getting the story, in an intelligible order, on the paper. Spelling takes a back seat. That’s okay.

Also note: This particular child normally writes as little as possible for his written narrations. 😜 But this story captured his imagination. It was a proud mama moment.

Notebook:
Book: Gran libro de mitos griegos, Erik Kimmel

“Mommy, this was a very, very good book. Not a nice book, but a helpful book. Can we pray for Ukraine?” - my 8yo

I believe it was Betsy who posted about this book in English. I immediately searched for it at our library to see if it existed in Spanish, and it does.

Friends, I am a mother and a teacher, not a politician or journalist. To that end, I will share resources I find that are helpful for having hard conversations with our children about current events. But I will not be sharing news or articles, or really commenting much about current events.

However, this book was a very helpful tool to begin a conversation with my children about war. Thanks, Betsy for the recommendation.