I am going Spanish Shopping! what do you think?

I thought I have tried every trick and strategy to help my kids be bilingual, but I realized last weekend that I was totally wrong. There are so many things I am still to discover and that I am still to try.

I was travelling for work with some colleagues, it was quite interesting. There were 6 of us in the trip, and we looked like the United Nations! 3 Americans (1 living in the UK), 1 French (living in the US), 1 British (living in in France) and 1 Venezuelan. Each one of us with a fantastic story to tell. How did we end up all living in so far away from home? and how do we cope with it? How do we get our kids to speak English, French, Spanish?

So well it looks like there are still so many more things to try  - we all tried the music, the pretend we do not understand unless they speak in our native language, the TV, books, you name it. But there were things that some of us have tried that others have not. I will be posting some of the new ideas during the next few weeks, but here is idea #1 - my favorite so far and one that I will start this weekend.

Go shopping with your kids. Some of us do this routinely (I do not!) My husband and I divide and conquer and one of us goes shopping while the other entertains the kids - this makes the shopping trips efficient and FAST!! However, it made us miss some bonding time as well as important teaching time. Yeap - teaching time. And here is how.

Grocery Shopping: Go around the supermarket and every time you grab something to put in your cart let the kids know the item name in Spanish - they may know some of them but surely they will not know them all. Make a game with them to see who can remember the most names or something similar. If they can name something new they like without you telling them, then buy it for them. In no time they will have great vocabulary and will be able to cook you a dish in Spanish!!!

Do the same while going cloth shopping, and use colors and sizes as well as item names. Like "look at this big blue pants" and challenge them to find things - Who can find me a small red t-shirt? and things like that. Make it fun, use competition if they like to compete, use small rewards if they like that.

I am going to try it this weekend - hopefully they will enjoy it! and I get to do my shopping too.


Disclosure: I will receive discounted tuition from Language Stars as compensation for this post. However all facts and opinions expressed in this post are true and my own. Language Stars have not asked me to write about anything in particular, only my true and honest opinion about my experience with their program.  This post have not been edited by a third person.