Bilingualism

We are just amazed, constantly, by the sheer will to learn that animates our little ones. Whether they are teaching themselves to crawl, walk, talk, or swing on the monkey bars, these babies, toddlers, and preschoolers make even the most driven adults look like lay-abouts. They cannot help themselves from learning, learning, learning -- and language acquisition is top priority for their developing brains. That is why these years are such a great time, indeed the very best time, to introduce our children to a second language. Some lucky kids are raised, from the very beginning, in a bilingual household. But even those of us parents who never got past high school Spanish can do a lot to expose our kids to another language's sounds and rhythms. We can encourage interaction with friends, relatives, and caregivers who are fluent in another language. And we can bring some of the wonderful and widely available foreign language music, books, and games for young children into our daily routines and play. Disfruta!

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Pio Peep! Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes

We adore nursery rhymes, especially this lovely collection of Latin American poems, songs, rhymes for children. Many of the Spanish language children's books available today are translations of familiar English titles (Buenas Noches, Luna, anyone?) which is just fine. But it's ever so much more fun and instructive, we think, to read verse in the original (and an English translation is provided on the opposite page in case your high school vocab fails you). You tots will pick up a bit of culture as well as a bit of language, and greatly enjoy these rollicking rhymes and the sweet illustrations that go along with them.

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