LITTLE PIM BLOG
Learning French & Spanish: Our Trilingual Adventure with SpanglishBaby
Roxana of SpanglishBaby.com has posted her second Video Blog (Vlog) about language learning with Little Pim. If you’re new to this Vlog series, Roxana is using Little Pim to introduce French to her daughter Vanessa, four years old, who is already bilingual in Spanish and English. Roxana has been doing Skype interviews with me to get tips on making it fun for her daughter to learn French and learning about resources for her to use as a parent who is not fluent in the language her daughter is learning. This week she talks about some of the hurdles she is facing in trying to incorporate French into their daily routine. It's not as easy as she thought it would be! At the end of the video Roxana’s daughter and I sign a French song together so be sure to watch the whole video. Vanessa est adorable!
Read the blog here: http://www.spanglishbaby.com/2010/10/our-trilingual-adventures-with-little-pim-media/
Learning French & Spanish: Our Trilingual Adventure with SpanglishBaby
Roxana of SpanglishBaby.com has posted her second Video Blog (Vlog) about language learning with Little Pim. If you’re new to this Vlog series, Roxana is using Little Pim to introduce French to her daughter Vanessa, four years old, who is already bilingual in Spanish and English. Roxana has been doing Skype interviews with me to get tips on making it fun for her daughter to learn French and learning about resources for her to use as a parent who is not fluent in the language her daughter is learning. This week she talks about some of the hurdles she is facing in trying to incorporate French into their daily routine. It's not as easy as she thought it would be! At the end of the video Roxana’s daughter and I sign a French song together so be sure to watch the whole video. Vanessa est adorable!
Read the blog here: http://www.spanglishbaby.com/2010/10/our-trilingual-adventures-with-little-pim-media/
Dan Zanes and Milkshake Help Your Baby Learn a Second Langauge
Giving your child the gift of a second language can start as young as 3 months old! While most parents know early learning is key, we don't always know where or when to start our children on their foreign language journey. Music is a simple first step to introducing your child to a new language, and hearing the music will get the rhythm of that language into their brains, making speaking it later on even easier and giving them a better accent. We culled the best of popular French and Spanish songs to create French Bop and Spanish Bop. The CDs will help your children discover French and Spanish through music, and the words in the songs reinforce many of the same words taught in Little Pim! We also included a 16-page book with all the lyrics, printed in the language being taught and in English.
Both CDs feature great kids melodies, sung by native speakers, and include beautiful lullabies and lively sing-a-longs. Spanish Bop and French Bop include three original songs by the popular kids' band Milkshake and the Spanish CD also has a guest song by Dan Zanes in Spanish. If you are a native Spanish of French speaker, you will likely recognize some popular songs from your childhood, and discover some catchy new tunes.
Play French or Spanish Bop in the car, put it on for an impromptu music party or make it part of your child’s bedtime routine. Soon you too might be singing "Frère Jacques" or "Los Elefantes"!
Fun with Flashcards? Absolutely!
Lately I have been making up games with the Little Pim French Word & Phrase cards to help my son Emmett learn new French vocabulary words. When we leave the house, I grab about 10 cards from the 60 in the Little Pim deck and carry them with us in the sturdy Little Pim box or a plastic bag. They tuck nicely into my purse for a low tech game! Then on the subway or while waiting for food in a restaurant we'll play what we call "The French Game”. I offer him an M&M if he can get ten right which makes it more of a game and less of a "let's learn vocabulary" exercise.
First, I run him quickly through the ten flashcards telling him how to say each word in French and asking him to repeat ("le fromage" ..."le toboggan"). He does not need to say the English, just the French. Then I start over and it's his turn to remember! He gets so excited when he can say the new words and we have a great time. He loves my silly hints: for "noir" which he has trouble remembering, I tell him to think of his favorite fruit, "poire" - pear - and then he gets it!
I like making up the "sounds like" part (“sounds like revenge meets today... ‘reveille!’") and he has started making up his own mnemonics as well. There’s always quite a bit of giggling! What’s also wonderful is that a few days later I'll say "how do you say "cheese?" and he pipes right up, "fromage!" with the biggest grin on his face.
P.S. We have phonetic spelling on the back of each card, so you don't have to speak French (or Spanish, the other language in which we offer flash cards) to play the game I played with Emmett!
Little Pim Spanish flash cards
How do you use language flashcards with your kids?
BiculturalFamily.org
Raising a child to be bilingual or raising a bicultural child can be a great joy yet also challenging to families who are just starting out. The two best things you can do to give yourself peace of mind is 1) Know that there are many families who have navigated these waters with beautiful, successful results and 2) Know that you aren't alone. BiculturalFamily.org is a wonderful resource for parents who'd like practical advice, how-to's, and stories from other parents on living a multicultural and/or bilingual lifestyle.
The online magazine is rich with content spanning the research of bilingual education, essays from readers, and more.
Their Playgroup section lists many offline opportunities for friendship and connection within the bilingual community.
Browse the website, make friends, and don't forget to have fun!
Meals Around The World... In Your Kitchen.
I am always looking for ways to introduce my children to newlanguages, and also to the idea that we live in a world with many different cultures, traditions, foods and lifestyles. A friend recently shared an idea her mom used to help her brother and her learn about the wide world from their home in Maryland. Once a month they had a "French night" or "Spanish night" or "Chinese night" where they would eat the foods of that country (imagine crepes, burritos or dumplings) and learn about the places the food came from. They would cook together, look at maps, browse through guide books, play music from the country in question, and talk about what they knew about that country. Sometimes they had a guest at dinner from the chosen country or watched a movie in that language. She and her brother loved these festive, themed evenings, and they are among her happiest family memories. I thought that seemed like a pretty easy and fun way to bring the world to your dinner table, without having to wait on any long lines for check-in!
If you want to try "country night" at home, here are some web sites that can help you fill in the gaps. I suggest you plan three nights at once so you can stock up on ingredients, music and images. It's also a really fun thing to do with other families. Your kids will get even more excited about country night if they see that other kids are also participating. And remember, kids will only sometimes do as you say, but they will *always* do as you do! By making this a regular event and spending time on it, they will learn from you how important it is to know about, respect and enjoy other cultures. If your kids are very young, you can still do this activity to broaden their palate and introduce them to the sounds and rhythms of other languages. You might find you have a pint-sized flamenco music enthusiast or sesame noodles-lover in your family... Bonne chance!
Links:
To order a GeoPuzzle, Travel Mania game or other Geo Toys
If you have favorite foods from other countries you like to make for your family, please tell us about them and we can add them to our blog, which is read by thousands of parents interested in their children having a multi-national experience from an early age. Email us at info@littlepim.com.
In 2009 a Majority of the World is Multi-Lingual...Shouldn t your Kids Be?
I watched the inauguration yesterday and shared the renewed sense of hope so many of us felt, and was also reminded that we have a long way to go to repair our country domestically, and our standing internationally. Barack Obama has already generated a lot of good will abroad and thanks to his election, we are well-poised to regain a favorable position in world politics.
During his campaign Obama recognized the importance of children learning second languages as a way of bringing our world closer and making our children more competitive in the global marketplace. Then there is the "global humanplace" which is equally important. Obama himself was raised in several countries and exposed to at least three languages growing up. Below is an excerpt from one of his campaign speeches:
"We should have every child speaking more than one language." It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' A foreign language is a powerful tool to becoming more employable in the global economy ... and children learn languages easier than adults. – Barack Obama
In many countries outside the U.S. kids are learning several languages as a matter of course at an early age. While our school system does not introduce a second language until middle school, there are many things we can do to give our children the advantages of two or even three languages at an early age. Playing music, reading books and watching DVDs in other languages are all part of making another language and easy and enjoyable part of our children's brain food. Visit Helpful Teaching Tips section for tips on making language learning fun for your children.
Parents Want To Know: What language should I teach my child?
Many parents write in and ask me questions about foreign language learning, and so occasionally the blog will feature a question/answer. Today's question is "How do I decide what foreign language to teach my child?"
Maybe you are like many parents who know they want to start their child on a second language early but don’t know which to choose. The first thing you should know is that you can't go wrong. Whatever language you choose, starting your young child on the path to learning a foreign language paves the way for your child to have a good accent, to have the chance of being fluent, and makes it easier for them to learn whatever language they choose to study later on in life. You are giving them the foundation, and they will reap the benefits for a lifetime. A book that is great for introducing your child to the idea that different languages are spoken around the world is Babar's World Tour, where the French elephant Babar takes his family on a trip around the world and his children learn to say phrases in all the different languages.
To many people, the obvious answer to "which language?" in the U.S. is Spanish since it is spoken by over 34 million people in our country. However, this should not necessarily be the only determining factor in your choice. I find parents are more likely to reinforce the learning if they choose a second language to which at least one of the parents has some connection. If one of the parents is fluent in the language that is obviously an advantage, but is not necessary for the child to pick it up. Many moms write to tell me how fun it was for them to see that their high school Spanish or French came back to them while watching Little Pim (it beats singing "I love you" with Barney). Your child can always choose a different language later on; at this early phase, it's most important to give them the framework and a sense that learning and speaking a second language can be fun.
For people who want more concrete answers, here are the “official” Little Pim guidelines for choosing a language:
1) Pick a language you like, perhaps have always wanted to speak (even if it's not the most practical) and that you will enjoy hearing and practicing with your child.
2) Pick a language that you can reinforce easily through native speaking caretakers and or kids, local or international trips, live music and CDs or language classes.
3) Pick a language your partner/spouse/fellow caretakers agree(s) on and make a plan together for how to bring this language into your home through DVDs, music and in person speaking.
4) If your child is old enough (15 months +), try out the different languages and see which one he or she responds to most.
How Do Kids Celebrate Holidays Around The World?
In FRANCE families eat a special dessert at holiday time called Bûche de Noël (pronounced "booche de no-el") which means "Christmas log". It's a very sweet cake, shaped like a log from the fireplace! It's made of sponge cake and has lots of chocolate icing. Here is a picture:
In MEXICO a big party for children usually includes a Piñata, (pronounced Peenyata, for it has an ñ, not an n), filled with peanuts in the shell, oranges, tangerines, sugar canes, and candy. All the children sing while one child at a time tries to break the Piñata with a stick while he/she is blindfolded.
Decorate your own pinata: : http://www.expertvillage.com/
video/14795_pinata-making
-warp.htm
Or fill a store bought
one with your favorite treats HERE.
In CHINA, s
ince the vast majority of the Chinese people are not Christian, the main winter festival is the Chinese New Year, which takes place toward the end of January. Kids decorate by lighting their houses with beautiful paper lanterns. Many Chinese children also hang stockings and await a visit from Santa Claus, whom they call Dun Che Lao Ren (dwyn-chuh-lau-oh-run) which means "Christmas Old Man." Santa Claus may also be called Lan Khoong-Khoong, "Nice Old Father."
"Une Pomme" Means Apple
Emmett has certain words he always remembers in French that he loves to say. One of them is "une pomme." Whenever we find one he points it out and says excitedly "une pomme!" When he is having trouble remembering new words in French I point to an apple and say what is this in French? He always brightens right up. "Une pomme!" he says proudly. Or sometimes it’s more of a "duh mom, une pomme, of course!" This helps keep learning fun for Emmett, and it's also a key piece of the Pimsleur Method. My father's method included many instances of recall affirmation - he'd' teach you a complex phrase and right after ask if you know how to say "How are you?" Or something easy like that. "Of course I do," you think and answer with ease. That little surge of confidence enhances your ability to remember the more complex phrases being taught.
Find your own "une pomme" with your kids and remember that affirmation and repetition are key to a child's learning a new language. And keep it fun!
(Click on Little Pim above for our Word of the Day Coloring Pages, another way to make language learning fun and interactive!)
