Practicing Your Child’s Dual Language During Spring Break

Your children are really growing in their learning and their language is improving in both languages, hopefully. If your child is in Kindergarten or first grade, you may hear some occasional words or phrases in their second language. For children in second grade or later, you have probably heard your child speak full sentences in their new language. How do we keep that momentum going even with the break from their second language during spring break? Maintaining a dual language and spring break can go hand in hand.

If your child is still struggling with learning their second language, don’t feel discouraged. Check out our post on Dual Language Research for Language Acquisition. Most children learn language in a predictable course and some skills will develop sooner than others.

Spanish Language (Our Second Language)

We try to incorporate so much around our house to supplement our spring break so that both languages are encouraged and utilized. This is something that doesn’t just happen. We need to make time to speak, listen to, write, and read Spanish in our home over spring break. Having a clear plan for the week really helps boost language learning in your child’s second language.

Connecting the 4 Main Areas of Language Development

When we are learning a language, there are four main areas that we need to consider, with a fifth area that spans the other four. These four areas are listening, speaking, reading, and writing, with an emphasis on vocabulary building. Vocabulary is tied into each of the four main areas of language development.

Speaking and listening are generally the easier of the two to learn. Reading and writing develop more rapidly when children are able to listen and speak in the language. Just as with young children, they learn to listen and speak before they begin reading and writing. The same is true as we develop a second or third language in elementary school.

On the contrary, we can look at these four areas of language development in a different light too. Listening and reading are both receptive modes of language where we only need to understand what we hear or read. While speaking and writing are expressive modes of language where we must create what we will say or write. Understanding language is easier than producing the language.

Listening and Speaking:

Working on your child’s listening and speaking in a new language, is extremely important to language development. When most people think of being bilingual, they definitely consider being able to speak to others in both languages. In order to speak with others, we need to be able to understand what another person says, or listen to others.

Also, as our listening and speaking in our second language grows, so does our vocabulary. With an improving vocabulary, our reading and writing will also improve. The more we listen to and speak in our new language, the more confident we become. This confidence will also help us to improve our reading and writing in the second language.

Favorite Activities for Improving Listening and Speaking in a Second Language

We love so many different activities for helping our children grow their listening and speaking skills. As you are beginning, know that your children may need to just listen for a bit before they are ready to start speaking in their new language. This is completely normal and perfectly acceptable.

Don’t rush your children, but instead provide them time to listen to Spanish throughout their day. Of course, we don’t want to only listen to our new language. They need exposure to English as well, but they get lots of English naturally throughout the day as this tends to be the primary language their friends and family use.

Spanish TV

We love changing the TV into Spanish language so that our kids still hear Spanish even when they are on a break from school. This allows our children the opportunity to watch their favorite TV shows, just in Spanish. We enjoy rewatching some of our favorite TV shows and movies in Spanish when we watch them again. However, it can be just as fun to try watching an entire series in Spanish before watching any of it in English.

Translated TV shows and movies are wonderful but you can also find some Spanish kids TV as well. For native Spanish cartoons and programs, Telemundo is a great option. YouTube also has many different Spanish programs available for kids.

This is a great time to add in subtitles too! For some programs, we listen in Spanish with English subtitles. Yet, sometimes we find that our children rely too heavily on the English subtitles. So instead, we turn on the program in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. This allows them to read what was said when the speaking is too fast. Additionally, they have the ability to rewind or watch again any part of the show.

Spanish Music

We love to fill our house with Spanish music. There are a few good Spanish stations in Pandora that we listen to and YouTube has tons of Spanish songs as well. A simple Bluetooth speaker under a counter in your kitchen can bring music to your entire house.

We enjoy mixing music written in Spanish with music translated into Spanish. We love Spanish music because it is authentic to the Hispanic culture and introduces our children to idioms and sayings in Spanish. However, we also appreciate music translated into Spanish. Our children tend to be familiar with these songs and love them already. They can usually understand the music better too!

We love playing Spanish music when we are cooking, cleaning, and getting ready. Not only is it soothing and the changing of the songs helps us keep track of time, but it exposes our kids to Spanish music throughout the day. This increases their language learning and helps to improve their vocabulary.

Spanish Podcasts

We listen to some kid friendly Spanish podcasts, but also have the kids make them to share about their day in Spanish. This is a great time for them to reflect on the fun things we did during the day. As well as add in new vocabulary words.

Spanish podcasts are great for those times you are stuck in the car for short or long drives. We usually play them through our phone or the car’s Bluetooth. Then we can all listen together. Just download the podcast app and search for Kids Spanish. You’ll find so many to play on your drive.

The nice things about podcasts are they usually follow some type of format. So after listening to a few, your children will learn the format and the common words. This will help them to better follow along with future episodes. Plus they can pause, rewind, and listen again to anything that was confusing or too fast.

Question of the Day

Plan a question of the day in Spanish. Ask the question in Spanish and have everyone reply in Spanish as well. We like to ask this with dinner or breakfast during the day when we are all sitting down together. Some of our favorite questions involve asking what the kids would like to do today, what was their favorite memory so far, what they might want to eat tomorrow or later today, someone they really want to see.

If you are worried about your level of Spanish, that’s okay. Take a moment and type in your question into Google Translate. Even if your Spanish is still incorrect with the use of the app, trying and failing is better than never trying at all. Your children will usually understand the message and if they don’t, just try again. It’s good for our children to see their parents try something new and take risks in their learning too.

Playdates in Spanish

Spanish playdates with friends either via zoom or meeting outside to play. If your child is enrolled in a dual language program, take advantage of the fact that half of the children probably speak Spanish at home. Invite children from their class to have a playdate. Then encourage all the children to speak Spanish with each other as much as possible.

In the beginning, you might hear more English than Spanish. That’s perfectly acceptable and to be expected. Just encourage the use of Spanish wherever you can.

Spanish Trips Around the Community

Going to a Spanish speaking grocery store or bakery. Not only do many of the people here speak Spanish but many of the signs and writing are also in Spanish. Ask your kids to order something or ask for help finding something using Spanish. Many of the employees will appreciate their efforts to use Spanish and will help them even if their Spanish isn’t perfect.

Even just walking around the bakery or grocery store can be useful. While you enjoy your trip, your child will be surrounded by the Spanish language everywhere. They may pick up on words or phrases that other people are using around them. But even if it all sounds like gibberish, they are attuning their ear to the language.

Spanish Nursery Rhymes, Songs, and Books

Read or Listen to Spanish Nursery Rhymes, songs, or books. We absolutely adore Alma Flor Ada for Spanish nursery rhymes and poems from all different Spanish speaking countries. She has a few different collections to get your hands on. These books come with a variety of nursery rhymes from different Spanish speaking countries and English translations to try to keep the meaning more than exact translations, which is amazing.

Native Spanish children’s books, nursery rhymes and songs expose your child to the nuances of the Spanish language. Not only will your child get a more in-depth picture of the Hispanic culture, but they will start to learn the proper way to say phrases or idioms in Spanish instead of just translating into English. So often English translations mean little in Spanish or actually change the meaning, but when you can find authentic Spanish texts, your child will benefit.

Reading and Writing, plus vocabulary:

We also want to work on our child’s reading and writing over spring break as well. No matter the age of your child, if they can read in English, they can read in Spanish. Spanish is a much more phonetic language than English and thus much easier to read and write words. However, just because they can read the words on the page, doesn’t mean they understand what they are reading. To improve their reading comprehension, work on their listening and speaking just as much as their reading and writing.

For more on beginning reading in Spanish, don’t miss our two posts on How to Learn to Read in Spanish and A Parent’s Guide to Reading in Spanish.

Favorite Activities for Improving Listening and Speaking in a Second Language

1. Spanish vocabulary for all things outside. We encourage our kids to name all the different things outside in both English and Spanish to grow their language. Since the weather is usually nice we spend a lot of the time outside.
2. Plan time for reading in Spanish as well. This is a great time to try reading a few more challenging books with your kids that you can read to them or even listen to them on audiobook.
3. There are many Spanish books read aloud on YouTube which can be great fun to listen to as well. Just plan one a day or even every other day.
4. Keep a Spanish journal for the week, ask your child to write 1 – 3 sentences in Spanish daily. One sentence is easy since they can write anything they want. If you want them to write 2 or 3 sentences, give them some prompts: Favorite thing we did, What was the weather like, What do you want to do tomorrow, Something new you learned.
5. Cooking in Spanish – find a recipe in Spanish to make together, we try to do something fun like cookies, even if I have to translate the recipe myself.
6. Hidden Spanish Notes – I love writing notes to my kids in Spanish. Little things that tell them what we plan to do today or something special that will happen or even just a positive note telling them how amazing they are. Then I hide these for them to find or place them somewhere in their room. My kids love to write these to each other too, which can be great fun and encourage writing too!

Final Thoughts

Any work you do with your child during spring break is extra. So don’t overwhelm yourself trying to do to much, pick something to do once during the week or one thing a day to practice their Spanish language. And remember, you could simply use the apps that the school provides too! It doesn’t have to be anything big or overwhelming but anything you do is wonderful for your child.

Looking for tips to help your child grow their Spanish vocabulary, be sure to check out Grouping Vocabulary for Language Learning. For children who are new to dual language programs, be sure to head over to our posts focused on beginning dual language and dual language for kindergarten. And of course, as summer break approaches, get a head start planning for summer language development.

We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a comment below and let us know which activities you love to build your child’s Spanish language at home. Looking for more practical tips for solving real-life parenting problems, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. We send out a twice monthly newsletter with helpful tips and the occasional freebie for parents.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.