I loved this video and hope to see MORE bilingual content in future videos. I definitely agree with you that there is a lot of stress that sometimes comes with bilingual homeschooling; I think because every family is unique so there isn’t a one-size- fits-all approach that will work for everyone. I started thinking I had to DO 50/50, but then realized pretty quickly how difficult that was going to be for us to implement 😅. We now just fill in Spanish wherever we can. Lots of literature, music etc. Because of you we decided to adapt G+C Primer, so I’ve gone out of my way to purchase Spanish titles. We will be teaching Spanish phonics (reading ) first. And sprinkling Spanish where ever we can. Just purchased Ninos and Nature’s “Spanish in the Wild” to implement this year for our nature study. I was even thinking about bulking it up with a books (English and Spanish ). Great reminder about giving our children a FEAST, it’s really up to them where they take it. 🤍
Glad this is helpful! I do try to regularly include some commentary on our bilingual learning journey in my monthly update videos. Yes, keep up the great work in offering that FEAST.
Love all this!! Lots of great practical strategies and ideas to think about for anyone starting or on this journey. We have done or are doing all of them in some way or other, pretty sure. :) Also, your comments at the beginning made me think of a recent conversation that I had with a seasoned bilingual homeschool mama who I really admire whose oldest kids are just older that my oldest. She was telling me how they've gotten to the point where subjects like science etc. aren't really what they want to continue doing in Spanish because the domain-specific vocabulary is so, well, specific, that they've stopped doing those subjects in Spanish. And she talked about facing some resistance in those middle school/junior high years. So the focus for her has changed into finding (even more) real-life contexts for using the language. It's got me thinking for our future too, about what goals I have for the kids and how that will affect how we continue with our bilingual schooling as we get into those years. Don't have all the answers, but I'm sure I'll be giving it a lot of thought this year since my oldest is going into his last year of elementary school! (6th grade is considered middle school here). Eek! Anyway, like you said, being willing to adjust as you go is so important!
Yes, as you get into higher levels of science, math fields or other subjects, there is so much specific vocabulary required, so it's good to remember what our goals are for a language. I would absolutely love to find more real-life context and use for Spanish but it is a little uncommon in our lifestyle right now...in the meantime, we keep working on building that foundation.
This might be next level nerdy and probably just weird 🙈 but my husband and I both enjoy Latin and are striving to become fluent in it (reading and speaking!). 😅 We are starting to teach our kids and I’m toying with the idea of, as they get more fluent, having their oral and/or written narrations for history, Lit, Bible be in Latin. Also, life goals: to read The Aeneid in the original Latin with my kids when they’re in high school-how cool would that be?? 😂
That would indeed be pretty incredible, to read the Aeneid in the original language. Getting to the level of being able to write coherent narrations in a second language would certainly show a high level of mastery.
I learned chemistry and biology in English. Some months ago I was talking with who I think is the encargado de salud (I haven't heard him called that at this church, but I've heard the term at a previous church) about nutrition. Dark green leafy vegetables are a good source of magnesium. I wanted to say that chlorophyll is a square molecule with magnesium in the middle, but either didn't know the gender of chlorophyll in Spanish, or knew it only because he had just used the word. When describing polygons in Spanish, you can have one que tiene tres esquinas y un rincón, a distinction which does not exist in English unless you add an adjective like "retuse" or "reentrant". Are there curricula designed for bilinguals? I think that vocabulary would be particularly important to do bilingually, pointing out cognates, false cognates, false friends, and words in one language with two or more equivalents in the other.
I have not heard of homeschooling curriculum designed specifically for English/Spanish bilinguals in the upper levels--although it sounds like a fantastic idea, and I'm sure there would be a market and a need for it.
We don’t do double the school work but we do teach words in German during the English speaking lessons!!! With our adventurous lives we don’t know where we will live long term yet alone what our kids will choose!!! We are Aussie citizens tho so I’m guessing they will go to Aussie or American university!!! We love German worship songs!!! We nearly moved to a German speaking island in the pacific but we where called to Hawaii!!! Sometimes we double a few words but do the whole lesson in English!!! Me and my husband mainly use English unless we are talking to his parents and I’m wanting the same for my kids especially my older kids who love languages!!!
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I loved this video and hope to see MORE bilingual content in future videos. I definitely agree with you that there is a lot of stress that sometimes comes with bilingual homeschooling; I think because every family is unique so there isn’t a one-size- fits-all approach that will work for everyone. I started thinking I had to DO 50/50, but then realized pretty quickly how difficult that was going to be for us to implement 😅. We now just fill in Spanish wherever we can. Lots of literature, music etc. Because of you we decided to adapt G+C Primer, so I’ve gone out of my way to purchase Spanish titles. We will be teaching Spanish phonics (reading ) first. And sprinkling Spanish where ever we can. Just purchased Ninos and Nature’s “Spanish in the Wild” to implement this year for our nature study. I was even thinking about bulking it up with a books (English and Spanish ). Great reminder about giving our children a FEAST, it’s really up to them where they take it. 🤍
Glad this is helpful! I do try to regularly include some commentary on our bilingual learning journey in my monthly update videos. Yes, keep up the great work in offering that FEAST.
Love all this!! Lots of great practical strategies and ideas to think about for anyone starting or on this journey. We have done or are doing all of them in some way or other, pretty sure. :) Also, your comments at the beginning made me think of a recent conversation that I had with a seasoned bilingual homeschool mama who I really admire whose oldest kids are just older that my oldest. She was telling me how they've gotten to the point where subjects like science etc. aren't really what they want to continue doing in Spanish because the domain-specific vocabulary is so, well, specific, that they've stopped doing those subjects in Spanish. And she talked about facing some resistance in those middle school/junior high years. So the focus for her has changed into finding (even more) real-life contexts for using the language. It's got me thinking for our future too, about what goals I have for the kids and how that will affect how we continue with our bilingual schooling as we get into those years. Don't have all the answers, but I'm sure I'll be giving it a lot of thought this year since my oldest is going into his last year of elementary school! (6th grade is considered middle school here). Eek! Anyway, like you said, being willing to adjust as you go is so important!
Yes, as you get into higher levels of science, math fields or other subjects, there is so much specific vocabulary required, so it's good to remember what our goals are for a language. I would absolutely love to find more real-life context and use for Spanish but it is a little uncommon in our lifestyle right now...in the meantime, we keep working on building that foundation.
This might be next level nerdy and probably just weird 🙈 but my husband and I both enjoy Latin and are striving to become fluent in it (reading and speaking!). 😅 We are starting to teach our kids and I’m toying with the idea of, as they get more fluent, having their oral and/or written narrations for history, Lit, Bible be in Latin. Also, life goals: to read The Aeneid in the original Latin with my kids when they’re in high school-how cool would that be?? 😂
That would indeed be pretty incredible, to read the Aeneid in the original language. Getting to the level of being able to write coherent narrations in a second language would certainly show a high level of mastery.
I learned chemistry and biology in English. Some months ago I was talking with who I think is the encargado de salud (I haven't heard him called that at this church, but I've heard the term at a previous church) about nutrition. Dark green leafy vegetables are a good source of magnesium. I wanted to say that chlorophyll is a square molecule with magnesium in the middle, but either didn't know the gender of chlorophyll in Spanish, or knew it only because he had just used the word.
When describing polygons in Spanish, you can have one que tiene tres esquinas y un rincón, a distinction which does not exist in English unless you add an adjective like "retuse" or "reentrant".
Are there curricula designed for bilinguals? I think that vocabulary would be particularly important to do bilingually, pointing out cognates, false cognates, false friends, and words in one language with two or more equivalents in the other.
I have not heard of homeschooling curriculum designed specifically for English/Spanish bilinguals in the upper levels--although it sounds like a fantastic idea, and I'm sure there would be a market and a need for it.
We don’t do double the school work but we do teach words in German during the English speaking lessons!!! With our adventurous lives we don’t know where we will live long term yet alone what our kids will choose!!! We are Aussie citizens tho so I’m guessing they will go to Aussie or American university!!! We love German worship songs!!! We nearly moved to a German speaking island in the pacific but we where called to Hawaii!!! Sometimes we double a few words but do the whole lesson in English!!! Me and my husband mainly use English unless we are talking to his parents and I’m wanting the same for my kids especially my older kids who love languages!!!
That's a good idea to teach a few key words in the target language.