It is Monday again! I'm trying to do my best to blog at least once a week and help answer some of your daily questions. Thank you for being patient with me and sticking around.
As a home educator I know many of you are starting soon with the new school year or thinking of start homeschooling! I'm so happy for you and your family for taking this amazing opportunity and being brave enough to step up for your kids and start a new adventure together. An adventure that I'm personally so happy we took almost three years ago when we decided to home educated our own precious children.
Here I go with ten things that has been very helpful for all of us (including Daddy).
1. Do your research: Research, research, research, start by reading books about bilingual parenting, you will find great tools on how to make bilingualism less overwhelming and also how to keep the minority language active at home even when your kids don't want to speak it. "Maximize Your Child's Bilingual Ability: Ideas and inspiration for even greater success and joy raising bilingual kids" by Adam Beck is a great book to start.
2. SPEAK the minority language a home: Speak the minority language at home as much as you can, I know it can be tricky, everyone around us speaks English and your kids want to do the same. Start by being the example at home, and asking them to repeat, repeat, repeat or answer back to you in the minority language. By homeschooling this will get better, because you will spend more time with your children and it will become easier for them to speak it and wanting to speak the minority language at home, trust me!
3. Read aloud: If you don't read aloud, start NOW! What a wonderful way to connect with our children. Books are a wonderful tool to expand their vocabulary and to be able to travel around the world by just reading them.
4. Take weekly library trips: Libraries are our favorites, there is so much beauty and information in these buildings. You can definitely homeschool by just going to the Library. Go to the bilingual section and look for your books. I usually go and I find lots of Spanish books. And if you don't find what you are looking for, you can always request the book from the Librarian and they can buy it and have it for you in a couple weeks.
5. Curriculum: Thanks to the technology we have access today to so much information that is out there. You don't really have to buy an expensive curriculum. But if you are like me and you have to check the box out, you can go to SANTILLANA USA also known as Vista Higher Learning, you can find great resources here.
Also Amazon library or Thriftbooks is wonderful for used or less expensive books. For preschool and Kindergarten your can check my older blog posts or check my instagram stories for more information on what we have been using in the past.
6. Music: Music is a great way to introduce another language, I LOVE MUSIC! I start our days with music, and it's very helpful. No matter whether you're young or old, healthy or sick, happy or sad, music can improve the quality of your life in numerous ways. It reduces stress and anxiety, lifts your mood, boosts your health, helps you sleep better, takes away your pain, and even makes you smarter. During the day I turn on Jose Luis Orozco, Mazapan, Moana in Spanish, or Beauty and The Beast in Spanish as well. Plus lot of other artist that I loved listening when growing up in Chile.
7. Be Consistent and stick to a schedule: As I'll explain in next, it is important to be flexible when you have bad days or when you have to run errands, it is also important to be consistent on the good days. You won't always have bad days. Maybe once a week or so, but mostly you will get to your own routine and you will be able to do your morning time, break, school work, poetry time, etc... It is important that you stick to your schedule and to take it seriously. Home education will practically be your full time job, you wouldn't neglect your job if you were in the office, right? Also, be consistent on taking time for yourself, maybe by working out, reading a book, meditate, or having a girls night out. Whatever you like to do, take time to do it. By doing this, you will be happier and homeschooling will become easier each day.
8. Be Flexible: The beauty of homeschooling is that you CAN be flexible! You will have great days and also hard, busy days, when you have to take step back and take the day, morning or afternoon off. It is ok if those days you just snuggle up on the couch and read a book together, play a board game, go on a nature walk, play together, cook together. It is OK! There is lots of time for learning, just make sure you are still consistent in speaking the language at home and to relax. I promise, you will have those days, we all do! But you will also have GREAT days and see your kids learning every day with you will be your biggest reward!
9. Take field trips: We do a weekly Nature explore/field trip we call it FUN FRIDAY! It is important for me to connect with my children. After a busy learning week, I love to just relax and take my children to different museums, state and national parks, hiking trails, fun events. They learn so much from these activities and I make sure to always speak Spanish to them even when we go out. Sometimes I will have accidentally slip some English in between, but I try to switch right back. These are great opportunities for you to teach new vocabulary and for them to practice as well.
10. Make sure your have a support network: My husband may not always know what is going on at home while he's at work. But he does his best to come home every night and talk to the kids about what they did at school that day. This a great way for them to talk to someone other than their Mom about what they learned in the minority language. During the evenings and weekends when we are able to team parent, he's great at reading aloud (even if it's something that he's interested in). He is also eager to share things that he's excited about sharing, such as history, geography and other literature outside the curriculum.
I could keep going on, there are so many other tips for you to start, but I'm sure you will find your own as you go on your homeschool journey, these ten have been a few that I have been sticking to since our children were born and has been very helpful to raise truly bilingual children.
I know you can do it too! If you have the biggest tool at home that is language and willing to help and teach your children you will be successful in no time.
Once again, I hope this was helpful to you and please let's connect! You can always find us on Instagram of by leaving a comment below.
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” -Ludwig Wittgenstein
we are lucky to live in a country with so many