How to Teach Your Child Spanish Through Games and Activities

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By starrwd
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Teach Your Child Spanish Through Games and Activities

Parents everywhere are scrambling to find ways to help their children learn a foreign language. The market is replete with toys, DVD programs and computer software that promise to teach your child Spanish.
The truth is that, although these products are helpful, YOU are your child's most effective foreign language teacher. Yes, you heard me. You.
You have a proven track record. You have already taught your child English quite effortlessly and you can teach him Spanish the same way: through daily activities.
But what if you don't speak Spanish? All you have to do is stay just a few steps ahead of your child to teach him basic vocabulary. Feel free to make yourself a cheat sheet if you don't feel quite confident at first.
Grab your child and play Spanish!

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Teach Numbers
To teach your child numbers, use them in a variety of daily activities. Use that cheat sheet if you need to!
Count in Spanish during hide and seek, count jump rope hops, substitute Spanish numbers for English numbers in bedtime stories, count aloud how long your child can keep a hula hoop going, use the Spanish numbers for a bingo game or call out a number to your child and have him make it with play dough.
In short, use the numbers as often as you can. Before long, your child will have absorbed the vocabulary.
Step 2

Teach Colors

To teach colors, talk about them at every opportunity. Name the colors of your child's toys, talk about the produce in the supermarket and discuss the colors in picture books. Pull out the crayons and color with your child, mentioning the Spanish color names as you go along. Play I Spy with Spanish colors, have a color scavenger hunt or play Spanish color bingo.
Again, the point is to allow your child to absorb the vocabulary through normal, daily activities.
Step 3

Teach Body Parts
There are some fun and easy activities that you can use to teach your child body parts in Spanish. Give your child a sheet of stickers, call out the name of the body part and have your child place the sticker on the part you named. Play Simon Says with Spanish body parts. Name each body part as you build a person from magazine cutouts.
Step 4

Continue teaching your child Spanish. Find the vocabulary that you want to teach and then figure out a way to use it during daily activities. Pretty soon, your child will know some basic Spanish vocabulary and you will too!