Teaching Spanish

I am lucky to have a wonderful asset for introducing Spanish to our children- my husband!  He served an LDS mission in Mexico, and is bilingual.  So far I have not tapped into this asset, largely because language is not my forte, and I have wanted to focus on other academic pursuits.  This post is about my husband.  He said that he doesn't want to miss this window of opportunity for our kids, and that although he is very busy with work, he does have 10 minutes to read to our children every day in Spanish.  He asked if the library has any children's book in Spanish, and the answer for our growing Hispanic community is definitely yes.  Now when I go to the library, I try to pick out a handful of simple, repetitive books that Michael can read to the children.  This week's features are in the picture.

The other thing that we have done is to start watching movies, mostly cartoons in Spanish.  The kids are every bit as engaged when we do this.  Interesting.
There has also been a side benefit.  Michael has also been helping me learn how to read in Spanish (I know it's a phonetic language, but I confuse so many of the rules with Italian.  Never-mind the diction classes I took in college...).  Peter has seen this, and it has helped him to realize that learning to read is an on-going process, and that even Mommy and Daddy are still learning.  It has given him confidence to be where he is now, knowing that fluency will come later.
¡Buena suerte!