Top 10 Ways to Make Learning Spanish FUN for Kids!

If you want to help your child learn Spanish, you might be wondering how to help make it fun. After all, the last thing we want to do is make learning something new a drag! Thankfully, learning Spanish doesn't have to be! There are so many ways to make learning Spanish a fun, rewarding experience for the entire family. Here are my top ten tips: 1. Find any favorite books, movies, or TV shows in Spanish. Your children will get a kick out of seeing the familiar characters, but hearing them speak in a different language! Also, if the plot is at least somewhat familiar, it will be that much easier to learn the vocabulary words that can be gained. The child won't have to spend time both trying to figure out what in the world is going on, AND what the characters are saying. If you've ever watched a foreign film you'll know exactly what I'm talking about! You will be shocked just how quickly your kids will pick up new vocabulary and phrases from doing this.

2. Incorporate Spanish into daily play time with your kids! There are several ways you can do this. You can learn the Spanish words for their favorite toys and objects, and whenever you use it together or hand it to them, say that word. Or if they are older, you can involve them in the search and have them find the names for the items.

3. If you happen to have any friends that speak Spanish, encourage them to at least greet your child in Spanish, and speak to them in basic Spanish whenever possible! Of course you never want to put the burden of teaching them on your friend, but it has been my experience that friends will enjoy being part of the process, and will be happy that your child is learning. Your child will also love impressing them with their skills as well!

4. Sing songs with your children in Spanish! These can be current favorites that you find the Spanish lyrics to, or brand new songs! As you probably know, many children (and adults!) learn something so much easier if it is incorporated into a song, so this is a wonderful way to learn new vocabulary. I will soon be doing a post where I list some of my favorite Spanish songs for kids, so hopefully this will give you a good starting point!

5. Find jokes or riddles (clean ones of course!) that either are originally in Spanish, or have a Spanish equivalent. Children will love discovering and laughing along with these, and it can be a great way to connect to a part of a country's culture as well! You can pick a certain country, study that one for the month or quarter (more on this in another post!) and as part of your unit, try to find common jokes from that particular country.

6. This next one is one of THE most important ones, and it may seem rather obvious. However, I think it can get easily overlooked sometimes! Any attempt your child makes to speak even a word of Spanish, even if it doesn't make any sense, should be encouraged! The goal is definitely to make this as fun, as low pressure (as age appropriate) and encouraging as possible. You can do this through typical methods of encouragement or even through a chart or something like that if you want to get a bit creative with it! The goal is to foster any desire they have to speak Spanish so that hopefully they will want to do it more and more. 7. This next one fits in with #5! Each country around the world it seems has its own version of childhood games. One super fun way to learn about a country and learn some of the language in the process is to learn some of these games, and put them into your repertoire. 8. Learn alongside your child! This can fit into any of the other tips that you are using. Get involved in the learning process! You will be surprised how much you will learn along the way. Your child will have so much fun knowing that you are joining in as well! One idea is that maybe (this works especially well if you home school) if your child is at a good age for this, you could switch roles for a particular lesson: you could be the student and they could be the teacher. No matter how you do it, it is so powerful for both the parent and child if you learn Spanish with your child. This is why I created my (shameless plug) free Facebook group for parents called "Learn Spanish with Your Child!" In this group, we talk about ways to learn Spanish alongside children, and I share different resources. You can join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/helpingchildrenlearnspanish/ 9. This is another super fun one! One night a week, or every two weeks, at dinner try to speak as much Spanish with your kids as possible. You can learn simple phrases like "please pass the salt" etc that you can all use, and also try to fill in any conversation pieces that you know. No worries if you have to switch back and forth between Spanish and English! Any practice is great! If you're feeling especially adventurous, you can look up an authentic recipe from a Spanish-speaking country of your choice (maybe the same one you've already decided to study if you have one?) and make that with your kids, learning how to say the ingredients in Spanish! 10. Last but not least, we have one of my favorites! You can have a Spanish scavenger hunt! You can do this in two ways. You can either to find as many signs and other things in your community with Spanish on them when you're out and about, or you can pick a list of items, find out the Spanish word for them, and have the kids try to find them. This works especially well if you happen to be on vacation and not in your own environment, but it's great in the yard too! I hope you find this list helpful, and enjoy using some of these tips! Please let me know in the comments if you use any of them. Also, let me know if you have any other activities that you like to use to make learning Spanish fun!