Learning

Rick and I both took Spanish in high school and have been lucky to visit both Spain and Mexico during our travels. But we would not kid ourselves and call ourselves bilingual! Learning Spanish (and getting as close as I can to becoming fluent) is on my bucket list. Also, I would love to learn at least a touch of Polish. I think living where I do it seems to be growing more beneficial to be well versed in multiple languages, especially Spanish. I carry this thinking over when it comes to teaching Guin. From the start when we purchased books and flashcards I was always sure to get some Spanish ones too. Grandmama practices G’s numbers in both English and Spanish, though not sure how much is sticking quite yet. Then out of the blue yesterday, G said “Buenas noches” to G-mama! “Good morning” replied G-mama. Then G corrected, no-no that’s night. My mom was so tickled with the interaction that she quickly told me and I shared with Rick. Yeah… it’s starting to stick! Ha-ha, I guess the marathon of Dora the Explorer this past weekend didn’t hurt either.  J When Rick picked up G, she told G-mama “Adios” as they left. (She fell asleep on the way home.)

I wanted to hear for myself so this morning I asked G what does Dora say. G promptly answered “Hola”. Yeah, I am so excited to hear that little squeaky voice saying new words.

Side note: She also learned two new English words over the weekend:

1) Huge which she repeated in context after hearing daddy describe one of her leafs.

2) Nasty, this was repeated 3-4 times in a row with a giggle after each. She picked this up from Darci as she described candied fennel that G was eating. It was funny to hear that unfold.

From what I’ve read it’s a good time to continue with language and vocabulary studies. She knows the Alphabet (with letter recognition), Numbers up to 12 (with number recognition up to 9), shapes (Circle, Triangle, Square, Heart, Moon/Crescent, Star, and working on rectangle), colors (red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple/violet, black, white, brown), patterns (polka dots and stripes).  In addition to expanding her English I think we should bust out her Spanish flashcards again and continue to play games and have fun practicing what she already knows but with the Spanish words as well. Her excitement and memory around learning has been really surprising and we hope it continues!

She is not writing yet, but her drawing skills are developing. She draws circles and snowmen as well as squares and toast.  Oh and lots of smiley faces and rainbows!

I try to talk and play games while we are in the car during our hours of commuting each week. Making this time more productive (beyond getting us from point A to B) relieves my stress a bit. Yeah, multi tasking – Yeah, learning J We’ve made a game of learning her parents and grandparents (yep, all 6) titles, first name, and city of residence. We expanded the location game to include her aunts, uncles, cousins, and good friend Liam. Recently Guin initiated the game while Grammy was riding with us. Grammy was so surprised that Guin not only knew her name but also her city!

Oh, our little brainiac with a memory sponge, how I hope to not slow you down! Well, really I would love to keep up with you! XO Love you baby, my big girl!