My husband's first language is Spanish and I always just imagined my kids speaking Spanish to him. However,  I am a stay at home and spend most of the days with them so it has been tough for them to pick up the Spanish language. David's parents came for a visit back in January and Cairo learned a few Spanish words very quickly from them so I knew that I wanted to build on that at home. I got a few easy learning Spanish books from Raincoast Books and have been slowly working with Cairo on expanding his Spanish vocabulary and I just started reading the books to Ezri as well.

Having simple picture books, like this one from Raincoast Books called Loteria First Words (Spanish edition) that have both the English word and the Spanish word are perfect to read to my kids. It allows them to recognize the English word first and correlate it with the Spanish word that is found right above it. Plus, the illustrations are so cute and adorable!

Does your spouse speak another language? How did you try and pass that on to your kids? I would LOVE any and all recommendations on how to teach my kids a language that I don't speak.

I remember someone once telling me, “the best way to help your children learn how to read is to read to them yourself.” Instead of trying to teach Cairo new Spanish words, I am simply using our mutual love of reading to spend some quality time with him and teach him part of his heritage together. Raincoast books carries many different bilingual books including some in French, Spanish and English. 

Here are a few we loved:

Lonely Little Planets Spanish Edition, First Words Spanish, Loteria First Words, and Un Elefante (spanish counting).