What feels like a a life time ago, I was a French teacher in an ironically French-heritage town, the name of which no one could pronounce correctly, and I had a happy little life teaching High School French and coaching volleyball with a baby in my baby carrier.
Since I’m bi-lingual, I’ve always wanted my children to have the upper hand with language skills. Only I didn’t grow up in a bilingual home myself and I wasn’t sure the best way to do it. And when I tried to speak French to my new baby, she would cry. Just scream. [Did you know that your voice naturally raises in register when you speak to a baby? But that I couldn’t get that to transfer to my second language and so my voice was super lower than my baby was used to and I think it scared her.]
I knew all the tricks. Professionally. Linguistically. My cousin is even raising tri-lingual little girls and his wife does a phenomenal job of doing the day in the different languages with different markers to indicate to the kids that the language has changed.
But I couldn’t quite figure out how to make that work at my house. How to build that habit in. What I would want it to look like when no one else spoke the language I did.
Then I found out about a video-based program for little kids. I’m generally pretty leery of anything educational aimed at kids as young as 0 since screen time should be pretty minimal at that age. But when I checked it out for myself, I knew it would be a good fit for my family and for my teaching style.
My Favorite Educational Resources – Little Pim
Little Pim is a home language learning system geared at children from 0-6*. It can be done via DVD, digital download, and they’ve just added streaming service. They offer 12 languages with additional resources available in various languages. Video clips are about 5 minutes in length and are immersion from “hello” to “goodbye” (or in our Frenchie case “bonjour!” to “abientot!”). They use what they call the Entertainment Immersion Method(R) to get kids excited about learning a language – video clips, songs, and more.
Think about how you “teach” your kid their first language. You talk to them. Read to them. Show them stuff they use and need. Until they one day say “Hey” like my third or something cuter like “Mama” or “Dada” and they know that by seeing mama or dada and hearing the word over and over then they start babbling then they match more words with more things they see and hear till they are talking non stop and using words like “resemble” at the grocery store and you’re like what the what?!
Let me break this down for you: in about 5 minutes a day, my kids are exposed to a TON of rich vocabulary by learning French (2nd language) just like they learned English (1st language). They see Little Pim, the adorable signature character, talk about shapes and foods and colors in a totally natural way as he shows them off in the video. And they build on this naturally. “O this is a circle. This is a yellow circle. Yellow circle. Now this one is red. Red circle. Red square.” And on and on until they are trying out words and phrases much like they did when they first started talking – wrong at first, but learning and working their tongues around it and figuring it out.
And I know, the biggest concern is that mom or dad doesn’t speak another language so how will they teach a new language to a kiddo? Well, Little Pim will teach you too. Sit and watch the 5 minutes with them, and you’ll be amazed at what you pick up. And all of the flashcards come with great pronunciations guides on them, in case you are not watching the videos with the kids.
I use this as part of our homeschool day. But I really think it could be used by kids in a traditional school setting as well as kids not yet in school. Each video is 5 minutes or you can show them in chunks to replace another kid-friendly show each day. It is really lots of fun. *[This is designed from kids 0-6 by the illustrations and actors in the movies but that is not at all to say that older children wouldn’t also benefit from this.]
We love this for teaching French. Our kids super get into it and my husband is really enjoying learning words and pronunciation along with them.
Little Pim is available in 12 languages (French, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, Korean, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Arabic or Portuguese) and they are developing more and more resources for the languages all the time. In some of the languages, there are additional materials available. I got all of the videos, plus the CD of songs (which my kids insist on in the car non-stop), and the flashcards since our oldest is almost reading.
If you’d like to add this to your educational routine, I have a special deal just for you!! You can get 40% off of any product – the digital, physical, and streaming products from now until Dec 31, 2016. The code for 40% off Little Pim is COFFEE40
And for even more fun, Little Pim is offering a giveaway to my readers.
You can win a digital 3-pack (a $34.99 value) in the language of your choice: French, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, Korean, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Arabic or Portuguese! All you have to do is leave a comment and let me know which language you’d choose. You can share the post with a friend and leave a comment saying “shared” and the link to the share (social media, etc) for additional entries. Giveaway closes Thursday Dec 22, 2016 at 10pm EST.
Mandy Erickson says
This looks like so much fun for my littles! I would choose Spanish for my kids, thanks to Dora 🙂
Michelle says
I would like the Spanish version.
Lorraine Reimer says
I would choose German. We are a bilingual family, both my husband and I speak German and intended to speak it exclusively to our kids, but we find that while our oldest is very fluent the 2 younger ones aren’t. None of the kids they play with speak German, so although they understand it, they speak almost all English. Would love to have something to help…
Judith martinez says
I would love to add more Spanish resources to our homeschool.
Judith martinez says
http://pin.it/ekIIY0R Shared on pinterest
Barbie says
I would like Spanish.
Kelly says
Definitely Spanish.
Hayley says
I would choose French, i really enjoyed it at school and would love to enjoy it again with my son. One day i imagine us sitting together in a patisserie in Paris eating pain au chocolats!!
Stephanie says
We would love to learn Spanish, several of our extended family have lived in Spanish speaking countries and even teach Spanish now but we don’t live near enough to them! Thanks! Our kids cousins all speak it already!
April g says
French!