Foreign language resources for young children?

Walk_Me_Home_Cheddar

My three year old enjoys speaking a few words of Spanish and as someone who is very interested in learning other languages (but knows how much harder it is to learn them as an adult) I'd like to encourage his learning but obviously in a fun way.

I'm wondering therefore if anyone has any recommendations for resources that he might enjoy such as books, DVDs, games for the laptop, iphone apps etc. I've got a few things myself but does anyone know of anything specifcally aimed at young children? We've seen 'The Lingo Show' on CBeebies, but only ever seem to catch the episode where they learn some Mandarin.

jacqhale

Hi, my kids love the Muzzy dvd's. Fun cartoon characters, vocab DVD, song cd and book. The one we have has 6 languages in one I think. You can get them second hand off eBay.

clearingout

try cheap books shops - we have 'The Works' here - you will often find books and CDs tucked away amongst their stock. I got one in French and one in Spanish last week for less than £5, both with CDs. Not the best, but not the worst!

There are various places to look on-line - some are free, some subscription based. I have no favourites but I would have a look at the BBC website generally as it's all free. alienlanguage.co.uk is nice but perhaps aimed a bit higher than you're looking at. Linguascope.com is one that most schools use but frankly, is boring after you've gone through one lot of vocab as it's the same activities, different words. You can search for teacher's lesson plans on TES under 'resources' - this is free but you'll need to register - you perhaps need to look EYFS and KS1 and KS2 stuff. hellomylo.com is useful but aimed at KS3 beginners and above and relies on you being able to read. If you go on youtube and play around with searches, you will come up with all sorts - my children watch Scooby Doo in Spanish and never complain about it (not sure they even notice!). Other than that, google is your friend and it's really a case of playing around and finding something that appeals to your daughter. The Muzzy series mentioned above is popular and aimed specifically at young children but it is expensive.

lil.smartie

I remember Muzzy from when I was younger, my cousin had the French one. My daughter has picked up some Spanish from Dora and Handy Manny. Look on local home schooling sites & see if there are any local classes you could go to.

Kate

madtrekker

A few recommendations:
This DVD course is fantastic, a bit pricey though:

http://www.little-linguist.co.uk/category-268/speekee-espanol-spanish-dvd.html

Cheaper alternatives:

http://www.little-linguist.co.uk/category-268/1580.html

http://www.little-linguist.co.uk/category-268/spanish-first-words-spanish-english-bilingual-book-with-dvd.html

singlestep

Another recommendation here for the resources at Little Linguist. There are other resources out there that will help as he grows older e.g. http://www.chillola.com/index.html/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/Primary/Spanish/all/page-3.html?pagesize=12 as well as the the ones mentioned above.

I think, overall, his biggest asset will be the encouragement you give him. As has been mentioned, there are resources on You Tube from here and from other countries. Do you have any opportunity to speak Spanish? Lorca language school classes can be expensive but there may be other options (E.g. a visiting market, events at the local library) When I googled, a Netmums list of language activities for little ones in my area came up.

suejb2

You can hire Muzzy from the library.