My own Juguemos en Español (Let's Play in Spanish)

My kids were both home today because of the holiday, so I thought it'd be a great opportunity to sing some of the songs from Juguemos en Español and use some of my handy-dandy charts.  I even made a new chart, Las Vocales (vowels).  Las Vocales goes by the tune from the very opening of Mozart's "A Little Night Music".

My 20 month old daughter was happy just to get our musical instruments out.  I felt bad, we rarely play with them since my 4.5 year old son just wants to play with Star Wars Legos, and when we do that, my full-time job is to keep my daughter away from the Legos.  She's a bit like Godzilla razing a small Japanese town.

But I digress.  My 4.5 year old wrinkled his nose when he saw my charts, and said it was for babies.  Luckily, a friend of his who is almost a year older is in Susy Dorn's Let's Play in Spanish class.  Take that, you little know-it-all.  Oops, did I really type that?  Being surrounded by young children does seem to lower my maturity level.

Still, I managed to sing a bunch of songs with them.  My son especially liked using a drumstick to point at the pictures as they were being sung.  The music is a bit fast for him though.  The only instrument he really wanted to use was the drum, which drowned out a lot of the music.  But we marched through some songs, and he got to blow a train whistle for a few tunes, so overall I think he liked it even though he later told my husband that it was "boring".

I did realize that it would have helped to create a playlist of just the songs I was going to play.  I ended up searching for songs a lot, and that allowed the kids to get distracted.  I need to find a way to display the charts where my son can reach it, but my daughter can't, at least, not when it's his turn to point.

I felt discouraged at times, but I reminded myself it was just my first try.  The kids did stick with me through it.  Later, we went in the car, and I played some of the songs, and my son sang along to "Los Colores".  It was just a little thing, but I felt pretty validated.

I think if I practice a few more times with just my kids, I could work out the kinks.  Then maybe I'll be courageous and invite some other families over to join us.  Wish me luck.