Most of you already know that we are a bi-cultural family and I myself am bilingual. As such, my husband and I decided that we would make an effort to raise our children bilingually so they could learn both English and Spanish. So far, our daughter is doing a great job of acquiring both languages and most important of all, actually showing an interest in Spanish, which is the minority language.

It helps that my parents are a big part of her life, since they both speak Spanish more often than I do. Because I speak English to my husband, spoke English in the workplace, and speak English for 95% of each day, it gets a little difficult sometimes for me to “switch” my brain and speak Spanish to my daughter. I have to remind myself. So, any little help I can get is useful in not just exposing her to Spanish, but also reminding me to do so. Which is why I love bilingual books, TV programs, and other toys.

When I was contacted by Smart Play about their new bilingual toy line, Ingenio, I was highly interested in reviewing their products. As the email I received said, “there are very few affordable toys/games available for parents who want their children to be bilingual.” In my experience when shopping for baby girl, this has been true. Their products fill this need since 8 out of the 10 products they have so far cost less than $12.99. All ten products are designed for children 3-8 years old, which is perfect for my baby girl.

We received the Animal Learning Puzzle and the Spellable Puzzle Card Game. I was looking forward to playing the Spellable game with baby girl because it allows you to spell 3 letter words in English and Spanish. I thought this would be a great way to step up her learning and go beyond just the alphabet and on to forming words and promoting word recognition. Like any preschooler, she was super excited at the beginning, but after about 10 words or so, her focus began to fade. Since I don’t want to be a drill sergeant and “force” learning on her, but rather have it be a natural part of her playing and surroundings, I followed her cue and put away the game for another time.

But, just in that short period of time, I saw a few things that I liked about this product:

• Each letter is color coded; consonants are green & vowels are purple. I like this because you can add variety to the game by sorting the letters. Now she’s not just working on phonics, but also classifying items.
• Every letter card has a picture on the back that doubles for a word in English AND Spanish. So, you have pictures of juice/jugo for J and lamp/lampara for L, etc. Even the hard letters like Q work; Q has a quesadilla on the back.
• The spelling cards are also color coded; blue for English and red for Spanish. This helped my daughter know which language to use when trying to spell the word.

The animal puzzle was also fun to play with and has the name of each animal printed in both English and Spanish. It also displays the words for the surroundings in both languages. For example, tree/árbol and mountain/montaña. It’s a very cute puzzle and my daughter enjoyed teaching her dad the names of the animals in Spanish when they later put it together without me.

Giveaway

You too have a chance at trying out some Ingenio products! One of you can win a set of the Alphabet cards along with the Spellable Puzzle Card Game. The winner will receive both products.

How to Enter

1. If you’d like to enter this contest, simply leave a comment below and let me know if you already promote a bilingual home or why you would like to expose your child to another language.
2. For an extra entry, you can tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.

All entries must be in by Sunday, November 22nd at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.)

As part of a recent collaboration I had with Little Pim, they sent me the first DVD of the Little Pim Spanish series for review. You may have seen me carrying a Little Pim bag at BlogHer and may have even received a demo from me.

Little Pim is a foreign language DVD series that uses a full immersion method to teach children a second language. Little Pim DVDs are meant for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and use animation mixed with real kids to introduce words and phrases for everyday activities. They currently have the following languages: Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew and English.

The DVD we were sent was Eating and Drinking, which is also available digitally, along with all the Little Pim DVDs.

Things I Liked:

• The pronunciation of Spanish terms was very good. No Dora-like pronunciation.
• Each episode lasts 5 minutes, which means that young babies can watch one and you can then turn it off. You can then pick up later on a different episode and it still makes sense. Older kids, like my daughter, can watch the entire 35 minutes and it still flows well from one to the other.
• The Little Pim character (the panda) is adorable and makes the experience fun. Instead of just looking at a bunch of kids doing different actions and hearing a narrator describe the actions with different terms and phrases, you get a cute panda who entertains you along the way. It adds a fun element to the DVD.

Things That Can be Improved:

• Images displayed should always match the phrase.
  • Example: When “ella tiene sed” (she’s thirsty) was being said, there was a little girl drinking from a cup. Now, someone who doesn’t already know what the phrase means and can make the connection might think they were saying something like “she’s drinking”. However, we didn’t have the English subtitles on, which might solve that issue.
• There should be a pronunciation guide for parents. The parent guide that came with the DVD suggests you repeat the phrase after it’s said, but if you don’t know how to pronounce it, you might be doing more harm than good in repeating it.
• Towards the end of this particular DVD, they showed dogs and cats and taught the terms for the animals. Our initial reaction was, “What do pets have to do with eating and drinking?” It was at the end of the segment that they showed the pets eating food. So, I guess that was the connection, but it seemed a little odd.

Daughter’s Reactions/Thoughts:

• “Awww he’s a cute panda!”
• “Mommy, Little Pim is so silly.”
• “Look what Little Pim did! Ha ha ha ha ha”

In addition to the remarks about Little Pim, the character, she also asked many, many questions about the different things the kids were doing and the different phrases. She also started repeating the terms and phrases and did a really good job of pronouncing them properly.

Overall, Little Pim is a cute and fun way to introduce your child to a second language. The panda is entertaining, the interactive nature of the episodes engage children, and the repetitiveness of the phrases is good for learning. I can tell my daughter enjoyed the DVD and she’s asked to see it a couple of times since we initially had her watch it.

Thanks again Little Pim for being a sponsor of my BlogHer trip!

The new site by Kellogg’s Rice Krispies is called Childhood is Calling. It’s a cute little site with lots games, recipes, and even a song to enjoy with your little one. The Box of Fun song is performed by Ralph’s World, who you might recognize from the Disney channel.

The games do seemed skewed to a slightly older level than that of my baby girl, but they make up for it with age-appropriate suggestions for involving your kids in the kitchen.

A clean simple interface made finding our way through the site pretty simple. I personally found a new take on one of my favorite little guilty pleasures (Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats with Strawberries – in a cute little heart shape).

Check out the site! It’s definitely worth a look with your little one(s).

Let me know what you think in the comments.