Bilingual Counting

We really like Keegan's daycare. They do a number of neat activities for the kids that Keegan really enjoys. They aren't afraid to let the kids get dirty and they let them make artwork with everything from shaving cream to pudding to dirt. They have a great indoor town where the kids get to dress up and play mailman or cook or doctor or whatever they can think up. They also have a music teacher that comes by once a week to give music lesson; Keegan really looks forward to these.

Recently they have started optional classes that you can pay for your child to attend. When we heard they were offering a sign language/spanish immersion class we were excited; of course at $30 a week it's a bit steep for price. We decided to enroll him anyway; we talked with the lady running the class and she is pretty cool and gets along with the kids really well. Keegan was sold after she signed "10 little monkeys jumping on the bed" for him.

So on Mondays Keegan goes to Spanish/Sign Language class. They learn the sign language for words in English and then repeat the signs with the Spanish words. Having the same sign language for both languages makes it easy to learn. As parents we get a packet that shows all the words they learned, the signs for them, and how they are pronounced in Spanish. Pretty cool.

Is it worth is though? I wasn't sure. He's been doing this for 5 weeks so far and it's kind of expensive. Then last weekend he was reading a book and told me "Mama the duck is yellow." He was doing something with his hand and I realized he was signing yellow. Kind of neat that he was picking up signs.

Then yesterday he absolutely blew me away. He wanted to read the book "10 Little Lady Bugs" so we sat down to read it. He knows all of the numbers really well and can count to 20 when he sets his mind to it. At the end of the book all of the ladybugs get home. We always count them to makes sure all ten made it home.

So, Keegan counted the ladybugs and sure enough (again) there were 10. I started to shut the book and Keegan "Mama stop, now we need to count them in Spanish" I was amused and opened the book for him. Sure enough he started counting in Spanish, "Uno, Dos, Tres, Quarto, Cinco" he got stuck at seven. I felt bad because I couldn't remember eight in Spanish so I couldn't help him (I took German as my language). Still though I was pretty darn impressed. I mean after basically 5 days of these classes he can count...in Spanish...I mean wow!

The downside to this all is that now I need to brush up on my Spanish. Lyle does good with him though because he took Spanish as his language in high school. I better get going on those Spanish lessons otherwise who knows what those two will be talking about behind my back :-)