Animales for Quinn?

Leili spent about two weeks doing animals in Spanish class, which may not have been very useful for her.  Since she was a little more than one year old we've been reading books before bed, and one of her favorites was a simple book called "Animales."  Dozens of pictures of conejos (rabbits), osos (bears) and of course dinosaurios.  There was no story, and when she was younger she was less opposed to me reading in Spanish, so this amounted to a vocabulary lesson at regular intervals.  I know I've mentioned practice before, and this was a great way to make practice fun.  She doesn't read that book anymore, at nearly three she wants more story, but this put her ahead of the game at a very young age.

This has me thinking about my youngest son Quinn and when he should start at Language Stars.  His verbal skills seem to be behind Leili's at a similar age, he's just past one, and he's definitely not ready yet.  Part of the reason we ended up taking these classes was that Leili spoke so much English that we were concerned her Spanish would never keep up.  That said I suspect at any moment he'll start saying more than "mama" and "dada" and move on to more important phrases like "Go Bears" and "Boo Packers."

What does this mean?  Well we're not gonna rush Quinn into language stars and make him sit on my lap while the other little ones can properly participate.  Every child is different and you know yours better than I do, but more than a few kids that were brought into the Language Stars parents and tots class couldn't say their own name and I don't see how you can possibly get your money's worth at that point.

Now what it means is that Crystina and my nights are about to get more hectic.  It's time for one of us to start reading to Quinn while the other puts to bed the increasingly difficult Leilani.  Both English and Spanish books should help give him the same head start that Leilani had, and maybe when he goes to class he'll know what a perro is too.  (It's a dog).