There are many ways to supplement the learning of a foreign language for free. While these free Spanish resources for kids won’t make your child fluent, they can help foster a love for the language, provide contact hours with the language as well as learn vocabulary and pronunciation. Be sure to check out these free resources (our favorites!) you can use with your kids.
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Try FluentU’s Free Version – FluentU is a language learning site that has a 14-day free trial version. With the free version, you’ll have access to videos in your target language as well as quizzes. The videos are advertised to be ‘real world content’ so it includes the news, music videos as well as other relevant and entertaining videos. There are also captions included to help you even further.
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YouTube – YouTube is an excellent resource for language learners. YouTube will give you and your kids access to native speakers doing short videos that help with vocabulary and pronunciation. In addition to that, you can also find Spanish cartoons and songs with subtitles. Songs are an entertaining way to have contact hours with the target language. Did you know that songs can make learning easier by putting your kids in a better mood? That’s what the researchers at Kansas State University found out, test that theory out with your own kids.
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Take a Trip To Your Local Library – Libraries are a great free resource. You could search for bilingual books there or they may even have Spanish reading time. Bilingual books have the ability to improve language skills and helps with their writing quality. In addition to that, hearing Spanish being read can definitely help to improve your child’s pronunciation.
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BBC Languages – BBC Spanish, while is archived and is no longer being updated, has a wealth of information. On the website there are Spanish grammar lessons, free lessons, quizzes as well as access to Spanish TV, news and radio. There are hours of things to do there.
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Log into 123 Teach Me – This resource has the alphabet, vocabulary like colors, games, short stories, music videos, printable worksheets and grammar for kids. It can be really helpful to enforce Spanish concepts and aid language learning.
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Talk to Native Speakers – Chances are there are native Spanish speakers in your neighborhood or city. Whether it may be your child’s pediatrician, teacher, babysitter or waitress. Have your child have conversations with native speakers as often as possible so they can practise speaking and pick up some vocabulary here and there. Ideally, you’d want them to do this a couple times per week, the more conversations they have the better.
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Check out ABCya – This website, while isn’t dedicated to only learning a language, has great Spanish lessons for kids. They have lessons from Pre-K to the sixth grade. The material is meant to entertain as well as teach kids. One fun game they have is Spanish Word Bingo. The categories for this game are numerous and includes food, people, numbers, animals etc. When you’ve selected the Bingo grid, the speaker calls out a word in either English or Spanish and your kids will have to select the correct translation on the grid. After they select words in a row and they win, the game will tell your kid what the problem words were. This is a fun way to learn vocabulary.
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Look at Rocklingua – Rocklingua is a site designed to help kids learn Spanish. There are games, worksheets, songs designed to be engaging and provided valuable contact hours with the target language. The site isn’t completely free but you should be able to find some free resources on it. We actually use this to teach some of our lessons!
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Netflix – Okay fine, Netflix isn’t free but chances are you already have it and don’t want to cancel anytime soon. There are many Spanish shows on Netflix to pick and choose from. Did you know that the Netflix chrome extension allows you to see English subtitles for any show? That way you and your kids could follow along with the show. Watching shows in Spanish will help with picking up vocabulary and pronunciation.
Of course, these free resources can’t make up for having conversations and lessons from a language tutor. These resources alone won’t make your child bilingual but they can supplement language learning.
If you’re ready to make your kids bilingual and help them reap all the benefits that come with it, consider us. Check out a class for just 12 bucks! Our methods are tried and proven so you can be confident in your child learning effectively learning Spanish. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be more than happy to help!
