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Disclosure: I received a free download code for the Little Pim language learning app, Spanish Colors. Any opinions are my own.

For years I’ve worked with many children from bilingual families. I took 6 years of languages throughout the course of my high school and college years (Spanish and German) and though I could still probably read certain words and understand some basic vocabulary in context, I rarely ever used foreign languages conversationally, which never allowed it to remain in my long term memory.

My husband grew up in the same home  with his grandparents who spoke Polish and Spanish, so he is capable of speaking some conversational Spanish, which has certainly come in handy on our vacations to Mexico and Honduras. Research states that after the age of 6 it can be harder to learn a language, so having spent a lot of time with his extended family over summers as a child practicing it, he’s been searching for a way to teach Gavin a foreign language while he’s still in that prime age range to be taught.

We exposed Gavin to some basic Spanish through Little Pim about a year ago at 2 1/2 with music and a DVD, but he honestly at the time had very little interest. A few months ago, I reviewed an awesome educational app, Speakaboos, that includes a wide variety of fairy tales and interactive experience for children in the early reading phases using the iPad. Included in a Speakaboos subscription is access to a wide variety of Little Pim language learning content.

Little Pim is a company that has designed a whole host of educational language materials for children ages 0-6. Using board books, DVD movies, audio cd’s and iPad apps, children can learn vocabulary words from Little Pim the Panda in languages such as Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Portugese, English, and Hebrew.

We’ve been reviewing the Little Pim Spanish Colors iPad app. The app itself is easy to use and provides basic color and object vocabulary. It encourages children to follow the instructions to help Little Pim find items that are a certain color. Using only touch and swipe iPad commands, the app reinforces the item and the color in both Spanish and English. The app itself uses balloons (un globo) to teach colors and he has often associates the phrase “un globe rojo (a red balloon)” to mean red at times, but he’s learning to differentiate. Included in the app, parents and teachers also have the ability to record the sound of their own voice reading the pages and saying the words. There is also a coloring component of the app where children can color in Little Pim pages and email them.

Little Pim content is available individually in the iTunes Store, as well as through the Speakaboos app in both Spanish and French. Gavin has really enjoyed this interactive way of being exposed to Spanish. When we sit with him, he’ll imitate the phrases with fairly good pronunciation and is beginning to use some Spanish vocabulary words when we’ve been out and about in the car and the community. Last week he pointed out something red and said, “Mom that’s rojo.” He was so proud of himself he then said, “I’m speaking Spanish!”

I received a free download code for the Little Pim language learning app, Spanish Colors. Any opinions are my own.