Our Bilingual schedule for Kindergarten

We have taken a break from speaking Portuguese over the past year. A lot of reasons brought us to that decision but we are back!

My son has recently started kindergarten and, while he is still adjusting to the change that public school brings, we are bringing Portuguese back into the home. I never stopped using Portuguese completely but I was not using it in a conversational manner (just using phrases here and there). We were still listening to music in Portuguese and watching shows in Portuguese a few times every week but we were not speaking it. The whole point of all this was to be able to speak Portuguese so not speaking Portuguese is a problem. That being said, lets talk about how we are using Portuguese this time around (of course this can/might/will probably change).

Time and Place Method

After a year of barely speaking Portuguese I have to admit more Portuguese is rusty. I can feel my tongue stumbling over the words and I’m needing to think twice about which conjugation to use. Yikes! We are easing into language immersion by starting with the day and time method. To put it simply, we will speak Portuguese on certain days and at certain times. So for us, we will be speaking Portuguese M-Th every morning before school. So, 7am-7:50am M-Th.

It’s not much but its a start.

We never stopped listening to music in Portuguese in the car and watching shows in Portuguese. The schedule below is just touching on us speaking Portuguese with one another.

Even though its only 50 minutes of Portuguese we talk about a range of topics. We’re essentially talking constantly for the entire 50 minutes.

Topics we cover:

Waking up
Getting dressed
Brushing teeth/using the bathroom
Making/eating breakfast
Getting schoolbag ready
Choosing lunch options
Choosing/talking about his cartoons (which are in Portuguese as well)
Waiting/Catching the bus
Talking about the outside (weather/leaves/trees/the neighbors)

How I prepare

Since it’s been a minute since I’ve been conversational in Portuguese I have to prepare for the morning conversations. I do this by reviewing my morning phrase sheet. I have it on my phone, but I made a printable copy for you to use. I review any new phrases or look up conjugations that have been giving me trouble.

Throughout the morning I keep a mental note of words/phrases I want to say in Portuguese but can’t quite remember. After my son leaves for school I jot down these phrases/words on the phrase sheet (in Portuguese) and review the new phrases the following morning before wakeup.

I do want to add that if I don’t know how to say something in Portuguese I just say it in English instead. I still want to provide a language rich environment, even if that language happens to be English. I also avoid mixing English and Portuguese. If I don’t know how to say one of the nouns in a sentence then I just say the whole sentence in English and look up the translation after my son leaves for school. Mixing languages in the same sentences has been shown to cause speech delays. Mixing languages is literally the only thing that can cause a delay.

What's next?

Once we’ve mastered the morning Portuguese routine, then we will add another time and place to increase the amount of Portuguese we are speaking.

We are trying to get into an after school schedule of tv/snacks -> outside time -> dinnertime -> bedtime routine. So, I’m thinking the next Portuguese block will be outside time since that’s a solid hour of us being together, interacting. The ultimate goal is to be speaking Portuguese whenever dad isn’t with us.

I’ll keep you guys updated on how it all goes!

-Erika