My Spanish language ponderings

Something I have been concerned about for a good while is teaching my children Spanish. I am a regular gringa (white girl) who grew up in Texas, but with a love for foreign language (especially Spanish). A childhood friend of mine, an Argentine that I played with regularly for the year while her father was stationed in Texas, was my first exposure to Spanish. She spoke no English then. We were both 4 years old. I am convinced this was critical in my formative years for language acquisition. 

Jump ahead 12 years to high school where I took my first formal Spanish classes. (That’s a LOT of good learning years I missed out on!) After these 2 years of introductory Spanish, I could give a laundry list of other classes and opportunities I had that helped in my fluency and comfort in speaking the language well; however, the fact of the matter remains that I was an adult before I was able to finally consider myself fluent.  I don’t want this for my little ones! And now that I am homeschooling, I have the say-so (and the wonderful gift of wherewithal) in educating my children to the best of my ability and to their benefit. I am still trying to figure out how to help my little gringo children learn (and love!) to speak a foreign language… In future reflections I hope to record how this journey is progressing.