2020 is the year this sentence became normal: “How are your kids going back to school this year?” 

So many options we never even considered before! Virtual, in-person, hybrid and… homeschool. We chose that last option and are embarking on a bilingual homeschool journey (which is a sentence I never—¡NUNCA!—thought I’d write!). 

Two little girls ready for bilingual homeschool.

I am clearly not a homeschooling expert since this is my first year doing it, but I always find it interesting to know what has been helping other families (I’m a fan of “life/mom-hacks”). In this post I thought I’d share some things we’re using to make bilingual homeschool work! I think a lot of these can also work as a supplement to any kind of schooling, whether that’s virtual or hybrid or good, old-fashioned regular school. 

For reference my kids are quite little (5, 3, and 1), so homeschooling this year looks like teaching a kindergartener and a preschooler while managing a toddler.

FOR MY KINDERGARTENER:

KiwiCo: First on the list is this amaaazing subscription service for science and art projects to help us out with STEM (not my strong suit). I’ve heard great things about KiwiCo for MONTHS, and homeschooling was the perfect excuse to subscribe for my older girls. I signed each kid up for her own (Kiwi Crate for my 5-year-old, Koala Crate for my 3-year-old), and they’re both just ecstatic to have their own little happy mail! And I really love that these boxes help my kids work on problem-solving & STEM skills (and make me feel like I’m the kind of mom who regularly shops for and preps kid crafts because… I am not). You can get 30% off your first month’s order with code SHARE30!

Countdown timer: I’m so happy with this little thing! This timer has made a big difference in my kids’ ability to manage their own time (whether that’s “You have 10 minutes to clean up and get ready” or “You have about 25 minutes until you need to be on a Zoom call”). Plus it’s so happy (yellow!) and it’s also teaching them to count by 5’s!

Libros de Texto Secretaría de Educación Pública: I had a hard time finding homeschool resources in Spanish for native speakers, so I decided just to use the books that kids use in school in Mexico. Luckily you can find them for free online (though I’m still trying to track down physical copies). They’re not perfect since they’re meant to be used in a classroom setting, but they’re good enough for now.  

The Good and the Beautiful curriculum: I saw this homeschool curriculum recommended all over the place when I was trying to figure out what I needed for this year. We’re using it for both math and (English) language arts, and I’ve been really happy with it! It’s “open and go,” meaning I don’t need to do any prep work beforehand, it’s relatively light on the worksheets, and plenty of the activities are more play-based. 

Bilingual homeschool resources on a table.

Hoffman Academy + Virtual Ballet: We have moved extracurricular activities online for the time being (though very much looking forward to doing in-person classes again when we can!). Hija mayor has been learning piano with Hoffman Academy for about a year now! And both girls take ballet via Zoom from a teacher in Querétaro, MX. I was skeptical about doing a ballet class online, but one nice perk is that it’s in Spanish (always looking for more Spanish exposure!). They do pretty well, considering, and they’re always happy to see the teacher and other little kids even if it’s just through the screen. 

FOR MY PRESCHOOLER:

There’s a lot of overlap between the two, since I’m often doing Kindergarten homeschool with all three kids and I just try to adapt the lessons to be 3-year-old friendly. But I wanted to share a couple of resources specifically for preschoolers that I think are amazing! 

Pre-K Spanish Digital Bundle: My friend Corrie from Mama Llama Linguist just came out with this amazing Spanish Morning Binder for bilingual preschoolers! You can grab it for over 130 nature-themed printables, with 26 units on things like the alphabet, early math and number tracing, phonics, shapes & colors. This one is also no-prep (besides printing out the materials) which I appreciate soooo much! Pro-tip: you can put these sheets in dry-erase pocket sleeves and reuse them!

LinguaLearner: My OTHER friend Briana and her sister created this bilingual Spanish/English preschool curriculum that sends subscribers 8 easy-to-follow bilingual lessons each month. You get the list of materials to purchase, literature recommendations to go along with the lesson, and the lesson plan + handouts to print out. It’s really well-done, research based, and very affordable at about $10 per month and only $99 for the whole year! They also have some free printables if you want to try those first!

Note: If you buy something through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission, at no cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely like! ¡Gracias por leerme!