Celebrating with Santiago Of The Seas!

 

It's time to get muy excited about Nick Jr.'s newest show SANTIAGO OF THE SEAS! Santiago of the Seas is a pirate adventure show for preschoolers with exciting, bilingual missions rooted in Latin Caribbean culture! In this video, he sets sail on his ship El Bravo with his cousin Tomás!

I don't know about you but as a Latina mother who is struggling with teaching her children Spanish I love knowing that I can throw on a fun and teachable show to get them to be more excited about learning the language without even realizing they are learning!To get into the halloween spirit we put on our pirate attire and made our own fun maps to learn pirate words in Spanish translation while creating! We also spoke about Colombia, which is my parents original hometown, and they loved learning about it and then creating the flag with the bright colors of yellow, blue, and red. Pero, of course like any hispanic momma at the end of the day I reminded them they are my only true tesoros in life!

Jace took a printable sheet of a map and I taught him the words El Mar (The Sea) Tesoro (Treasure) and Isla (Island). He said he loved how the words sounded when you said them, and I really couldn't agree more. Everything sounds better when said in Spanish. He used his markers to create a dark blue deep sea, and a very brown island which he said was an island where you can get stranded on, so you have to be very careful on your boat so it can take you to the treasure. He labeled everything in the Spanish context that he learned, and was very excited to share with his grandma the new words he had learned from this acitvity. He said he will start watching the show as well because he would love to learn even more words. So thanks to Santiago, the possibility of my children being billingual is a
much bigger chance than before! That's a win if you ask me!!!

Caleb loves creating flags, and he was happy that this one was very simple with just three colors. He said it was made out of his three favorite colors too! I showed him a photo of the flag and I let him go his own way to create it. We then watched a video on youtube about Colombian food, traditions, and famous sights like Monserate, which is a beautiful church that over looks the city of Bogota. A perfect place to watch the sunset; and a place on our bucket list now for sure. Since we are from Barranquilla I had to talk to them about the Magdalena River which you see as soon as you fly into Barranquilla and it's quite a sight. I also showed them videos of Los Carnavales which are usually held in February in Barranquilla with lots of colorful ethnic clothing and dresses, and fun, exciting music to get your body up and moving. They really enjoyed reading and seeing these videos, and it made me really happy to share all of these great things that make Colombia what it is, and why we should be proud to say we are from there. I know that now that I have shared this with them they are much more interested in traveling there, and experiencing all these festivities and landmarks that bring our culture to life. 

At the end of all of these fun DIY activities they probably learned more about being part of a Latino family then they ever have before, and now they want to be more aware of the language, with a little bit of help from their new friend Santiago Of The Seas! I actually can't wait to start watching it with them as well. I know I will absolutely love it! I see a lot of pirate sword fighting in my near future, and maybe I can even join on the fun too! 

Watch SANTIAGO OF THE SEAS at home with your little pirates too, and we can chat about it sometime! You can catch it on NICK JR and infuse the latino Caribbean culture!