Yesterday we posted our Holiday Gift Guide for Babies and today it’s the older kids’ turn! As we’ve mentioned, you can make pretty much any toy (think: legos, blocks, dolls, tiny kitchens, etc. etc. etc.) into a tool for teaching or complementing your family’s language. But sometimes it’s nice to have the toys do a little of the work for you. So take a look below and let us know what you think!

Games & Toys

Once your kids start recognizing words and letters, it’s a lot easier to incorporate officially bilingual puzzles and games (you can get away with translating up until this point!). Kids love matching games, like this English and Spanish matching game

and Bilingual Zingo, which ends up being a mish-mash of bingo and word-matching that our kids really enjoy. (Though half the time our three year old just likes pulling out the bingo card.)

If you want something more traditional, try this sturdy Spanish Bingo set.

This Bilingual spelling game is a great option for the budding reader/writer in your family,

As is the Ingenio Smart Projector, which is another fun way for kids to learn letters, words, (and pictures!) in Spanish.

These bilingual magnetic words are a fun twist and they are available in an ‘older’ version for your slightly older giftees. They can stick them on the special magnetic board, the fridge, an old cookie cutter sheet–where you take this is entirely up to you! You could also use these to play with Magna-Tiles–our all time favorite gift for kids 2+ (N & E, now 5 and 3, play with theirs daily and we have a bunch of their fun, novelty sets like the glow in the dark ones)!

Once you have a truly literate kiddo, check out Spanish Bananagrams and Scrabble!

Puzzles

We love puzzles in our household. Rainy day? Puzzles. Wind down before bedtime? Puzzles. Luckily, in addition to the thousands of puzzles you can buy that don’t incorporate words or labeling, there are also many puzzles that incorporate Spanish. There’s this alphabet puzzle for the younger set,

and this bilingual colors floor puzzle from Melissa and Doug.

This bilingual map of Puerto Rico is a cool option for those of you with a connection to Puerto Rico.

And there is also a North America bilingual puzzle for those of you on this part of the world (or looking to learn bout this part of the world).

Embrace a theme

N & E looove helping out in the kitchen, so they’ll be receiving some small kitchen items and cookbooks to learn their way around our (soon to be a disaster zone) kitchen! These include kid-friendly knives, bright colored cutting boards, whisks and spatulas, and oven mitts–the possibilities are endless!

Books

I don’t think it’s possible for me to recommend gifts, without including at least a few books. In addition to all of our past book recommendations, including Christmas books for those who celebrate, we have a few more recommendations.

Super Sorda has been a surprise hit in our household. The protagonist loses her hearing at a young age in this comic book style story. We get to follow her journey as she deals with her hearing loss and learns the strengths in what others perceive as weakness. N adored this book and (so did I).

Harry Potter–illustrated and in Spanish! If your kid can take the suspense and action in this series, this is a great place to start! We’re hoping N will be ready for these in a year or two and I can’t wait to buy them.

You can’t go wrong with a funny book or two. La siesta perfecta (the story of a sloth who struggles to stay awake while the other animals nap) and the elefante y cerdita series by Mo Willems never disappoint.

And if you’re able to read through misty eyes, I can’t recommend enough pretty much anything by Matt de la Pena and Esos zapatos by Maribeth Boelts. The first few times I read these books, I had to stop reading out loud for a moment because I got choked up. (I guess that’s becoming more common for me? I blame parenthood and quality children’s book authors!)

 

What’d we miss?

Check out our past gift guide here and our book recommendations here and here!

 

 

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