Finding Stuff in Spanish at Goodwill {4 Tips}


The chances are, if it is Thursday and the kids and I don't have plans, you will find us at Goodwill. I am not sure about the rest of the country, but here in Minnesota Goodwill has all kids' clothing and toys 50% off on Thursdays. I have found some great stuff there at really low prices. However, the purchases I get the most excited about are when I find things in Spanish! I have found flash cards, board games, books, and more. I'm the first to admit it is definitely luck of the draw, but I do have a few tips I use to increase my chances.

1. Visit Goodwill stores located in cities with Spanish immersion programs. I feel like this helps there to be more things in Spanish, either through the donations received or due to the demand of the families in the area. Whatever the case, I have had good luck at these stores compared to others.

2. Dig around a bit. A lot of the time the things I've found in Spanish weren't in the direct line of sight. For example, I had to look through the baskets of flash cards or search through the books a bit. If I would have simply scanned the shelves I would have missed the majority of the things I've bought.

3. Look for bilingual toys. I have been fortunate to find a couple of awesome bilingual toys at Goodwill. Many times brands like Fisher-Price or Leap Frog will have a Spanish function on some of their toys, so check for that. This is a simple way to include a little more Spanish language input as children play.

4. Think outside the box. I keep an eye out for things I can easily use in any language, like quality picture cards, alphabet blocks, memory games, etc. For example, if I find some really great flash cards in English I know I can cut the words off and just use the pictures, or even cut them in half to create a matching activity.

¡Te toca! Do you shop at Goodwill, and if so, have you ever found things in Spanish?

Comments

Post a Comment

Gracias y thank you for your comment!

Popular posts from this blog

Playing Games to Practice Spanish

Image
Growing up, our family played a lot of games. I remember many holidays spent around the dining room table with a board game or card game sprawled out in the middle. When I first met my husband, I introduced him to the world of games like Skip-bo, Uno, and Spoons. It was a bit of a learning curve for him, I think, but he has come to appreciate them. It helps that he is great at embracing the friendly competition and spoiling my brothers' strategies as we play. Since I grew up playing games it was natural for me to be drawn towards teaching our children to play games too. For a while we had a good routine going where Micah, Mardo, and I would play a game together every night after Isaiah went to bed. It was a nice way to wind down from the day and spend time connecting with one another. Plus it is the perfect way to slip some extra Spanish conversation and vocabulary into the day too. For example, we play things like Memory (Memoria) or Zingo to reinforce vocabulary. We ...
Read more

Enchiladas Suizas

Image
My husband may have grown up in Guatemala, but his palate is definitely Mexican. Which isn't surprising considering his mom is Mexican and therefore cooked almost entirely Mexican cuisine. Since we've been married, I have tried to be intentional about incorporating Mexican-style dishes into our meal rotation. I am nowhere near the cocinera that my suegra is, but I have pushed myself to try recipes like enmoladas , arroz mexicano , and manjar . Now that we have kids and are no longer living near my in-laws it is even more of a priority to include Mexican dishes in our weekly meal plan. I usually aim to make one or two things a week. A few of my favorite resources to find recipes are blogs (like  Mexico in my Kitchen or Flan and Apple Pie ) and The Mexican Slow Cooker cookbook. That is where I found the recipe I tried today for Enchiladas Suizas . We really enjoyed them, especially topped with some Mexican crema and guacamole, and I will definitely be adding this easy recipe...
Read more

The "Spanglish Method"

Image
Whenever I hear about methods to raise bilingual kids, there are usually two popular options. The first is the One Parent, One Language  method. As its name suggests, this method requires each parent to speak exclusively in his/her native language to the child. This is a common method among parents with different native languages. Another method is Minority Language at Home . For this method the parents commit to using the minority language within the home and the majority language when outside the home. Before my husband and I had kids, I always read about how important it was to choose a method and stick to it. That seemed logically and straight-forward ... until I had kids. Then I realized how difficult it was to be consistent in our method. When our first son was born we were living in Guatemala. I mostly spoke English to him, and my husband spoke Spanish (in other words, the One Parent, One Language method). This worked pretty well until we moved to the United States. S...
Read more