Sounds of young voices singing Spanish songs rang through the halls at Earl Grey School Wednesday.
One of the tunes the kindergarten class has learned is called ‘¿Como te llamas tu?’ or in English, ‘What is your name?’
"The words are pretty cool," said five-year-old Haydn Garcia. "I like learning new names for stuff."
Garcia is one of 18 kids in the class who are helping the Winnipeg School Division make history. This is the first year for its Spanish Bilingual Language Program, starting with one kindergarten class.
It’s only been a few weeks and already, Garcia and his peers are soaking up both languages. The kids said they recently learned both the English and Spanish words for different colours.
"I only knew brown was café. I didn't know it could also be marron," said Garcia, whose father is from El Salvador and speaks fluent Spanish.
"My favourite word is pink, because how you say pink is rosa," said student Makayla Bonnar. Neither of her parents speaks Spanish, but she is eager to build on the few words she already knew.
"I just know a little bit because I was watching Dora," she said.
Teacher Claudia Martinez said half the class is exposed to the language at home, and the other half is not.
“We all start at square one and we are all working together to comprehend," she said. “The kids are very excited to learn. They are like little sponges, and they're doing great.”
Martinez teaches the class entirely in Spanish, and breaks into English if the students need it to help them understand.
Eugenia Lehmann and Kathy Heppner have been working to get this program up and running for four years.
Wednesday was one of the first days they were able to sit in on a class.
"It's overwhelming,” said Lehmann. “At a couple of points, I had to kind of take a deep breath because I started to get emotional.”
Right now, the Winnipeg School Division has signed on to add another class each year up to Grade 6, with additional students accepted into Grade 1.
Lehmann said she’s working on a proposal for a late-entry program starting in Grade 7, as well as getting other school divisions on board.
"We're not done,” she said. “Kathy and I knew this wasn't going to be a short-term project to get kindergarten into one school."
What the kids are learning is following them home as well. Haydn’s mother Heidi Garcia said her son is more confident in his Spanish.
"He’s answering our questions in Spanish, and he's asking ‘how do you say that in Spanish?’ So it's really cool to just see how excited he is and enthusiastic,” she said.
“I think it's helping our whole family to learn a little bit more Spanish."
