2019 Holiday Gift Guide for Little Language Learners and Travel Lovers
/*Some of the links below are affiliate links—meaning that I receive a small commission (at no cost to you) for any purchases made through them. For my full disclosure policy, click here.
Looking for gift ideas for your homeschool language learner or travel-obsessed kid? Look no further—I’ve got you covered with this year’s gift guide! Below, I’ve got recommendations for stocking stuffers, toys for all ages, and subscriptions that can support your kids in their language learning and (of course), add more joy to their lives.
I hope you like what I’ve found, but in case you don’t find what you’re looking for, be sure to check out my 2018 Gift Guide as well—it has even more ideas to choose from!
Stocking Stuffers
Alphabet Blocks: Uncle Goose Alphabet Blocks are available in 25 languages including Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Thai, Swahili and more. These blocks are not only beautiful, but they also grow with you child. Put them on a shelf in your little one’s nursery to add a sweet pop of color, then take them down for toddler stacking play, and when it comes time to start reading lessons, use them to introduce letters and sounds. You can even use them with older children for spelling challenges, proving their usefulness for years and years.
Conversation Starters: TableTopics offers a cube of great Spanish-language conversation starters for families. To be honest, I wasn’t going to include these because of the price tag (which seems a little inflated for what it is…), but then we got some of these cards in a Chik-Fil-A kids meal and my kids had a blast answering the questions. So I’m a convert! I’m going to use them to encourage Spanish conversation at the dinner table—and you can too!
Language Games: Help your language learner practice his/her vocabulary skills with one of these fun activity books!
French Word Search and French Crossword Puzzles, or French Color and Learn Phrases for the youngest learners
Spanish Word Search and Spanish Crossword Puzzles, Spanish Color and Learn Phrases
Latin Word Search and Latin Crossword Puzzles, or a Life in Ancient Rome coloring book
Useful Phrase Books: Breaking the Barrier (who has a language curriculum that I love) also has Spanish and French phrasebooks available. If you’re planning a trip or have an older student who dreams of traveling abroad, these are the perfect little treat to hide in their stocking!
Toys to Enjoy Again and Again
An Age-Appropriate World Map Puzzle: my three-year-old would love to try his hand at this 25-piece Mudpuppy map, while this 60-piece Ravensburger one is perfect for preschoolers and early elementary kids. For a slightly more challenging puzzle experience, this 300-piece world map puzzle features the major landmarks of different countries, from the Eiffel Tower to the Parthenon. Really skilled puzzlers could dive into this 1000-piece world map puzzle, complete with the national flags of every country.
Bilingual Puzzles for Spanish Learners: Ingenio makes both this North America map and this Mexico map available in a bilingual format, so that kids can learn place names in both languages. I love it!
A Bilingual Board Game: Lil Loteria Bilingual Board Game is a new board game for Spanish learners that is sure to be a hit! It teaches basic vocabulary through the Latin American game Loteria (similar to Bingo). I’d recommend it for ages 3 and up. And also, language teacher confession: I especially like that the game teaches the articles of these words, since it is one of my pet peeves when books and other resources leave them out. It is so important to know—teach your kids from the start!
An Alphabet Tracing Board in the Language You’re Studying: I’d never seen seen an alphabet tracing board until I started following Elsie of Farmhouse Schoolhouse on Instagram and saw her boys practicing their writing skills with them. One quick Etsy search later and I found that they are available in many different languages: Arabic, Hindi, Russian, Greek and Korean. While these are a bit of investment, they could easily be used for years in your homeschool and would be especially helpful for families studying non-latinate languages!
Subscriptions: Boxes, Music, and More
Amazon Music Unlimited: I’ve written it here before, but I’ll say it again for good measure: our subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited is the best $10 I spend on our homeschool every month. Not only do we use it to listen to lots of foreign language music (here are our family’s favorites in Spanish and Portuguese), but it also helps me with composer study and hymn study. I am consistently amazed at the richness of this resource and how much music we have access to through this service—and now that I have a nursing baby, I am especially grateful that we can listen to it hands-free with our Amazon Echo.
Booklandia: If you want to add more Spanish-language literature to your homeschool, Booklandia has got you covered! Their customizable monthly subscriptions ensure that you get book boxes that match your family’s needs: from board books to chapter books, bilingual books or Spanish-only books. You can also choose from thematic collections of books, including a collection on the indigenous peoples of the Americas (for students aged 9-12) and a collection of diverse books for elementary school students. You choose exactly what you want and the book boxes appear magically on your doorstep—it’s that easy.
Hola Amigo: Hola Amigo is a new play-based learning box designed for the littlest Spanish learners: think toddlers and early elementary kids. Each monthly box has a particular theme—”life on the farm,” for example—and comes with everything that you could need to teach the thematic vocabulary to your kids: toys, games, board books, and early readers (to be used by kids who can read or as read-alouds). My kids and I recently tried a box and we were enchanted! The activities included were perfect for this age range (my older boys are 3 and 5) and my sons enjoyed them so much that I actually had to hide the box, just to make sure that they wouldn’t lose any activity pieces playing with them! This is a great tool for families who are learning Spanish together or for native-speaking families (like ours) who just want to encourage more Spanish usage at home. Use the promo code HOLA20 at checkout to get your first box for only $24.95!
TalkBox Mom: When TalkBox Mom released their Brazilian Portuguese box this fall, I was one of the first to order a subscription—I was that excited! We’ve been using it for over a month now in our homeschool and I am loving the way that it keeps me on track with our Portuguese study (which, in the past, has been a bit of a challenge). It has been nearly effortless to make TalkBox Mom Portuguese a part of our daily Morning Time, because all of the materials and lessons have already been planned for us in the box! I’m speaking Portuguese at home, my kids are speaking Portuguese at home, and there’s been zero added stress for me: a major win! TalkBox is available in 11 different languages, so whether your family wants to start speaking French or Russian, they’ve likely got you covered! Moreover, TalkBox Mom offers a special deal for Language Learning At Home readers:
For $20 off a Talkbox + Phrase Book, use the code languagelearningbox at checkout.
For $5 off a Phrase Book, use the code languagelearningbook at checkout.
By the way, I really, really recommend investing in the boxes and not just the phrase books. While the phrase books are helpful, if you wanted to use them as an actual curriculum, you’d still need to do a ton of legwork to organize lessons and daily practice. With the box, everything is provided for you, including audio files of the phrases, visual tools to help you learn and use the phrases at home, and even accountability tools to ensure that you’re consistent in your language study. They’re really worth it.
SnackCrate: If you want to give your kids a (literal) taste of the world, check out this subscription box, which will ship your family international treats every month. Each box features treats from a particular country, and you can customize the amount of treats that you receive by choosing between the company’s three box sizes. Use the snacks during your family’s Poetry Teatimes or to provide a sweet incentive for map study—they’re definitely a way to add excitement to your homeschool!
Global Decor
A super classy, customizable globe: Whether you want to track where you’ve been or fuel your future travel dreams, this globe is the key. Insert pushpins in the places that you want to remember or daydream about.
Are you looking for more ideas for Christmas gifts in a particular language? Join our Facebook group to ask the over 1,500 families there!
