Spanish Wonder Lab
In person, at Club Oodazu Decatur
Children ages 5-8
5:2 teacher to student ratio, max 10 children per lab
8 weeks, 50 minutes on Saturday mornings
Drop off
Fall & Spring, a season-long quest
Babies and Toddlers
You don’t have to wait until they are “ready.”
Our inaugural lab for Bebés and Pequeñines is a playful, sensory-rich Spanish immersion experience for littles and their caregivers. This lab was born from what we kept seeing at our Cuenta Cuentos in local bookstores: little ones and their families lighting up at the sound of Spanish. So we made a space for it!
This lab is structured around three pillars of child and language development:
Your connection to your child is key! Every Spanish word we offer is a serve. The caregiver catches it, echoes it, and returns it to the child. We guide you in being the primary language model for your child.
Joint Attention
Whole body language. We will get to know and feel Spanish with our whole bodies, using gestures, music, movement, play and sensory experiences. Always developmentally appropriate, sensory-safe, and washable.
Embodiment
Predictable and consistent routines every week. We will focus on language exposure, joy, and recognition: Celebrating a baby’s smile at a Spanish word or a 2-year old pointing to la estrella! There is zero pressure on production! At this age range, receptive vocabulary precedes production by months.
Repetition
Ages 5-8
Let’s keep their bilingual journey going!
Now on our second year, this drop-off lab is a bridge into Spanish for all families who value bilingualism and who are interested in a space where Spanish stands for joy, curiosity, imagination, and solidarity.
This lab is a structured as a collaborative, linguistically rich, and teacher-guided space.
Multi-age
Our ages 5-8 Spanish lab is intentionally designed as a multi-age space.
Multi-proficiency
We intentionally welcome all language backgrounds and language proficiency levels.
Children engage in a structured inquiry facilitated by us to answer a big interesting question about the world. They do so by exploring, creating, working together, and solving problems. We use Spanish as a relational, imaginative, and socioemotional tool, just like people do in the real world.
Real-World Applications
You bring your dreams for your child, we provide the village
Each season, we have a different theme and complement what children do at the lab with:
A weekly digital newsletter for parents, with advice and resources for engaging in the theme and in the Spanish language at home
Maravillas, our summer, 8-week, Spanish children’s magazine available both in print and digital
What to Expect?
A Glance at the Adventure
This 8-session adventure is sequenced across six stages of the Inquiry-Based Learning cycle. We begin with a teacher-led structured inquiry and progressively shift to provide more agency to our little explorers
Tuning in: Session 1. This week is our inquiry launch. We ask: What do I already know? What do I wonder?
Finding out: Sessions 2–3. We gather information through books, observation, and making.
Sorting out: Session 4. This week, we will organize our learning from weeks 2 and 3. Children will choose their own adventure to do so!
Going further: Sessions 5–6. We will continue working on our adventure choice.
Making conclusions: Session 7. We will synthesize what we learned by collaborating on a whole group project.
Taking action: Session 8. This week we will hold a closing ceremony for children to share and celebrate their work. Families are welcome!
Session Structure
Each of the 8 sessions runs for 50 minutes and follows the same five-part structure:
1. Gathering: Greeting, song and body movement.
2. Review: Visual provocation using the session’s key images or objects.
3. Invitation: Read-aloud and open-ended mission.
4. Exploration: Art, movement, or design challenge.
5. Reflection: Documenting, sharing, and closing.
