Teaching spanish to my 8 year old

[Timetoask]

I am a native spanish speaker, DH is English. For various reasons (too boring to detail) we have only used english as our family language.

DS2 is now 8 and keen to learn spanish, he is extremely bright so I know he will pick it up without problem. I need some help please...

We have designed a little notebook with various partitions for different vocabulary which I am teaching him throughout the day. For example, if we are cooking something, I will tell him the name of each ingredient for him to write it down on his notebook. HOWEVER... I am really struggling to explain the grammatical rules, verbs, etc, which are so different to English.

I have spent hours searching in the internet and there is soooo much material I just don't know where to start. I am not a natural teacher, I need some sort of step by step guide that I can follow. I am even wondering if I should pay for lessons, which feels crazy considering I can speak the language.

Can people that have successfully taught spanish to their children please recommend the best resources they've come across?

Thank you!!

I wouldn't make a big deal of it. Start at home by putting some of his favourite DVDs into Spanish, or making a certain day "Spanish Day" in the holidays and building up from there.
A forthcoming trip to visit cousins and grandparents would encourage learning too. Listening and speaking are the skills to focus on. The rest can wait.
If he's starting at 8 he's not going to be 50/50 bilingual (is anybody?) but you can put him on the right track to having a strong second language. Remember, your culture is just as valid as your DH's and having another set of songs, stories and jokes will enrich DS's childhood!

Have you seen the free duo lingo app? My daughter is 9 and is doing really well learning Dutch, you can say how long you want to do it for every day (she does 10 mins) and it covers reading and writing as well as speaking and listening. Well worth a look and you could do it together too so you can add your own words into it as you go .