El Gato con Botas Learning Center, Ramsey

Speaking Spanish is second nature to Lima, Peru, native Doris Griep. She not only spoke it every day in her homeland until relocating to Minnesota in the late '90s, but she also earned a master's degree in Spanish education from Bethel University a few years after moving. After teaching Spanish to private-school students for more than a decade, she decided to revive El Gato con Botas Learning Center, a preschool and kindergarten care center inspired by one she successfully ran in Peru.

But it's not a typical daycare—caretakers mostly converse with kids in Spanish (about 90% of the time). And by incorporating the foreign language into art projects, singing, dancing, and educational cultural activities, they foster an understanding of it in their students, preparing them for speaking it later in life.