How about I actually share a post on bilingual storytime for a change? ;)
So bilingual storytime has finally gotten underway at the Village branch which is certainly exciting for me. They are Wednesday evenings at 7pm, designed for preschool age children, and all in the family who want to participate are welcome to join in the fun. This past week we had a good group and the theme was farms. Here's what we did:
We started off with our opening song, "Hola amigo" by Dr. Jean Feldman. I love using this as my opening song because it has easy motions built in that break the ice by starting us off moving, and which also help to reinforce vocabulary. After this we talked a bit about the farm and what can be found there, again reinforcing vocabulary in English y en español. Our first book was the adorable ¡No, Tito, no! / No, No Titus! by Claire Masurel, one of my favorites. This book is excellent for reinforcing narrative skills as Tito, the new puppy on the farm, tries to learn how to be a good dog by imitating the actions of the others on the farm. The mixed media illustrations are also very original and present extremely well in storytime. We then met the various animals that live on the farm as we sang Sarah Barchas' excellent bilingual version of "La granja / The Farm" from her CD of bilingual songs titled ¡Piñata! We used stick puppets to enhance the song with each child getting to participate as one of the animals: la vaca/the cow, el gallo/the rooster, la gallina/the hen, el pollito/the chick, el cerdo/the pig, el burro/the donkey, or el caballo/the horse. This reinforces both phonological awareness through the use of rhythm and rhyme, as well as vocabulary in both languages. I found the patterns for the puppets here, and a high school volunteer helped me make them. We finished up by learning about the work that people do on the farm as we read Apple Farmer Annie / Ana cultiva manzanas by Monica Wellington. At the Lexington Public Library, using storytime to reinforce basic math/science concepts is empahsized just as much as reinforcing early literacy skills. This would be an excellent title to use for that purpose as Annie sorts and organizes her apples. I am still learning how to successfully incorporate these skills into bilingual storytime, but I look forward to using this title in this way in the future. We ended our time together again with a Dr. Jean tune, "Adios amigos," my favorite goodbye song. I look forward to next week when we are going to read stories about puppies!
In case you are wondering why storytime is beneficial for young children, I will encourage you to wander over to this brief School Library Journal article on just that topic recently shared by a colleague at LPL.
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