Para los Niños - A resource to know for bilingual storytime!

As part of the "Growing Up Bilingual" workshop at the Reforma National Conference IV, I was introduced to the "Para los Niños" program.  This is too great a resource to keep to myself!  The program was developed by the Children's Museum of Houston.  Tiffany Fontenot of CMH and Freda Mosquera, who has implemented the program at Broward County Library in Florida, gave us an in depth demonstration.  The great thing about this program is that all of the materials are available to download and use in English and Spanish.  Also, all of the materials needed for the learning activities are very cheap, making the activities easy for families to replicate at home.

So what is "Para los Niños"?  It is a family learning program developed for Spanish-speaking families, though available in English as well.  There are 8 workshop themes, such as "Math at Home," "Raise a Reader" and "Self-Esteem."  Each theme has at least 5 activities that accompany it, and most of the activities tie back to picture book that the families can share together.  There are multiple ways that this program could be implemented.  For example, Freda Mosquera shared how her library offered these workshops at a community center that served many Spanish-speaking families.  The course of the program was 8 weeks, one theme each week.  The programs would start with a storytime for the families, and then the families could work together on each of activity stations.  I plan to implement parts of this program into my Bilingual Family Storytime program, setting up two to three activity stations each month for families to explore together following our stories and songs.

So go check this program out!  Do you know of other great ready-to-use resources for bilingual storytimes?  Share them with us here!