Bilingualism Across the U.S. Infographic and Reforma Southeast Meeting

Recently Sarah, an ¡Es Divertido Hablar Dos Idiomas! reader, contacted me to share this Infographic created and published by Bestcollegesonline.com.  This infographic provides a concise visual representation of the the rise of bilingualism in the United States over the last 30 years, presenting the most common languages other than English spoken at home and the many advantages of bilingualism.  Thank you for sharing this with us, Sarah!


Via: BestCollegesOnline.com

I also would like to share with everyone that the next meeting of Reforma Southeast will be on June 7, 2-4 PM in the Centennial room in the Main Library of the Louisville Free Public Library.  If you are unfamiliar, Reforma is the National Organization to Promote Libraries and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, an affiliate of the American Library Association.  The Southeast Chapter covers Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and the parts of Virginia not covered by the D.C. chapter.  Our website is currently under renovation, so please visit and join our Facebook Group!  Most of our membership is in Kentucky, which is where we often hold our meetings, but anyone in these southeastern states is welcome to attend.  If you are interested in attending virtually, we can definitely set this up using Google video chat or Skype.  Please contact me through the blog by June 5 if you are interested in setting this up.  For anyone interested in becoming a Reforma Southeast member, this would be a great meeting to attend, as we will be discussing our goals for the upcoming year.

Bilingual Storytime Flannel Friday - Los tiburones en la mar

The weather is warming up in a very summery way here in Kentucky, so I thought I would share a beachy flannelboard that is very easy and fun to use in both English and Spanish.  This is one of the first flannelboards that I ever made.  It's for the rhyme "The Sharks in the Sea" (to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus") which I translated into "Los tiburones en la mar."  Be sure to check out all of the Flannel Friday contributions for May 25 over at Mel's Desk!

The sharks in the sea go chomp, chomp, chomp
chomp, chomp, chomp,
chomp, chomp, chomp.
The sharks in the sea go chomp, chomp, chomp
All day long.


Los tiburones en la mar hacen chomp, chomp, chomp
chomp, chomp, chomp,
chomp, chomp, chomp.
Los tiburones en la mar hacen chomp, chomp, chomp
todo el día.

The remaining verses are as follows:
The lobsters in the sea go pinch, pinch, pinch / Las langostas en la mar hacen pinch, pinch, pinch
The whale in the sea goes squirt, squirt, squirt / La ballena en la mar hace squirt, squirt, squirt
The clams in the sea go open and shut / Las almejas en la mar se abren y se cierran
The octopus in the sea goes wiggle, wiggle, wiggle / El pulpo en la mar se manea, se manea
The seahorse in the sea rocks back and forth / El caballo de mar se mueve afrente y atrás
The kids in the waves jump up and down / Los niños en la mar saltan arriba y abajo

This flannel is fun to use in any beach or water theme storytime.  Potential books to include are:

I Know the River Loves Me / Yo sé que el río me ama by Maya Christina Gonzalez
¡Salpicar! / Splash! by Flora McDonnell
Bebé Goes to the Beach by Susan Middleton Elya
Bajo las olas 1,2,3 / Under the Sea 1,2,3 by Barbara Knox
Susurro del océano / Ocean Whisper by Dennis Rockill - This is a wordless book.

Of course, for any beach storytime, a fun final activity is to do a shell sort.  This allows parents and children to work together sorting various shells by their attributes, such as size or color.  Sorting in this manner is great preparation for Kindergarten, so this activity would be appropriate for a preschool age audience.  Check out this description of how sorting activities work from the Vermont Center for the Book's Mother Goose - What's the BIG Idea program. 

Here is the PDF if you are like me and prefer to have a pattern that is to scale.

Bilingual Storytime Flannalboard - Los tiburones en la mar

View more documents from Katie Cunningham.

Happy Friday to all!  Enjoy the sunshine this weekend!

Bilingual Storytime Idea - Flannel Friday!

I am a big fan of the librarians of Flannel Friday.  If you aren't familiar with this group, they are a wide variety of blogging librarians from across the country who every Friday share something super practical from their storytime toolkit with the rest of us.  Generally, this is a flannelboard story or rhyme, but it could also be a puppet story, prop story or creative dramatic.  They are all about sharing what works, and I LOVE that!  So when I saw a post from Miss Mary Liberry explaining how anyone can jump into the Flannel Friday fun, I decided to join them.  What I intend to contribute to the Flannel Friday network is material and ideas that can be used in Spanish and/or bilingual storytime programs.  I will be sharing my own translations as well as stories, rhymes, etc. that are already available in Spanish.  I will be using the flannels from my own collection, as well as creating new ones inspired by the work of other Flannel Friday contributors, if it can be modified to be used in Spanish.  I hope this will be helpful to bilingual librarians and teachers, as well as to programmers looking to make English storytime or circle time programs more inclusive of Latino culture and the Spanish language.

I follow Miss Mary's blog and really enjoy what she posts, so it's fitting that my first ever Flannel Friday contribution would be inspired by her.  Last week, Miss Mary posted a very cute flannel for the traditional song "Aiken Drum."  When I was reading her post, I started to hum the song to myself, but en español.  The first verse actually fit, and I wondered if the whole song could maintain its rhythm in Spanish.  To my surprise and delight, I found that it could!  My dear friend Raúl checked it over for accuracy, and now it is ready to share with all of you.  The only verse that is modified from the original version shared by Miss Mary is that I changed meatballs to chorizo - a spicy, smoked sausage!  For anyone unfamiliar with the tune to this song, you can listen to an audio file of another version at Songs for Teaching.

Vivía un hombre en la luna, en la luna, en la luna,
Vivía un hombre en la luna,
se llama Aiken Drum.

El tocó un cucharón, un cucharón, un cucharón
El tocó un cucharón,
se llama Aiken Drum

The remaining verses are as follows:

Con pelo de espaguetis...

Con ojos de chorizo...

Con orejas de brécol...

Con una boca de pizza...

Con una nariz de queso...

Please be sure to check out Miss Mary's original post as well as all of the other amazing storytime ideas being contributed weekly by the bloggers in the Flannel Friday network!  You can find all of the ideas being contributed this week at Notes from the Story Room.  Also, one of the things I am going to do with my flannels is to include PDF versions in addition to pictures.  This makes it very easy to recreate what you see to scale by printing the PDF version and using that as patterns for your own version of the flannel.  You will be able to find the PDF's on my SlideShare account.  Happy flanneling!

Aiken Drum Flannelboard

View more documents from Katie Cunningham.

Books for Bilingual Storytime! ¡Libros para el programa de cuentos bilingües!

Looking for some libros fantásticos to add to your bilingual storytimes?  I've made a shelf in my Goodreads account that may be useful.  It's a list of books that I love sharing either as they are or in some modified way in my programs.  Many are bilingual, but some are English only or Spanish translations of books originally written in other languages.  There's currently over 75 titles to explore, and I will keep adding more.  Come on over and check it out!  While you're there, friend me on Goodreads too, so I can keep track of the great books that you are finding!

      Katie's Bilingual-Storytime-Books

   

Katie's favorite books »
 
What is your favorite book for bilingual storytime?

Bilingual Storytime Idea - Opening Song

Every storytime needs a canción para empezar and I wanted to quickly share this cute one that I learned from my colleague Kelly Lamm while working on a job swap at the Beaumont Branch of the Lexington Public Library.  In this song, each child gets to say his or her name which is then used in the song as the group claps out the syllables in each name.  It goes like this:

Her (His) name is _____, _____, _____,
Her (His) name is _____,
What's your name?

This song could very easily be used as an opening song in bilingual storytime as well.  It is so short that you could sing it twice, once in each language.  Or you could blend the languages, singing the first line in one language and the final two in the other.  Here is a Spanish translation for the song:

Se llama _____, _____, _____,
Se llama _____,
Es su nombre.

This opening song could be enhanced with flannel board letters or numbers to make the early literacy component more overt, such as putting the number of syllables being clapped on the flannelboard or identifying the first letter of the child's name.  This would be an appropriate extension for preschool age groups.

I could not find an online file or recorded version of this tune to share, so I quickly (and messily - my apologies!) made my own sheet music for it.  This may be helpful for those of you who can tap it out on a keyboard.  If you'd rather use a PDF version one is available through my Google Docs.

What opening songs do you use for bilingual storytime?