A place to share books, music, techniques, and all things related to bilingual storytime!

Friday, May 18, 2012

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!



7 comments:

Amy said...

I'm so glad you're joining Flannel Friday! I've been saving up good ideas from your blog--especially your book suggestions. We are trying to grow our Spanish language book collection for kids, but it is difficult when your last Spanish class was more than 10 years ago!

Katie Scherrer said...

This is so cool to hear Amy! I'm glad that some things that I'm sharing have been useful for you. And I am thrilled to be part of Flannel Friday!

Anonymous said...

Katie,

So happy my Aiken Drum was useful to you, and that you were able to translate it - I'll be using your translation, as I'm also bilingual (and do many of my storytimes en dos idiomas). I'm glad to have another Flannel Friday-er sharing ideas en español! ¡Queremos que todos los niños tengan una buena experiencia con las historias y los libros!

Anne said...

Welcome to FF! I bet Mary's excited to have another person posting bilingual flannels. I know I am!

Storytime Fun said...

Hi, Katie! Welcome to Flannel Friday!

Your first contribution is great!

I am thrilled to read your plans for your site. I have a varied group of families in my weekly Family Storytime so I am always looking for ways to incorporate bilingual songs, rhymes, and books. I am able to offer Spanish, French, and ASL in a limited fashion. Plus my volunteer can offer those plus some Japanish and German so we have lots on fun sharing different languages and cultures.

Your blog will get a lot of visits from us! I can't wait to explore your past posts. :o)

So happy you joined the Flannel Friday Round-Up this week!

Andrea said...

Welcome to Flannel Friday! Love your Aiken Drum. I've been meaning to move some things to Slideshare - you've given me a great idea of some others to add.

Katie Scherrer said...

Thanks all so much for the warm welcome to Flannel Friday!