Spanish Books for Every Child Ready to Read

I am a big fan of the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) parent education initiative, developed by the Public Library Association (PLA) and the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC).  As a Children's Librarian, I presented many ECRR workshops for parents in both English and Spanish.  As a consultant, one of the services I offer is helping libraries offer ECRR workshops to Spanish-speaking parents in their service area.  One of the reasons why I love ECRR so much is because it is a data-supported model which accomplishes multiple goals at once.  This is particularly true as it is offered to Latino and Spanish-speaking communities.  Not only does it reach early literacy goals by teaching and empowering parents as the first teachers of their children, it also works as an outreach tool to form new relationships between libraries and Latino community organizations and even individual families.  I am a huge advocate of the ECRR initiative and I am thrilled that the updated version will soon be available in a Spanish as well, Cada niño listo para leer.

In order to support librarians and library staff offering ECRR workshops to Spanish-speaking families, I thought I would share some of my favorite Spanish and bilingual books that support early literacy development.  These are books that are fun to share with children, are wonderful to incorporate into storytimes, and make great examples for sharing with parents during ECRR workshops.

Board Books for Babies
My Colors, My World / Mis colores, mi mundo by Maya Christina Gonzalez
This Belpré honor recipient for illustration is now available in board book form.  Explore the colors hiding in the desert with young Maya.

I Love to Sleep / Me encanta dormir / J'aime dormir and I Love to Eat / Me encanta comer / J'aime manger by Amélie Graux
Trilingual touch-and-feel board books introduce simple vocabulary.

¡Fiesta! by Ginger Foglesong Guy
Count the objects the niños buy at the market for their fiesta.

Time for Bed / Es hora de dormir and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes / Diez deditos de las manos y diez deditos de los pies by Mem Fox
Two much loved titles for babies now available in bilingual board books featuring spectacular rhyming translations by F. Isabel Campoy.

¡Cu-cú, bebé! and ¿Dónde está el ombliguito? by Karen Katz
Spanish versions of fun lift-the-flap board books that introduce new vocabulary in an interactive manner.

Picture Books for Toddlers
Hello Night / Hola noche by Amy Costales
A gentle story that rhymes in both languages.  Perfect for bedtime.


Let's Eat! / ¡A comer! by Pat Mora
A sweet story in the "My Family / Mi Familia" series about the joy of sharing a meal together as a family.  The entire series is highly recommended; other titles are Wiggling Pockets / Los bosillos saltarines and Sweet Dreams / Dulces sueños.

Fiesta Babies by Carmen Tafolla
Rhyming English text which incorporates Spanish words introduces us to the many ways in which babies celebrate!


¡Muu, Moo! Rimas de animales / Animal Nursery Rhymes by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy
Animal rhymes that niños and parents will enjoy sharing time and again.


ABeCedarios: Mexican Folk Art ABCs in English and Spanish by Cynthia Weill
The first in a series of bilingual first concept books that feature photographs of traditional Mexican folk art pieces as illustrations.  Others in the series are Opposites / Opuestos, Colores de la vida, and Count Me In!


Picture Books for Preschoolers
Quinito's Neighborhood / El vecindario de Quinito by Ina Cumpiano
Meet the diverse folks in Quinito's neighborhood while learning fantastic vocabulary!

Ten Little Puppies / Diez perritos by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy
A traditional Spanish children's song in storybook form.  Count and sing along!

Un pez muy divertido by Jack Tickle
One of several Spanish pop-up books in the "Libros Cu-cu Sorpresa" series.  Spanish pop-ups can be difficult to find for purchase; it's really fun to be able to share them with kids in storytime or at a workshop.

What Can You Do with a Rebozo? / ¿Qué puedes hacer con un rebozo? by Carmen Tafolla
The rebozo, a traditional shawl, can be many things if you use your imagination.

Arroz con leche / Rice Pudding by Jorge Argueta
One of several bilingual cooking poem stories.  The stories are actually recipes told in poem form, which makes them excellent for acting out and talking about what happens first, middle and last.  Others are Sopa de frijoles / Bean Soup and Guacamole.

What did I miss?  This is just a sample; there are many more great Spanish and bilingual books that promote early literacy skill development and are fun to share with kids.  If one that you love is not on this list, please leave a comment and share it with us!

Bilingual Storytime Idea - ¡Arroz con Leche!

What's my professional New Year's resolution? 

To embody the spirit of Día and help foster a culture of literacy throughout the year at the Village Branch library.  How am I doing this?  Well, one way involves our Bilingual Family Storytime program.  I am tweaking the format of this program a bit so that it is a monthly family literacy event, drawing on themes relevant to the Latino community.  Our first program is Wednesday, January 11 at 6 PM on the theme of "Arroz con Leche" - ¡que sabroso!

We will be sharing The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred by Samantha Vamos and illustrated by Rafael Lopez along with Jorge Argueta's Arroz con leche / Rice Pudding, which is a bilingual recipe/poem illustrated by Fernando Vilela.  We'll be turning this book into a creative dramatic to further narrative skill development as we move through each of the steps in the recipe, as well as practicing some math concepts as we measure the appropriate amounts of the ingredients.  This activity will exercise our imaginations as well!  Of course we will also be sharing the traditional song "Arroz con leche."  We will be using the version on the CD Juguemos a cantar as we sing and dance and play musical instruments.

Following the program, parents and children will have the opportunity to interact together at three discovery centers designed to reinforce further skill development in fun ways.  One station will be a tasting of real arroz con leche - a table top poster will prompt parents to ask their children specific questions as they try the tasty treat.  The other two are activities from the "Para los Niños" program out of the Houston Children's Museum.  And the cinnamon on top?  Every family who comes will get to take home their very own copy of Arroz con Leche: Popular Songs and Rhymes from Latin America by Lulu Delacre, courtesy of the Friends of the Lexington Public Library and Scholastic Literacy Partners.

I am so very excited for this tasty program and hope to see many families in attendance.  ¡Nos vemos en la biblioteca!

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!

¡Listos para Kindergarten! Ready for Kindergarten!

We are all about working closely with the Fayette County Schools at the Lexington Public Library to promote Kindergarten readiness - sharing with families the skills their kids need to be successful when they start school, and modeling fun, interactive ways in which they can practice this at home.  Last year, a colleague of mine, Susan Price at the Central Location, took this mission and used it to develop a brilliant program called "When I'm in Kindergarten."  This is a discovery center style program, much like "Little Hands, Big Ideas / Manos pequeñas / Ideas grandes."  In every station, parent and child explore important Kindergarten readiness and pre-literacy skills, such as their personal information, parts of the body, practicing numbers, sorting objects by color and size and alphabet letters.  Last year I translated this program, and we have offered it twice so far at the Villlage Branch.  With Susan's permission, in this post I will share all of the materials you need to put this program on bilingually at your library too!  The instructions for the walls are available in English and in Spanish.  However, both were originally created in Microsoft Publisher, so to access via Google Docs, you will need to download and open with Publisher.  If this is a problem for any reason, please feel free to contact me via the blog and I can email to you as an attachment.

1. Patterns / Sequencias

 In this station, foam shapes are set out on a mat.  We use the Mother Goose Foam Shape and Pattern Blocks, but this could also be done on the cheap with paper cutouts.  Parents work with the child to identify the various shapes and their colors.  The caregiver then helps the child construct the patterns depicted in the instructions, and the child predicts which shapes will come next to continue the pattern.  Children who master this can then be challenged to create and extend their own patterns.  This stations helps develop Letter Knowledge by practicing shapes, as well as the Kindergarten readiness skills of identifying shapes and colors and extending simple patterns.

2.  Telephone / Teléfono

This is probably my favorite station!  Large numbers are laminated and glued to a mat in the shape of a phone pad.  The caregiver helps the child practice important phone numbers (such as home, cell and 911) by hopping from number to number!

3.  Laundary / Lavando la ropa

This station practices sorting objects by various attributes, such as color and shape.  A small clothesline is hung to the wall to which children can clip laminated paper cutouts of articles of clothing in assorted colors.  For example, they can group all of the shirts, or all of the red clothes.

4.  Body Parts / Partes del cuerpo

Another important station!  Susan made and laminated a large cutout of a child.  The names of various body parts are laminated and attached to magnets which correspond to magnets on the body parts too.  Children match the name to the appropriate area of the body.  This activity would be fun to include in a body or movement themed storytime.  You could follow up with a movement song that practices body parts, such as "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" or "Juanito."

5.  Personal Information / Información personal

Through this activity, children and caregivers go over important personal information children need to know, particularly in the event of an emergency, such as family members' names, address and birthday.  Parents review this information with their child in the form of a mad lib (available in English and Spanish).  They also use dry erase markers to complete the missing information from the drawn and laminated house.

6.  Alphabet Soup / La sopa de letras

At this station, children find a big bowl of letter soup, made from paper letters, cut and laminated.  Caregivers help children find the letters in their names and dip out the whole alphabet in order.

In order to continue the fun and learning outside of the library, Susan also made two take-home activities: an obstacle course and a grocery hunt.  We are sure to also share with parents the information from FCPS regarding what children are expected to know as they enter Kindergarten. 

Let me know if you use any or all of these stations to supplement storytimes or create new programs.  Do you have other Kindergarten readiness programming ideas?  Share them here / compártanlos aquí!

Manos pequeñas, ideas grandes: A bilingual discovery center program

My amazing colleagues at the Tates Creek Branch library have been doing a series of programs called "Little Hands, Big Ideas" for a while now.  Last year I observed one, and got inspired to try a bilingual version here at the Village Branch.  Today was our first program, and it was really fun!

The program works like this: various activity stations are set up using a certain theme, and the parent/caregiver and child move from activity to activity.  Through this interactive play, the child is building early literacy, science and math concepts.  There is a lot of prep to setup the program, but it is worth it to see child and parent interacting together and having fun while they build important Kindergarten Readiness skills.

Our theme for today's program was Grocery Store / El supermercado.  We started off with a book and a story: Susan Middleton Elya's Bebé Goes Shopping, which introduces Spanish vocabulary through rhyming English text, and "Chocolate," one of our favorite phonological awareness building rhymes.  Then it was off to explore at the five stations.

Station 1:  Shopping Baskets / Cestas de compras
Children counted the items in two shopping baskets and compared which one had more items.  They then created patterns with the groceries and lined the various items up by size.  This helped them practice counting up to 20, comparing objects of different sizes and constructing simple patterns. 

Station 2:  Shopping Cart / Carrito de compras
Kids estimated how many objects they could fit into the shopping cart and then experimented by placing object in the cart.  They did the same activity again, estimating how many small items would fit into the cart and then how many large items would fit.  This also practiced counting and size comparisons, as well as making and testing hypotheses.


Station 3:  Food Sort / Tipos de alimentos
Kids sorted various types of foods into the appropriate categories based on the USDA food pyramid.  This helped children practice sorting skills.

Station 4:  Let's Go Shopping / Vamos de compras

This was a very fun activity.  Kids could use shopping baskets and mini shopping carts to search for the groceries on their list, while they talked with their parent or cargiver about what they were purchasing and what they would use it for.  This activity helped build early literacy skills such as vocabulary and narrative skills by sparking parent and child conversation.  Plus, pushing around the mini cart was a lot of fun!

Station 5:  Price Matching / Emparejamiento de precios

Lots of products and prices were spread out for kids to match the prices to the correct items.  The best part?  They could then enter the prices into a REAL cash register.  It even beeped and opened to reveal play money!  This was an opportunity to identify various numbers and to compare numbers of different sizes. 

This style of program is a great way to share with parents the types of early skills their children need to know to be ready for school success, and to share fun ways of practicing those skills which they can expand out at home or in other locations.  All of the files used in this program are available online here at Google Docs.  Do you do any kind of discovery center programming?  How do you make it accessible for everyone in your community?

Butterflies and Science Make Storytime Fun!

Bilingual Family Storytime is back in full swing at the Village Branch Library with a new time.  We are now offering the program on Wednesday evenings at 6 PM.  Last week, mariposas filled the air.  This was a great theme for incorporating important science and early literacy concepts.

We started off as always with our opening song, "Hola amigo" from Ole! Ole! Ole!  Dr. Jean en Español by Dr. Jean Feldman.  This song introduces English speakers to fun Spanish greetings, practices rhythm and rhyme, and signals to the children each week that storytime is beginning.  Our first book was Mariposa, mariposa by Petr Horacek.  I love this book!  Lucía encounters all kinds of colorful bugs in her yard as she searches for an elusive butterfly.  The cutouts in the pages and a special surprise at the end make this book extra fun to explore.  It's a perfect choice for reinforcing print motivation.

Moving on, we practiced both colors and sorting while we listened to "Mariposa" from ¡Piñata! Bilingual Songs for Children by Sarah Barchas.  We placed four sheets of paper on our carpet - azul, morado, amarillo  y anaranjado.  Then I had a big bag of assorted objects in those colors.  One at a time we sorted the objects by color into 4 different groups.  This activity took about three minutes to complete; we ended just as the song was finishing.

Next we met Rita, a mischevious little butterfly in the book by Rachel Chaundler.  The story is amusing and can even be adapted into a creative dramatic using puppets.  Afterward I put on my storytelling apron and used pieces available from Lakeshore to retell Eric Carle's classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  This story is excellent for telling bilingually.  The repetition of "he was still hungry / todavia tenía hambre" makes the story interactive to tell.  The names of the different fruits help build vocabulary, and counting them practices early numeracy concepts.  An alternative to purchasing the storytelling pieces is to make your own puppets or felt pieces.  Patterns are available from DLTK.

Next we reviewed the life cycle of una mariposa.  I printed out four pictures - an egg (un huevo), a caterpillar (una oruga), a cocoon (un capullo) and a butterfly (una mariposa).  We put the pictures in order to practice sequencing, and then acted out the various stages as a movement activity.  As always, we closed with another Dr. Jean tune, "Adiós amigos."  Handouts for parents shared information about what specific Kindergarten Readiness skills we were practicing throughout the program, and included books and ideas to use at home.  The handouts are available in English and Spanish.

Another fun song you could use in a butterfly storytime is "La mariposa" by Colibri from Putamayo Presents World Playground: a Musical Adventure for Kids.  Clapping to the rythm with their manos and pies help kids develop phonological awareness.  What do you like to share when mariposas come to visit your storytime?

Incorporating las ciencias into Bilingual Storytime

Some of you may be familiar with the Vermont Center for the Book's Mother Goose programs.  These programs are intended to help increase kids' school readiness - a personal passion of my own.  The Lexington Public Library uses the Mother Goose math and science resources to incorporate math and science skills, along with early literacy skill development techniques, into our storytime programs.  Bilingual Family Storytime is no exception.  So far this summer we have had a hands-on science activity for parents and kids to work on together after every program, and they have loved it!

The first week we had a water theme to kick off our Summer Reading Program - Make a Splash at your Library.  As promised in a previous post, I used I Know the River Loves Me / Yo sé que el rio me ama by Maya Christina Gonzalez, along with Salpicar / Splash by Flora McDonnell, Bebé Goes to the Beach by Susan Middleton Elya, and "Vamos a la mar" by Jose-Luis Orozco.  Our science activity also used water - various objects were spread out and kids had to examine them and predict which objects would sink and which would float.  They marked their predictions on a chart and then it was time to experiment.  When I saw how much the parents and the children enjoyed interacting together to make the predictions and conduct the experiment, I knew I would have to keep trying this type of activity.  I'm sharing the bilingual directions you can print out and use with this activity via Google Docs along with the bilingual chart we used to mark our predictions.  Sample sink or float activities are available on the Mother Goose site, along with other resources.

Last week our program was about colors.  The last story we told was Pinta ratones, also known as Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh.  This story introduces the concept of primary and secondary colors.  We followed this with our science activity.  Using color paddles available from Oriental Trading, the kids were able to mix primary colors together (mess-free!) and make secondary colors.  They had a lot of fun looking through the paddles and seeing Miss Katie turn green and purple!

Tonight we are talking about the weather.  One of my favorite things about the summer is growing my own food in my garden, so we are starting off with A sembrar sopa de verduras by Lois Ehlert (Growing Vegetable Soup) to talk about seasons.  To reinforce narrative skills, we will retell what happened first, middle and last in the story after we read it.  Lexington is a rainy town, so we'll follow up with "Que llueva" by Jose-Luis Orozco, Un día de lluvia by Valeri Gorbachev, and (of course!) "La araña pequeñita."  We'll come back to seasons with Oso bajo el sol by Stella Blackstone.  The change of seasons in our climate produces a clear pattern.  Every year we move from spring, to summer, to fall and winter.  So our science activity tonight will be identifying patterns.  I've set out one easy and one hard pattern using foam shapes.  Kids and parents will work together to find the pieces that continue and complete the pattern.  This is a school readiness skill, and it also reinforces narrative skills by helping children identify sequence.  The Mother Goose site has a number of professional articles about the effectiveness of incorporating math and science into storytime, including this one about recognizing patterns.

Do you incorporate science skills in your programs?  Do you have some other kind of hands-on activity for kids and caregivers at the end of storytime?  Let us know what you are doing!