Bilingual Board Book Giveaway!

What better way to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month 2013 than with a giveaway?  I was recently contacted about ArteKids, a beautiful new series of bilingual board books that celebrate art from around the world and introduce first concepts.  The publisher, Tu Press, has generously agreed to give away a full set of the the books to one lucky reader of ¡Es Divertido Hablar Dos Idiomas!

These five bilingual board books, with text from the San Antonio Public Library Foundation and illustrations from the San Antonio Museum of Art are excellent choices for all public library collections.  They introduce numbers, colors, shapes, animals and vocabulary through images of diverse art, including paintings, sculpture, photography and more.  Questions in English and Spanish on each page spark interaction between child and caregiver.  Examples from Animal Amigos! include: "Can you walk like an elephant?" and "¿Por qué se esconden los monos entre las rocas?"  These suggestions help inspire dialogic reading, movement and conversation between adult and child, making the books excellent choices when introducing early literacy and school readiness concepts to parents.  The artwork from around the world featured in the illustrations is cited in the end pages of each book.  I hope that the series continues to grow!

To be entered in the drawing for a complete set of the five books currently in the ArteKids series, simply leave a comment on this post by the end of the day Friday, September 20.  I'd love it if you would share how you intend to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month this year, or how you think you may use these books if you the winner.  I will put the names in a drawing and randomly select a winner, who will be contacted by a representative of Tu Press for details on how to receive the books.

Thanks, Tu Press, for this generous offer!

Bilingual Storytime at Your Biblioteca - Register Today!

Hello readers of ¡Es Divertido Hablar Dos Idiomas!  Have you ever wanted to learn more about how to present your own bilingual storytimes, or how to make your English storytimes more inclusive of Latino culture and the Spanish language?  If so, please consider enrolling in my new online course, Bilingual Storytime at Your Biblioteca, being offered through the Library of Virginia!  I am beyond excited to be offering this course, which I have been working on creating for the last several months.  I share pre-made bilingual storytime plans, recommended books and music, great online resources, and even video demonstrations of flannelboard storytelling, bilingual songs, and fingerplays, created specifically for this course.  It is designed to help bilingual storytime presenters enhance their programs, and to provide non-Spanish speaking libraries with tools and tips for how they can make their English programs more inclusive and useful for Spanish-speaking families.  More information about the course is below - I hope to see many of you in the class!

Bilingual Storytime at Your Biblioteca - Course Description:

This 4-week, online course teaches participants how to present bilingual storytimes (English/Spanish) for various ages. Numerous techniques for successfully delivering the various elements of bilingual storytimes (bilingual books, storytelling, rhymes, and songs) will be shared in print and demonstrated via video. Participants in this course will gain practical ideas and increased confidence that will aid them as they work to include Latino culture and the Spanish language in their storytime programs, regardless of their language skills. Modifications for storytime presenters who do not speak Spanish but want their programs to be more inclusive of Latinos and Spanish-speakers will be shared.  Each participant will develop two storytime plans as the final project for the course.

Bilingual Storytime at Your Biblioteca - Registration:

Registration is now open for the next session of this course, which will be offered online through the Library of Virginia, January 14, 2013 - February 10, 2013.  The registration fee is $25 for library staff in Virginia and $50 for those outside of Virginia.  The fee includes your own copy of the book Read Me a Rhyme in English and Spanish / Léame una rima en español e inglés by Rose Treviño.  To register please contact Enid Costley at the Library of Virginia - enid.costley@lva.virginia.gov.  The prerequisite for this course is "Connecting with the Spanish-Speaking Community."  However, the instructor will consider accepting students who already have experience working with and providing outreach to Latinos and Spanish-speakers who have not taken this prerequesite.  If this is your situation, please email Katie Cunningham directly to discuss this further - katie@connectedcommunitiesconsulting.com.   

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!

A BIG Idea for Building Early Literacy - ¡Elefantes!

Tonight in Bilingual Family Storytime we are sharing animal stories, songs and activities, including Petr Horacek's Elefante, also available in English as Elephant.  This is a great story about using our imaginations to have fun, and it uses text in some cool ways.  Here's an example of how to communicate the value of unusual text for building early literacy to parents while introducing the book:

"Our first book, Elephant by Petr Horacek, uses various shapes and directions in the text, which helps children learn that when we use books, we read from left to right.  This is an important skill called print utilization that helps prepare young children to learn to read.

El primer libro, Elefante por Petr Horacke, cambia mucho las formas y direcciones en el texto.  Esto ayuda a los niños a aprender que cuando usamos libros, leemos desde la izquierda a la derecha.  Esta es una habilidad importante que se llama el reconocimiento de la palabra escrita que prepara a los niños a aprender a leer."

I found an awesome song on YouTube by Habla Blah Blah called "Los elefantes" that we are going to use too.  We will count and stomp along with the song, which would be super easy to sing again in English.  We may even get out some rhythm sticks!  This will be a great chance to bring out my very favorite Folkmanis elephant puppet to come out and play too!

Can't wait to share these ideas and more with all of our amigos tonight at 6 PM at the Village Branch library!

UPDATE!
One of my co-presenters (the amazing Freda Mosquera) at the "Growing Up Bilingual Programming: A Tribute to Rose Treviño" session at the Reforma IV conference last Septmber, shared a very cool way in which she uses the traditional "Elefantes" song in her program.  I have since done this in my programs and it is so much fun!  Take a piece of string or yarn as your telaraña and have paper elefantes for each child.  I have numbered each of my elefantes 1-10.  Then have the children come up one at a time to add their elefante to the telaraña with a clothespin.  Number one comes up first and adds her elephant and then takes the end of the yarn to sing the first verse of the song and call over elefante dos.  This is interactive and engaging, so it works for mixed ages.  It uses a traditional rhyme, familiar to both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking communities, which makes it very powerful for reinforcing the development of phonological awareness.  Finally, it also helps to practice counting skills and number identification, two essential school readiness skills.  Have fun adding this to your programs!
The super librarians of Flannel Friday have a flannel, the words in both languages and a video of the song in Spanish all available 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!

Storyblocks by Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy

Colorado, way to go!  First of all, "Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy" is a brilliant statewide initiative.  Second, I love Storyblocks!  Storyblocks is a website for parents, caregivers, etc. with lots of age-appropriate videos in English and Spanish of librarians demonstrating rhymes and songs to share with little ones, helping them develop vocabulary and phonological awarenes.  This website is awesome.

I will be in Denver, CO in September for the REFORMA 4th National Conference, presenting a preconference workshop on bilingual programming for various ages with a panel of librarians from across the country.  I will love to meet with other librarians in or near Denver, or attending the conference, who are serving Latino families, offering bilingual programs, or promoting early literacy to Spanish-speaking parents.  It is always so invigorating to hear the creative ways in which others are making an impact!

What are other libraries and librarians doing in a visible way to promote early literacy and empower parents?

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?

Las seis habilidades de pre-alfabetización

Posts have been few and far between lately, but such is the nature of May.  Final purchases are being made with end-of-year budgets, and, of course, all energy is going into planning for Summer Reading.  Our program started last week, and the Village branch staff have been doing an amazing job at making sure all families are signed up and participating in this year's program.

For a quick post, I thought I'd share a video that LPL just added to our YouTube channel.  I worked on this a few months back.  It is our first all-Spanish video, and it is about the six early literacy skills and library services.  Enjoy!

Fiesta Babies Say Hello!

Two lovely new books came in to the library today that I have to share.  They each reinforce multiple early literacy skills, and could be used in bilingual storytime programs or by monolingual librarians striving to make their storytimes multiculturally inclusive.

Everyone loves a good party, including our youngest friends - and Fiesta Babies is just for them!  This title by Carmen Tafolla is the perfect length for a baby or toddler storytime.  The rhyming text encourages phonological awareness, while the Spanish words integrated into the text help develop vocabulary.  Additionally, there are many ways parents can act out the text in this story while reading it with their child, such as tipping upside down, putting on pretend coronas, and dancing.  This kind of interaction makes reading together fun and promotes print motivation.  Even little Fiesta Babies can have positive experiences enjoying books!

Say Hello! by Rachel Isadora teaches us a variety of ways to greet the folks in our neighborhood from different cultures.  I love this book!  I am a big fan of mixed-media illustrations, such as those Isadora uses to bring her neighborhood to life.  Carmelita and her mama start the day with breakfast, huevos con tocino, and then they are off to visit abuela.  They are a friendly pair, enjoying this morning stroll through the neighborhood.  They call out Buenos Días! at the bodega, Konichiwa! at the sushi restaurant, and Bonjour! at the pastisserie, as well as taking the time to stop and say hi with the neighbors they meet along the way.  In addition to being an obvious vocabulary reinforcing book, this is an excellent print awareness title too.  Words are incorporated throughout the pictures, just like we may see on buildings and signs in our own neighborhood.  I plan to share this title this week at storytime when our theme is "Our Neighborhood / Nuestro vecindario."  This would be a fun title for parents to share with their child before taking neighborhood walk together, practicing letter knowledge along the way by pointing out the letters they see and practicing their names and sounds.

Bilingual Storytime at Your Biblioteca: What, Why and How

Here is the presentation along with supplementary handouts for next week's presentation at the Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Youth. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or thoughts to share.

Bilingual Storytime At Your Biblioteca

View more presentations from KatieCunningham.

Colorín Colorado - A Website You MUST Know!

I just wanted to take a minute to post a link to the Colorín Colorado website (the sister site of Reading Rockets), in case there are any blog visitors out there working with bilingual families who don't yet know about it. This is easily one of the most valuable websites I have ever come across for librarians, parents and educators who are working with or raising bilingual children.  There is a wealth of scientific information related to the early literacy and educational development of bilingual children available on this site, in both English and Spanish.  I dig around here for new information whenever I have a spare minute to browse the web, and always find articles to print off for the families who come to my bilingual storytime.  The greatest part is that all of the articles are available in English and Spanish, so I can make the same information available to all families who attend.  Most useful are the Reading Tip Sheets for Parents, which break down different tips and ideas for how to promote early literacy skills with your child at home based on their age.  These sheets are available in 11 different languages, including Spanish!  It's really a great website, easy to navigate and full of valuable information.  I highly recommend checking it out and sharing it with other families and educators whom you know.

Let's Have a Fiesta!

Last night, a group of 25 at Bilingual Family Storytime had a fiesta at the Village Branch library.  This is a guaranteed fun theme that works for babies through school age groups, as well as for a mixed age audience if you also use a family storytime format.  Here's what we did and how you can do it too!

We started with Ginger Foglesong Guy's simple bilingual title ¡Fiesta!  You have to go shopping for supplies before you can have a party, and in reading this title, we take a stroll through the market to buy all the supplies we need.  This book practices counting in both languages 1-10, so as we turn the pages I call out for the children to show me the appropriate number of deditos for the page we are on.  Older siblings do a great job at helping younger brothers and sisters find the right number of fingers!

What else do you need for a great party that we didn't get at the mercado?  A cake!  Kids all know that parties need cake!  So we read about baking a cake in Eight Animals Bake a Cake by Susan Middleton Elya.  This title is in English and introduces Spanish words through rhyming text, which reinforces both vocabulary and phonological awareness.  Don't forget to point this out to parents!  It is important that parents know that while storytime is fun, the important thing is that we are developing early literacy skills and that they can continue this learning at home.

I made a flannel cake that we put on the flannelboard after reading this book.  We once again practiced counting in both languages as we added the candles to the cake.  You could also talk about the colors they see on the cake or imagine what the cake might taste like.

There has to be music at a party, and little ones need to move after sitting still for so long, so we got back on our feet and danced along to "Los ninos cuando bailan" from Jorge Anaya's A bailar / Let's Dance CD.  This song helps us learn body vocabulary as we dance with our deditos, pies, rodillas, cadera, mano and cabeza.


But of course, there is one key thing that any good party in our neighborhood has to have - A PIÑATA!  We learned about the piñata and all the wonderful tesoros contained within by reading Rebecca Emberley's bilingual Piñata.  Then we filled our own piñata - I made one out of flannel and made things to put inside it based on the book, which each of the children were able to add.  When it was filled, I had all the kids close their eyes and count uno, dos, tres...when they opened them, there was a real piñata!  Because it was my only one, we didn't really break it.  Instead we used our imaginations and on the count of three made a loud CLAP and I through out confeti, symbolizing the breaking of the piñata.  Each child was able to pick a tesoro from the basket of goodies.  They loved it!

Here are the handouts that I used to talk with parents at our fiesta about print motivation and other early literacy skills.  There is one in English and also one in Spanish.  Feel free to use (giving credit as appropriate) for ideas on how to communicate early literacy messages in your school or library.

Have you had a fiesta at storytime?  What have you done?