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.

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?

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.

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?