I have found another fantastic site for parents and young kids learning Spanish and English. Reading is Fundamental (the largest US children’s literacy organization) has developed a segment of their website for children 0 to 5 called Leading to Reading in English and Semillitas de aprendizaje in Spanish. This section of the RIF website is designed for children to use on their own…but parents will want to join in too. As the mouse rolls over any text menu item a narrator speaks the text. So children do not have to be able to read to explore the many options.

The Babies section includes lullabies, nursery rhymes, stories, games and finger play. The Spanish pages have the story/rhyme or lullaby in Spanish with an English translation. The Preschool section includes menu items Read/Leer, Sing/Cantar, Play/Jugar, Doodle/Dibujar, Explore/Explorar and Meet Riffy and Rita/Conoce a Riffy y Rita, the site hosts. Select play and then La araña pequeñita to find a video of a young woman singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider song with the text in both Spanish and English.

An adult portion of the site provides book reviews and parenting advice. Want tips on how to maximize the benefits of reading to your children? This article will help. You can even watch a video of Eric Carle reading “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See”. Take advantage of this great resource.

I made a great discovery the other night. Libraries have been buying our DVD in great numbers and I am always interested in making contact with more libraries to let them know about our products. I went onto the Yuma (AZ) public library site and discovered their link to TumbleBooks. Ciber-libros para ciber-niños includes 12 books with limited animation that can be viewed online in Spanish, French and English. There are two options for “reading”. There is an audio version with each sentence highlighted as it is being read, or a manual version with no audio.

On the Temecula (CA) site I found this link to the ALA Association for Library Service to Children page with Lugares en español para niños. There is a legend indicating the appropriate age range for each site. Colorín Colorado is one of the sites they feature for preschool kids. Miscositas.com has stories in Spanish from Mexico, Argentina and Columbia. Links provide definitions of key vocabulary.

Enjoy these sites with your children. It’s a great way for all of us to learn Spanish. If you know of additional library sites or other online destinations with resources for families with young children learning Spanish, please let me know.

Hasta luego.

As a parent and creator of electronic media for preschool children, I ‘d like to encourage parents to explore the wealth of material available to them these days. It is always a thrill for me to hear parents talk about how much their children enjoy my work. But even better is being with kids while they are watching. I recently had that experience with a preschool class of seven two-year-olds. They started giggling at a humorous sound effect when the letters of the alphabet bounced onto the screen. This didn’t stop…and continued for all 26 letters. Everyone in the room was laughing too, their excitement was so infectious.

1. Be picky. My advise to parents is be selective. There is an amazing assortment of very high quality media available.
2. Preview. Review the material before you children see it to make sure you know what they will be seeing. Unrealistic you say, then look for media that has been reviewed and received awards or certification, ie iParenting Media Award and/or KidsFirst.org.
3. Watch it with them. There will be lots of questions and you want to be there to help answer those questions. I love introducing very young kids to animals or objects they probably don’t know like yaks, armadillos and sturgeon. That can lead to great discussions.
4. Use it for skill building. Interact with the programming and use it to build skill sets like colors, numbers, shapes, comparisons, etc. It’s the best of both worlds for them, they get your attention and stimulating media all at one time.
5. Keep TV time limited. Sometimes it’s hard to do, but worth the effort to help kids learn to entertain themselves, be active outdoors or just coloring or looking at books.

Kids love to play. In fact it’s their work. It’s how they are learning about their world. Think how amazing our lives would be if we made the quantum leaps in knowledge that a baby does between 6 months and 3 years.

A few years ago I attended a Playing for Keeps conference in Washington, DC. Schools are cutting back on recess and even young children are over scheduled. I was inspired by that very caring group of professionals to write a story about a little lion Cecilia and all of the ways she loves to play:

1. with her pillow in the morning
2. with socks on her ears
3. with a ball of string
4. with pots and pans to make a band
5. with an umbrella in the rain

We have all seen the toddler playing the with box that the gift came in long after the gift has been forgotten. Constructive play is free and all around us. Encourage your children to spend time using their imagination to play under the table, or make a tent out of a sheet or make little twig and moss houses in the yard. Playing helps develop both gross and fine motor skills, fuels children’s imagination, sparks creativity and makes learning fun. And best of all you can join them.

The Bees Take Off/Las abejas se toman un descanso is one of my favorite stories. Don’t ask me where I got the idea. I do love drawing attention to animals natural characteristics in a humorous way. If you have ever watched bees, and most of us have, they are always busy. I had the great pleasure of spending an afternoon with Dr. Laura Decanini, a bee expert at the Bee Research Laboratory at theUSDA Agricultural facility in Beltsville, MD. (Unfortunately Dr. Decanini is no longer there.) http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=12-75-05-00 She smoked some of the hives and showed me the frantic activity of the bees inside the hives. I was amazed to learn that every bee routinely touches the queen to get her scent. That is how they are able to regain access to the hive. Any bee attempting to enter without the scent of the queen is considered an intruder. Bees are getting a lot of press these days because of their dwindling numbers. Take your kids outside today and spend a few minutes looking at some flowers or clover in the yard or at the park and watch these amazing little creatures. A good time to also reinforce the idea of look but don’t touch.

I hate to admit that I was most proficient in Spanish when I was 19 years old (and that was a number of years ago).  One of my parents wonderful gifts to me as a child was to let me travel to learn languages.  I went to Paris with my sister and mother for seven weeks when I was 13.  I spent two summers in Mexico when I was in high school.  My graduation present from high school was to go to the University of Madrid that summer.  I am glad to have a background in French, but it was my exposure to Spanish and Latino culture that has been a life long love affair.  When I decided to create bilingual media for young children, I knew I would work with the best native translators and voice talent to make sure that my products were providing the exposure to authentic accents.  Cecilia Domeyko  of Accent Media was a great asset in the production of  Bees Buzz & Lions Roar/Las abejas zumban y los leones rugen.   http://www.accentmediainc.com/people.htm.  Cecilia is an award winning producer in her own right.  A native of Chile, she has lived all over the world.  Our paths crossed through Women in Film & Video in DC. Thanks, Cecilia for your assistance.

I am currently reviewing a wonderful series of books that will be of interest to parents of young children and animal lovers. My choice of subject matter for our DVD series “A World of Animals Just for You” was of course very deliberate. Reason number one is that all kids love animals. What better way to engage them in learning anything than with a favorite topic. Reason number two is that as parents we have a responsiblity to help our children understand that we are one of many different kinds of creatures living on Earth. Those other creatures are just as deserving as we are of safe homes and good food.

Back to the books I mentioned. The series is Pebble Plus, Under the Sea published by Capstone Press. I have nine titles, which include Rays, Manatees, Walruses, Eels, Sponges, Lobsters, Sea Urchins, Squids and Puffer Fish. You can tell just by the titles how much fun it is to introduce young children to this menagerie of characters. They are hard bound books with very large gorgeous photographs and simple text for very beginning readers. I have read these books to a group of 2+ year olds at Elizabeth’s Early Learning Center here in Lynchburg, VA. They loved them.