The first snow of the season is always a special day for me. When I lived in northern Idaho we were guaranteed snow during the winter. In our little town in Idaho we made a special trip down to the cafe for hot chocolate. Here in central Virginia it’s much less certain … so very special when it happens. My point? A snowy day is a wonderful opportunity to get out doors and play with your kids. It can be as simple as just standing in the snow and watching it fall or building snowmen but my favorite is a walk in the woods. My walk in the woods this first snow day took me over a suspension bridge and along a stand of bamboo by the creek. I threw snowballs off of the bridge into the water. For me the fun is retaining that sense of wonder little kids have about discovering their universe and keeping it for life.

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.

What better way to get your kids excited about learning Spanish than to do it with them. There are so many resources. These days, all you have to do is go to the store to see the Spanish language on most product packaging. Light bulbs are bombillos (what a great word). Reemplaza bombillos de 100 vatios, bombillo espiral. Or Brita filters. Garantizado para mejorar el sabor del agua. Guaranteed to make your water taste better. The English and frequently French is all together for a great language lesson waiting in line at the hardware store. Let’s just hope our corporate friends are hiring the right translators so the vocabulary and grammar we are learning are correct.

I play with babies and read to 3 year olds once a week at Elizabeth’s Early Learning Center. I love to read to the kids about animals. (surprise) There is a wonderful new series of books put out by Capstone Press in their Pebble Plus collection about sea life. Here is a link to their site. Sponges, Jody Rake, Capstone Press

What a fantastic find - a series of books about sponges, manta rays, jelly fish, lobsters, puffer fish and more (20 titles total) designed for very young kids. The large format, library bound books feature one very large photo per spread and about four lines of large text. Easy to read and easy to digest. Pre-readers will be fascinated by the topic and the photos. A fun related activity is to have the kids mimic the ways these various animals move around…or don’t more around for that matter. We were using our hands to make lobster claws, slithering like eels and flapping our arms like manta rays.

It is so critical that we teach our children about the importance of biodiversity for all life on earth. What better way to do that then to share the fascinating stories of sea creatures with our preschool children.

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.

I just spent a long weekend at a mini-family reunion in Vienna, Va, right outside DC. I had two wonderful visits to the Smithsonian museums that have been dear friends for many years. I grew up in the DC area and have been going to the Smithsonian for most of my life. It was such a treat to see so many families with young children on the Mall. I know it takes a lot of effort and dedication to travel with young children. Despite the heat, so many moms and dads were relaxed and enjoying their kids, sharing this great national treasure with their children.

When I lived in the DC area I got down to the museums regularly and had my kids with me for many of those trips. I was a great fan of the Folklife Festival an annual summer event, around the 4th of July.

My daughter loved the Family Days at the Corcoran Museum of Art, especially the Presidents’ Day Family Day. As a little girl she was very interested in the Revolutionary War period of American history. So she was delighted that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were at the Corcoran that afternoon. Their Family Days feature activities all over the museum that got kids creating art with a wide variety of materials.

If you aren’t in Washington you can still participate. The National Gallery of Art has some online activities that even the youngest children can enjoy. Jungle lets kids create a scene using elements from French artist Henri Rousseau. Collage Machine II lets you do just that. Brushter is like a little kid’s verision of Photoshop. Have fun.