Book Reviews and Discounts!

I love giving my children books for Christmas. They love them, sometimes even more than toys. They also never get bored of them. I think reading a variety of books has increased my girls' Spanish vocabulary more than any other thing. We always have at least 20 books in Spanish checked out from the library. Here are a few places to buy books.

Barefoot Books is having a sale of 30% off and free shipping. This is a great deal! They have a great selection of books in Spanish. My personal favorite is De Paseo por La Selva with the music CD. It would be $7 with free shipping with the discount. It is such an adorable book and song. Another great book I recommend is El Nabo Gigante. I'm definitely taking advantage of this great deal and buying some for my kids for Christmas.

A beautiful book that we gave my siblings for Christmas to read at Nochebuena is The Legend of the Poinsettia. There are many versions, but I do love Tomie de Paola's version. It is not completely in Spanish, but it is great to introduce your children to some cultural traditions in Mexico. There are Spanish words introduced throughout the book. You have to read this precious book at Christmas time!

Language Lizard has a large selection of books in English along with your choice of 40 other languages. They sent me two books to review. Las Navidades de Marek y Alice was a sweet book about two children celebrating a Polish Christmas. It is fun to learn about other cultural traditions especially around Christmas time. I liked the pictures, although a few sentences seemed a little confusing to me. Ricitos de Oro y Los Tres Osos was a cute version of this loved story. The illustrations were adorable.

As a special contest, my mother offers her grandchildren a money prize if they learn every word in the First Thousand Words in Spanish book. They study each page and then have to talk with her over the phone to pass them off. She asks them in Spanish to tell her each word, for example, "¿Cuál animal dice mu?" I have really enjoyed reading this book with my girls. We use the First Thousand Words in Spanish Sticker Book that you can find here. It is only $10 and there are 500 stickers included. The illustrations are adorable and perfect for having a conversation. The girls don't lose interest because they get to take turns find the missing sticker and pasting it on the page. I have increased my vocabulary as well. Do you know how to say tadpoles? I didn't. Usborne books has a great selection of other books in Spanish

I wish I had time to post a few pictures, but things are crazy busy right now!

'Tis the Season...

for giving and giveaways! I didn't want you to miss out and me to miss out on extra entries. All are giveaways that can help your child learn Spanish...

El Baile del Sombrero CD here until November 22nd

Table Topics for a box full of conversation starters here. They have a family version in Spanish/English!

Little Pim Spanish Bop and DVD here.

$10 gift card to Baskin Robbins here! Make it a special outing in Spanish with your kids.

Recommended Toy!

Leap Frog is coming out with the leapster and all sorts of other games. I am still buying My First Leap Pad and its books. Why? My kids love playing with it. It's simple, easy to follow, shaped like a book and they have a lot of book completely in Spanish. I bought about 4 books for My First Leap Pad in Spanish for my daughter. It is great to following instructions, learning vocabulary and comprehension. Although I still have to limit the amount she plays with it, I feel like it is better than watching a movie or even a computer game because she is actively involved, reading, playing a game, etc. My kids don't get bored of this and it's a great supplement to speaking Spanish to them.

This Christmas, my oldest is getting a Leap Pad with 2 Spanish books. Don't tell :) I bought my daughter's new Leap Pad for $10 on craigslist (had 3 books in English included) and then bought 2 Spanish books for $15 total.

Here are links to some books on amazon in Spanish. Make sure to check out the Leap Frog website as well and search for Spanish. They seem to be phasing out of these products, so many of them are cheap, so hurry!

This is part of the Toys My Kids Actually Plays With McLinkey. You can find Adriana's posts here.

El Baile del Sombrero Review and Giveaway

***GIVEAWAY CLOSED***

Winners are: #8 Adriana, #1 Queen to my 3 boys
and #6 Tricia

The biggest smiles come on my daughters' faces when El Baile Del Sombrero comes up on our CD changer in our car. They almost want to leap out of their seats to dance along. This has become our latest favorite children's music in Spanish to listen to.

Although it is created for children in mind, I think adults will enjoy the variety and fun lyrics on the CD. Charles and Fati, a couple raising their two children bilingually, decided to create children's music since they already sang and danced with their children during the day. Fati, a native from Argentina, always speaks in Spanish to her children. Charles from Washington D.C. and Brooklyn always speaks in English. Charles and Fati have always communicated this way, even before they had children. What a natural way to raise your children bilingually! They have loved performing in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Lujan, Argentina to other families who speak Spanish or want to learn. Learn more about their story here

The name of their website, Abbasubi, captures the fun, playful style of their music. In Charles' family, his mother would say "Abbasubi" instead of "No!" if the children were getting into mischief. This would usually result in giggles from the silly word instead of getting upset.

Like our last giveaway, this music goes beyond the simple Spanish vocabulary in countless Spanish children's music. They don't teach colors, shapes and parts of the body. They use the Spanish as you would naturally use it in everyday life. I love this!

Things I love:

-Song lyrics talk about the everyday experiences of a child

-The songs teach vocabulary beyond simple words and phrases, so they are perfect for children that have had some exposure already to Spanish

-Each song has a different style, salsa, lullaby, reggae feel and mariachi. We love to dance to the songs after dinner :)

-The songs encourage hand and body movements. My kids know what the songs are about because we dance whatever is being sung. La esponja goes to your head, your nose, etc. You have to move the sombrero between your legs and put it on again.

-Fati and Charles have more Argentine accents. My children haven't really met any Argentine people and so at first they noticed the different accent. I think it is wonderful to expose children to all the varieties of native Spanish accents. Then when they travel or meet people from all over Latin America or Spain, they can easily communicate with them.

By far, our favorite song is La Pulga y Su Familia. A song about a little flea who invites her family to come with her to visit different animals on a rainy day. My girls know every word and love to itch all over as the animals itch in the song.

You have to check out this music. All the creative lyrics to the songs are on their website. You can listen to samples of all songs on their CD by clicking here. You can also listen to full versions of several songs by visiting here.


Fati and Charles are giving away 3 El Baile del Sombrero CD's to 3 lucky readers of this blog!

How to enter:
Go here to listen to samples of songs from El Baile del Sombrero CD's. Come back to this post and make a comment telling us the name of your favorite song you listened to. That's it!

Want more entries?
Blog about this giveaway giving them a direct link to this post and receive 2 more entries. If you don't have a blog, you can e-mail 6 people and cc a copy of the e-mail to wannajugarwithmigo [at] gmail [dot] com. Please come back here and make 2 additional comments so this can count!

You can have up to 3 entries in this contest (this will increase your chances of winning, although you can only win 1 CD)

Contest Ends November 22, 2009 at 10 pm Central Time.

Contest Rules- You can enter only up to three times for the contest by doing each one of the instructions above. Contest ends Sunday, November 22th at 10 PM Central Time. The winner will be chosen randomly by random.org. Comments must provide a name, no completely anonymous. Only USA addresses, sorry. I will announce the winner on November 23rd and the winner must e-mail me within 72 hours. If you provide an e-mail, we will e-mail you.

*If you think you will not check back when we announce winners, please e-mail me at wannajugarwithmigo [at] gmail [dot] com with your e-mail so I can send you an e-mail that you win. In the past, winners might lose out on products they win if they don't respond.

Giveaways for Christmas

I love giveaways! I love hosting them and I love winning them :) I have recently won Ice Age 3 DVD, Dora DVD and an incredible picture book in Spanish. What am I going to do with them? Wrap some up and give them to my kids for Christmas!

I didn't want you to miss out :)

Adriana at My Bilingual Boys is giving away a $25 amazon.com gift card here
SpanglishbabyFinds is giving away An Easy Alphabet by Bilingual Readers here
SpanglishbabyFinds is giving away Up! DVD/Blue Ray pack here
CafeMom is giving away Little Pim DVD set here

Good luck!

Tatilandia Videos

I have heard of Tatiana and I think I saw some of her TV show she did a while ago. I found these videos and they are very fun. I'm not a fan of her mini skirt. But the first song does mention some fun ways of transportation. The girls love them and sing along. Enjoy!

Babysitter Turned into Immersion Teacher

To this day, my oldest daughter still believes Melissa only speaks Spanish. Who is Melissa? (name changed to be published online) She was my children's babysitter/teacher.



After reading The Bilingual Edge, I began to realize that my children would soon figure out that they didn't need to speak Spanish. I spoke Spanish and English. So did my husband. Most everyone they met that spoke Spanish also spoke English perfectly well. The Bilingual Edge talks about how children have to feel a need to speak the second language or they will lose motivation. Yes, I can insist with my children that they speak in Spanish, but they know I can understand them if they speak in English.

When my oldest daughter turned 3, she was starting to speak Spanish. She would still switch into English and Spanglish and then a little more Spanish. I wanted her to learn to only respond in Spanish when she was spoken to in Spanish.

We knew a Chilean man from our church. He told us about his granddaughter that was a senior in high school who wanted to study elementary education. I explained to him that I needed someone to speak Spanish with my girls. I e-mailed his granddaughter, Melissa, and asked her if she would be willing to teach my kids Spanish by playing games and actively playing with them. I told her the one rule is that she could never speak English in front of my kids. We could e-mail and talk over the phone together in English, but if we were ever in front of the kids, we had to speak Spanish. I was very adamant about this rule. I asked her to come 1-2 hours once or twice a week.

Since she was still a teenager, I didn't expect her to prepare lessons and activities every time she came. I knew that I didn't want her to just sit back and let the kids play by themselves or watch a movie. So, I e-mailed her games that she could play with them (Simon says, memory, etc.) and borrowed a stack of good Spanish books from the library. When she arrived the first time, I didn't leave her to babysit, I stayed the entire time. I played a game and included her to show her how much I wanted her to repeat words and how I wanted her to insist that my daughter say words in Spanish. Then I let them read books and do an activity alone. We did this many weeks until finally, I left for half of the time. Then I started leaving the entire time. She continued to do fun activities (make rice krispies, play dress-up and read the stack of books I would leave each time). My daughter really took off with her Spanish after having this immersion-type babysitting. I highly recommend it. We actually had her sister come babysit a few times, but after talking to my daughter afterwards, I found out she spoke in Spanglish not only in Spanish.

There are tutors who will charge an enormous amount for playing with your children. I suggest finding a teenager or young adult that could watch your children who is fluent in Spanish. You can help her know what you expect. We had a great experience with this. Obviously your child needs to feel comfortable with the language and be able to understand it so that this can work :)

Steps to have a babysitter become your "immersion teacher":

1. E-mail or meet with the babysitter (must be fluent in Spanish :) emphasizing your expectations of only speaking Spanish to your child and the activities/books you want her to do with your child. Have the activities/books ready when the babysitter comes.
2. When your babysitter comes for the first few times, remember that you can only speak with her in Spanish as well (this way your child thinks they don't speak English). You have to be strict about this or the babysitter will just be like any other babysitter.
3. Stay with your child and the babysitter if needed. Depending on the babysitter, show the babysitter how much you want her to insist on speaking in Spanish and how much you want her to repeat by modeling.
4. Continue to leave activities and stories each time and make sure they continue speaking only in Spanish to your child!
5. Pay her a little more than the average babysitter so she will keep coming and because she is doing a little extra work.
   

My mom gave me this wonderful idea and it has been so successful for our family. Now that we are settled since we moved, I spoke with numerous people I knew (through our church and other friends). I found someone that I think will be great at becoming my children's new "immersion teacher." She comes tomorrow afternoon. I will tell you how it goes :)

Try it out! Good luck!

Please share: How do you create a need to speak in Spanish as you teach your children?