Summer is a great time to take advantage of the free time our niños have and share educational and fun activities in Spanish with them. That is why this summer we will be featuring five activities and crafts  for bilingual kids every week! Many of these activities and  crafts come from Latina bloggers, Spanish teachers and sites dedicated to raising bilingual and bicultural kids. Check out the five activities and crafts that we chose to kick off this summer of bilingual fun!

Spanish Words On The Go

This activity by Kinder Latino is a very cute and creative way to encourage kids to practice their high frequency words in Spanish. All kids have to do is assemble a purse or carrying case and inside they can store 128 of their most common high frequency words. Kids can take this small carrying case wherever they go and practice. For more details and a printable version of this activity click here.

Using Story Boards to Boost Your Child’s Reading Comprehension 

This free printable by Latinas 4 Latino Literature helps your child practice reading comprehension. The great part about these story boards is that you can use them in any language. For more ideas and the free printable click here.

Learning Letters With Play-dough and Legos

This activity by Actividades Infantil is a fun way for kids to practice letter tracing. All this activity calls for is play-dough and building blocks which kids use to create the shape of a letter. For a full description and more ideas click here.

Where In The World Is Your Food From?

There are many things we love about this fun activity by Kid World Citizen. This hands-on activity calls for our niños to explore where all the veggies and fruits that we eat come from and then map it all out. During summer we have a great variety of fresh products in our supermarkets so the timing for this activity is perfect! As every SpanglishBaby parent can imagine, this is also a great activity to learn the names of these fruits and vegetables in Spanish. Check out the full description of this activity here.

DIY Recycled Box Playhouse Tent

This final craft by Inspired By Familia is simple, fun, and a great way to spend time with our kids. It only calls for a few items most of us have around the house. Check out the instructions here.

Do you have any great activities for bilingual and bicultural kids that you’d like to share? Link it up below!

The Cicada and the Ant/La cigarra y la hormiga is a multilingual interactive story app from Seven Academy. It follows the classic Aesop’s fable about a cicada who is unprepared for winter and her friend, the ant, who is perfectly warm and cozy. She needs his help to stay sheltered from the cold and promises to pay him back later. The cicada learns that prepping for the following winter would be a better use of her time than singing night and day.

This story teaches children the value of planning ahead and avoiding procrastination. It is short and sweet, but the lesson is apparent.

Change the app to one of four languages: Spanish, Portuguese, English, or French. Also choose from three reading modes: automatic playback, “I Read Myself” mode, or the interactive story mode. Because of these options, the app is versatile and can be enjoyed by children from preschool through early elementary. Not to mention, the characters are super cute!

Find The Cicada and the Ant in iTunes

Available for iPhone and iPad

Recommended for ages 3-7

Price: $0.99

Check out more about Seven Academy’s approach to games and visit them on Facebook.

This post is sponsored by Netflix. ¡Gracias!

You may remember how excited I was a couple of weeks ago when I finally figured out how to find the kids programming in Spanish on Netflix. It was great to see that so many of you had also been looking for that and you were relieved to find that Netflix did carry shows in Spanish, albeit not enough, we all agree.

Today I’m all giddy and excited again because Netflix just launched a brand new destination for families: Netflix Families. Whether you’re a member or not, you can visit the Families page to find fun and targeted recommendations of family and kids movies and shows to watch this summer. The page also features stories from families on how we use Netflix. And, yes, I did say WE, because my family and I are featured in one of the four Parents’ Tips videos! The best part? It’s in Spanglish!! Yay, We’re bringing on the Spanglish to Netflix, baby! And you know that by Spanglish we mean the almighty code-switching that only fluent bilinguals can do and we hope our kids achieve Check it out here y celebra con nosotros!

You’ll notice on Netflix Families that they have curated some rows of playlists with some of the most popular shows. I’ve already put in a recommendation for a “Favorite Kids Shows en Español,” but while we wait for that one to come (hint: tweet @Netflix and ask por favor!), we’re definitely bookmarking these for our Friday movie nights and lazy summer days.

We have movie nights every single Friday and now that it’s become a tradition there’s no escaping them. My girl looks forward to it all week. We pull out the sofa bed, get in our PJs, make pizza, and eat chocolate. The one rule we have is that the three of us need to agree on a movie to stream on Netflix, so basically princess movies are out! This has led to us discovering some pretty great flicks together and making Camila expand her horizons. Glad to have this playlist handy!

¿Quién se acuerda de Jems y He-Man? Wow, the 80′s flashbacks! Not sure I’m ready to have Camila watch Jems, but soon enough I’ll be able to get all retro and cool with her. Wishing for Candy, Candy and Heidi to come soon and we can sing the intro songs along together.

This summer we won’t be traveling overseas as a family, so we’ll travel virtually and stream the world to our casa. Camila loves watching animals on the screen, so we can have some nature time at home to compliment our local hikes and keep the learning going.

Somehow my brain and motivation starts melting as soon as summer hits. It’s like I give myself permission to take it easy and give myself a break. That means that instead of turning on the laptop after my girl is in bed, I turn on the Apple TV and sit with my husband to catch up on our favorite shows via el Netflix. We like to watch episodes back to back and right now are OBSESSED with House of Cards in an almost unhealthy way. I love it.

We’re also testing out the new Profiles feature that Netflix will roll out soon to all members, so now we can freely add our favorite shows to our individual Instant Queues without fear of our girl somehow figuring out how to get out of the Kids section or fearing a joke from my husband for the amount of chick flicks I’ve added. That, and also we’re each getting recommendations based on what we each watch via our profiles, and not a sea of princesses and Disney flicks because our girl pretty much rules our family account.

Would love to know what you think of Netflix Families and how your family is using it! Leave me a comment below and/or join me as I tweet with Heather Armstrong (@Dooce) and Rebecca Wolfe (@GirlsGoneChild) tomorrow, Wednesday, June 19th at 4pm EST/1pm PST. We’ll be using the hashtag #NetflixFamilies and chatting during the whole hour. I’ll be tweeting from @laflowers and @spanglishbaby in both English and Spanish. Can’t wait to chat there with you!

The latest Mickey Mouse Clubhouse adventure is here! When the legendary Crystal Mickey goes missing, Mickey and friends go on an adventure to save the Clubhouse from losing its magic.“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: The Quest for the Crystal Mickey!” is out on Disney DVD. The DVD includes four extra episodes of Disney Junior’s Emmy®-nominated series “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” (over 2 hours of content!) and a free Adventure Activity Map plus Stickers.

We love that Disney DVD’s include the Spanish soundtrack for our niños to enjoy. So, of course, we want to share this DVD with you! Five lucky winners will not only take Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: The Quest for the Crystal Mickey! but they will also take one copy of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Wizard of Dizz. Check out the giveaway below.

The Giveaway!

We are giving away one copy of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: The Quest for the Crystal Mickey!  AND one copy of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Wizard of Dizz to FIVE lucky winners! All you have to do is leave us a comment telling us who your kids favorite Micky Mouse Clubhouse character is. Then enter the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As parents committed to raising bilingual kids, we’re fully aware that a) it’s not easy, and b) we need all the help we can get in the form of tools, resources and community. But no matter how much we read, learn from others, bond through playgroups and such, the reality is that the most important element in raising a bilingual child is for the parents to be committed, consistent and proactive in how we expose the minority language to our kids and how fun and relevant it’s made.

The good news is that what children need to thrive in two or more languages, parents — assuming you speak the minority language — are already equipped to give.

1. Books and reading time

Just the mere action of spending some 20 minutes every day reading to or with your child in Spanish (or your target language) immerses him in the richness of the language, gives you opportunity to discuss the book in Spanish and to develop vocabulary. Check out our Books and Libros category for some ideas.

2. Games and play

Children learn better through play, that’s a fact. So why not incorporate games and play elements in Spanish to get them excited about speaking the language. Most of the time they won’t even be aware they are doing so! Anything from board games to card games, puppets and make-believe are fabulous.

3. Habla, habla!

We say this a lot and won’t get tired of repeating that the most important thing you must be doing is speaking to your child in the target language all the time. If you speak the language, you have no exceptions or excuses. Your child must hear the language during most of his waking hours, so there’s nothing better than to be exposed to it through human interaction. Talk to her about anything and start as early as possible, even while in the womb!

4. Cultural connections

Aside from traveling and attending local cultural events, you can bring in your most cherished cultural traditions into the home. The most effective way is to cook traditional dishes and to involve your kids in the preparation as much as possible. You can also have special nights that are dedicated to a specific country you have bonds with. For example, having a Noche de México once per week is a fun way to create a family tradition that brings in the foods, stories, games and language of your country.

5. Motivation and encouragement

Sounds simplistic, but the reality is that all kids need to be praised and motivated along their journey through childhood. Learning a second language is something we hope will be a part of their every day life, but it’s still important to continue to motivate them and instill in them the importance of them knowing several languages. I constantly remind my daughter how special it is that she can speak Spanish and English so well and that not all kids can do that. I encourage her to help the kids in her dual immersion classroom that are just learning Spanish and this boosts her self esteem and motivates her to use Spanish more.

Would love to hear from you. How do you give the gift of bilingualism to your child?

I recently read a fascinating study about how dinnertime conversation supports literacy development. Although the study was conducted in English, the fundamental findings seem to apply in all languages: family mealtimes were more often a predictor of academic and social success than even time spent studying, or participation in sports or church.

Regardless of family demographics, teenagers in the U.S. who eat with their families five times a week or more have higher rates of academic success, and lower rates of alcohol and drug use.

Obviously families who eat together are more likely to spend time keeping an eye on their kids and their activities and friends, but there seems to be more about family dinner conversations that help keep kids out of trouble. When we engage our kids in meaningful conversations at dinner, we get a glimpse into their world, their opinions, and their fears. Parents don’t only learn more intimate details about our kids and their friends, in family chats we have the opportunity to:

• teach them social etiquette
• show how to debate a topic
• practice expressing their opinions, telling stories, and understanding
• see other perspectives
• learn new words/concepts

One of the greatest benefits of mealtime conversations is the language development. As the parent of four kids ages 5-8 (who speak English all day at school!) I am always looking for more ways to get my kids speaking in Spanish. My husband and I sat down and came up with 56 questions to stimulate conversation in Spanish. The questions ask about wishes, likes/dislikes, opinions, friends — great for parents and kids to answer together and hopefully get everyone involved.

Here’s how you can participate: print out the list, cut apart the questions and fold them up. At dinner, have family members take turns picking out a question and answering it. For the little ones who can’t read yet, let them pick out a question and have an older sibling or mami or papi read it. Don’t worry about grammar or mispronunciations — enjoy the moment and focus on the content of what’s being said. Turn off the TV, relax, laugh and have fun!

For a printable version of the 56 conversation starters in Spanish click here.

How often does your family get to sit down and eat dinner together? How do you get your kids to speak more Spanish at dinnertime?

{Photo courtesy of Becky Morales}

References: Snow, C., & Beals, D. (2006). Mealtime talk that supports literacy development. In Larson, R., Wiley, A., & Branscomb, K. (Eds.), Family mealtime as a context of development and socialization (pp. 1-15). San Francisco, CA: Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

As a “gringa” who didn’t start studying Spanish until the age of 13 and whose “road less traveled” led to becoming a high school Spanish teacher, I know what a challenge it can be for teenagers to acquire a language at a later stage in life.  What I have learned over the years is that children soak up languages and it’s so fun to watch!

Megan s an artist, blogger, mother of 2-year-old Isabel and a high school Spanish teacher living and working in Baltimore, MD.  After growing up together in MD, Megan and her husband Richard studied Spanish together in Alcala de Henares, Spain.  Megan later earned her MA in Spanish language and linguistics from St. Louis University’s Madrid campus.

Mariana, who’s newest album of bilingual (English/Spanish) songs for kids Hola Hello is a must-have for your kid’s music library, wanted SpanglishBaby amigos to have a first peek at her “Father’s Day! Feliz Dia del Padre!” video. We hope all the papás in your families love it too!

I love helping my kids think outside of the box particular one of my kids who has a really hard time doing that.  Encourage creative play by giving them flowers and other natural elements to serve as their paintbrush.

“Me gusta pintar. Me gusta pintar, mami,”  my little man says this with a big smile on his face.  I respond, “Yes, I know you love to paint.”  My 2 year old is so very happy when he gets to make a mess with paint. Remember to buy paint that is washable if you have little excited painters.

I remember when one of my boys’ teachers came to me with a concern, “Your son keeps painting the trees blue, orange… and I can’t put his picture up on the bulletin board because he’s not following directions.”  She showed me his picture. I looked at it, and this artistic mama couldn’t have been prouder.  It was absolutely lovely.  ¡Lindísimo!

I looked at her and I said, “I am sorry, it’s really hard for me to be upset at him for not following directions when the picture in your  hand is absolutely amazing for a little 5-year-old. I will talk to him about learning to follow directions, but there is nothing wrong with his picture.  A tree doesn’t have to be brown and green it can be blue, orange, yellow… and his sun can be purple.”  Unfortunately for my son, he had two teachers back to back when he was younger discourage his creativity — his artistic side. He is now nine and his trees are verde and café. It makes me sad.

I still haven’t given up though and I continue to give my boys opportunities to be creative with their hands. Sometimes they would rather run around pretending they are policemen and super cowboys shooting at each other, but I must say any kind of imaginative play makes me happy.

So before trashing your wilted flowers, give them another use!

Painting with Flowers

What you will need:

• paint in different colors
• flowers (I used my flowers that were wilting)
• paper

1. Place paint on a surface that is big enough to cover the flowers in paint.

2. Start painting away. Let them make flower prints or paint houses, cars, abstract art… whatever their little minds take them.

Note: When painting with kids it’s good to have something under the painting project to protect the surface; also wipes for quick clean up.

Once again, Disney has come up with a new way to excite kids! One of their most beloved animated movies, Toy Story, is now the theme of an app that will keep your kids busy for hours. Toy Story: Story Theater  allows kids to use characters from the movie (Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and more) and various settings and props to “direct” their own short films. The possibilities are endless.

First, practice placing characters and recording scenes using the Free Play option. Then, once you’re ready for your directing debut, go on to Story Play to get started on the real thing.

Save as many recorded stories as you want, and then choose the best one to submit to Disney’s Story Theater Fest contest. The creator of the video with the most votes will win a trip to Disneyland Resort and be honored at the D23 Expo in August. To ensure that your family has a chance to win this fabulous prize, be sure to submit entries to the Disney Learning Facebook page by June 23rd.

Bilingual kids can have even more fun with this app by recording stories in whichever language they please. Disney will accept story submissions in both English and Spanish.

Find Toy Story: Story Theater in iTunes

Available for iPhone and iPad

Recommended for all ages

Price: $2.99