Magazine: Bilingual Times/Tiempo Bilingüe

Just a really quick post since it’s late, but had to share this one. Bilingual Times is a magazine for children that’s available in print and digital format. The digital version is free at this time.

From the site:

TIEMPO BILINGÜE es una publicación mensual en inglés y en español creada con el objetivo de aportar material de lectura para la práctica de los dos idiomas. Un contenido internacional y multicultural, que incluye noticias, artículos, relatos, juegos de palabras y actividades creativas que despiertan la iniciativa, la imaginación y el poder inventivo natural que todos tenemos.

BILINGUAL TIMES is a monthly publication in English and Spanish. It was created with the idea of bringing reading material to practice both languages. Our scope is international and multicultural; it covers news, stories, games, play on words and creative activities that awaken the initiative, the imagination and the common power of invention we all have.

Enjoy!

Hat Tip: Todoele.net

Free Bilingual Books from Read Conmigo

Just saw this on Facebook from the ladies at Spanglish Baby. Sign up for Club Read to receive a free bilingual book monthly. For ebook versions and summaries of some of the past titles visit this page. (The program is sponsored by Infinity Insurance.)

There’s even a great deal for educators. Go visit Spanglish Baby to find out more!

Kids Do Ecology in Spanish

On Kids Do Ecology you’ll find information about biomes (aquatic & land), marine mammals, endangered animals, the scientific method and much more. I think this would be a good source for a unit study.

Update: Salsa – Spanish Language Program for Children

Back in June 2008 I wrote a post about Salsa, an elementary Spanish language and cultural series from Georgia Public Broadcasting. During the last few years I remember checking the link at various times and noticed that either the videos weren’t available or they were only viewable on a small screen.

Just today I saw on the Freely Educate blog that there was a post about the program, so I had to take another look. I’m happy to report that the videos (42 episodes) are of a much better quality with transcripts (English & Spanish) and activity ideas (on each episode page). Also, there are now games for your children/students to play to reinforce what they have learned.

Additional support materials can be found on the Wyoming Department of Education website.  As mentioned in the blog, the videos are geared towards kindergarten through 2nd grade.

El día de los muertos

I subscribe to the Annenberg Learner newsletter which is always full of information for teaching a wide variety of subjects. In this particular issue, there is a section about El día de los muertos (Day of the Dead). Here is the link to the activities including slideshows in English and Spanish, a teacher guide and more: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/DiaMuertosTG.html 

If you don’t have time to use this lesson this year, then perhaps you can bookmark it for next year.

Pocoyó YouTube Channel

After our Spanish lesson, my younger son and I watched a few episodes of Pocoyó on YouTube. It was nice to see that they have their own channel now. What’s really funny is that he wanted to watch an English version “just to see what it was like.” After less than a minute, he said he didn’t like it nearly as much.

New link for thematic units

A reader brought to my attention the fact that the link for my post about free thematic units in Spanish and other languages did not work anymore. After a bit of research, I discovered that the pages were archived. The new link is: http://wayback.archive-it.org/855/20101103145624/http://nflrc.iastate.edu/pubs/units/unitsList.html 

I will fix the link on the original post, but since I thought this was such a great resource, I thought it deserved a new post as well. Also, I would highly recommend that you download the material to your computer. I will be doing the same. Thanks again, Molly!

Free Spanish homeschool/classroom lesson plans

Today the folks at the Foreign Language House posted a great resource on their Facebook page. Whistlefritz, which produces immersion-based, award-winning CDs and DVDs now have made lesson plans available for free on their website:

Whistlefritz® DVDs teach Spanish using a multi-sensory approach: children hear, see, speak, and move to, Spanish. As every parent and teacher knows, repetition is the key to learning a language. Our new Lesson Plans pick up where the DVDs leave off. The Lessons give children more opportunities to practice the words they are learning in our Spanish DVD programs.

Where to go:
Whistlefritz - homeschool lesson plans
Whistlefritz - About Us
Foreign Language House Facebook Page

Nature ebooks in Spanish with support materials

Well, this is a neat “discovery” and I didn’t find it through Twitter this time. Actually my younger son showed me the book, Baby Owl’s Rescue by Jennifer Keats Curtis. As we were looking through it I noticed that there were resources and teaching activities on the publisher’s site.

I visited the site and was very pleased to see support materials in both English and Spanish. For example if you visit the Baby Owl’s Rescue page and click on For Creative Minds (en Español), you’ll find Great Horned Owl fun facts, a matching activity, owl life sequencing activity and information about what to do if you find an injured bird.

You’ll also find ebook previews in English and Spanish – look over the books and listen as it is read aloud in either language. You’ll find just part of the text available, but you can listen to the entire book.

From what I gather from the site, the hardcovers and paperbacks are only available in English, but you can purchase ebooks – actually licenses for 1, 3, and 5 years or lifetime - in English or Spanish.

Where to go: 
Sylvan Dell Publishing
Ebooks in Spanish from Sylvan Dell Publishing

Free thematic units in Spanish and other languages

I was just reading through my CASLS newsletter that I receive once a week via email, when my mouse stopped in its tracks. Here is the article in its entirety:

K-12 Thematic Units Available for Download

The National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center is pleased to announce that they have now made available on their website as free Adobe PDF downloads all of their K-12 standards-based thematic units: six in Spanish and three in French, as well as their teacher’s guide to the national Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Each may still be purchased at cost in paper format.

Additionally, a new publication, A Thematic Unit: Let’s Go to School in Japan! (Jessica Haxhi, Author), is now available for downloading. DVDs of the accompanying five, one-hour Japanese demonstration classes for fifth and sixth grade students also can be purchased.

Access all of these resources at http://wayback.archive-it.org/855/20101103145624/http://nflrc.iastate.edu/pubs/units/unitsList.html 

WOW! As soon as I saw this, I had to share. Enjoy!

(Edited 3/6/2011 - updated link)

Spanish activities for children ages 6-9

A few days ago, @mundaysa, an associate professor of Spanish who I follow on Twitter, passed along this wonderful resource - ¡Aprendo Jugando! Actividades de Español para niños y niñas de 6 a 9 años.

It’s a downloadable PDF file (110 pages) from the Departamento Confederal de Migraciones de UGT y de la Secretaría de Políticas Sociales de FETE-UGT. The text and activities are written by Fina García Naranjo and Concha Moreno García.

Each activity lists objectives, procedures, exercises with some of the support materials (worksheets, labels, etc.). Topics include the alphabet, numbers, food, family members, and much more. Here’s a screenshot of the table of contents.

Where to go:
¡Aprendo Jugando! Actividades de Español para niños y niñas de 6 a 9 años
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Around the Twitterverse…

I haven’t had much time to blog, but I’ve run across some great resources just by spending a little time on Twitter the last couple of weeks. Here are some good finds:

RT @josepicardo: New from Boxoftricks: Fun, engaging resources for the independent learner of Spanish http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1187

RT @icpjones: World Language Resources -- http://bit.ly/2XGxML

RT @spanglishbaby: New post about 4 bilingual and Spanish book publishers. Know more? Please leave link in comments http://bit.ly/16siln

RT @spanishonly: Some interesting articles about Extensive Reading for Second Language Acquisition. http://www.benikomason.net

RT @bencurtis: Fun Notes in Spanish video contest, big prizes, spread the word! http://bit.ly/vY0Xf

RT @yocrezco: Animal Scramble, de Wild Planet http://bit.ly/1a5hvz

RT @spanglishbaby: Finally found the PBS media player en ESPAÑOL! It’s here: http://bit.ly/Fq9h5

Ver vs. Mirar http://bit.ly/uxPES

Where to go:
To follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/spanishblog
To follow others click on the names after the @ sign. (You’ll have to sign up with Twitter first.)
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Family Literacy Bag for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Just received this in my inbox this morning from CASLS (The Center for Applied Second Language Studies at the University of Oregon):

From http://readingrockets.org

Eric Carle's classic picture book is celebrating 40 years of delighting young children and adults with its simple concepts and brilliantly colorful illustrations. Reading Rockets has created a new family literacy bag inspired by the Hungry Caterpillar — activities that invite parents and kids to explore together the book's themes (in English and Spanish).

Read about the Family Literacy Bags at http://readingrockets.org/article/27935 .

Download the activity kit in English from http://readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/literacybags/Caterpillar_English.pdf or in Spanish from http://readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/literacybags/Caterpillar_Spanish.pdf .

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Dinosaurs and numbers in Spanish

Funny how a teachable moment can evolve… The boys received their Easter baskets a week early from their grandma. Each one was packed with toys and lots of candy. Included in each was a 3-D foam dinosaur puzzle. In the package were two pieces of foam with the pieces precut and then a diagram of the pieces labeled with numbers. The directions were fairly simple… choose two pieces with the same number and construct the puzzle according to the numbers.

So, my little guy and I began putting together the tyrannosaurus which had about 25 pieces. As we were working on it, I realized that this definitely could be a teachable moment. So as we searched for the matching numbers, I started speaking in Spanish only. My son didn’t bat an eye! Then he started speaking in Spanish. I would ask “'¿Dónde está número once?” He would then look at the diagram saying over and over “once, once, once” until he found the piece. I honestly don’t think he realized he was doing this!

Oh, and we listened to Spanish language music in the background (Jarabe de Palo station on Pandora.com).

So, if you’re teaching your children Spanish at home, look out for those teachable moments. They’re everywhere!

Additional numbers activities:
OnlineFreeSpanish.com printable worksheets: http://www.onlinefreespanish.com/aplica/coloringpages/printables/numbers110/printnum110.htm

OnlineFreeSpanish.com activity: http://www.onlinefreespanish.com/aplica/lessons/numbers110.htm
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A Library of Classroom Practices

Every month I receive the newsletter from Annenberg Media which is always full of great links and resources for teachers. There is one resource that I particularly wanted to share with you - Teaching Foreign Languages K-12, A Library of Classroom Practices. From the website:

The Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 video library and professional development guide bring to life the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Illustrating effective instruction and assessment strategies, the series documents 27 teachers and their students in K-12 classrooms around the country as they study eight languages across a range of competency levels.

The components of the library are the introduction, standards and the five Cs, assessment strategies, classroom programs, and a professional development guide. Spanish, Latin, German, Japanese, French, Chinese, Russian and Italian are the eight languages included in the library.

For example, here are the lessons for Spanish:

Creating Travel Advice
Food Facts and Stories
Fruits of the Americas
Hearing Authentic Voices
Interpreting Literature
Interpreting Picasso's Guernica
Politics of Art
Routes to Culture

Where to go:
Library of Classroom Practices: http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/
Newsletter sign-up: http://www.learner.org/mailman/listinfo/updates

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Web site: Online Free Spanish

Go over to El Rincón Español for a review of the Online Free Spanish site. I’m very impressed by the materials and the quality of the site itself.

Review: Foreign Language Friends

Foreign Language Friends is a web-based learning program geared towards young children and I’m pretty excited about it… no, actually I’m very excited about it. From the site:

Foreign Language Friends is a complete multimedia experience designed to help your children learn a foreign language easily and successfully. Through unique and entertaining activities, your children will discover their unique ability to learn a foreign language almost effortlessly. 

The theme-based program covers shapes, body parts, zoo animals, sea animals, family and more. (New themes are added on a regular basis.) With each theme there are seven activities such as Vocab Builder, Memory Match, Animation (completely in the target language) and several others finishing up with a printable booklet that can be used to reinforce the new vocabulary.

Even though your children could use the program independently, they recommend involving the entire family. I would as well. I think it’s very important to reinforce the language at home. For example, after doing the exercises for the shapes section, you and your children could go on a “shape hunt” in your house using the new vocabulary. (In fact, my head is buzzing with ideas for this.)

My six-year old was reluctant at first, as he is when it comes to almost anything that has to do with Spanish, but even this program hooked him. Yes, it did. His favorite parts are the matching game, the animation clip and the vocab builder activity. When I asked what he thought about Foreign Language Friends, he said enthusiastically, “I like it, I just like it!”

Monthly subscriptions are $9.95 a month or save and pay $99.95 for the year. But right now, Foreign Language Friends is offering a 7-day free trial for individuals and families so that you can try it out yourself. (For educational institutions, click here for information on pricing.)
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Added some new blogs

I’m not sure if you have noticed my blog list (lower left-hand side), but just in case, I thought I would point out some new ones that I have just added in the last week or so.
More Spanish – Lesson plans & technology for the Spanish classroom is written by Sherry Amorocho, a high school Spanish teacher. It’s fairly new, but looks very promising.
Spanglish Baby – Two Latina moms talking about raising their children bilingual.
¡Vámonos! is written by Lisa Stevens, a primary language teacher in the UK who is also quite a techie.
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Childtopia: Online games and more for children

Quick post to share with you this site that I ran across thanks to the Ñandu email list. The site is called Childtopia and is available in Spanish, French, Catalan, Basque and English. You’ll find the following activities:

I can’t wait to explore it more!
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Book: First Spanish Words

First Spanish Words
Illustrated by David Melling, Compiled by Neil Morris
Oxford University Press
November 2008
48 full color pages
Ages: 4-8
ISBN: 978-0-19-911004-9

 

 

From the publisher:

"… each volume takes the reader on a picture-book journey through a child’s typical day. There is a bird’s eye view of an early morning at home. the journey to school, inside the classroom, at a birthday party and even a trip to the museum and the beach. Aside from the useful everyday items, these books also incorporate many children’s favorite things; airplanes, dinosaurs and even fairy tale characters… These books also include supplementary material—a picture/word matching game, a learning to count page, identifying shapes, opposites, the weather, time, and a comprehensive index.”

When I looked through First Spanish Words my initial thoughts were that this book was doable and not so overwhelming. On each page you’ll find a large, two-page spread illustration based on a theme with vocabulary words on both sides. For example on the Nuestra clase page there are only 18 vocabulary words. In similar books I’ve seen as many as 35-40 which can be quite overwhelming to a child learning a new language. (In total there are over 400 words with English translations.)

Also, I really love the illustrations which invite you to use the new vocabulary—either make up stories about the characters and scenes or play games. For instance, I could see a parent and child playing ¿Dónde está… ? (Where is… ?), ¿De qué color es… ? (What color is… ?) or Veo-veo (I Spy). For more advanced students, you could even make up an entire story to go along with the illustration… Había una vez…

In addition to Spanish, Oxford Press offers the First Words Series in French and German as well.
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