We are lucky to have family in the area who can help out with babysitting when needed. Specifically, we have Spanish-speaking family, la abuela, who helps to care for Sofía. In four years, we have never used a babysitter outside of the family. We try to be a self-sufficient unit. I stopped working my job as a teacher to stay home and care for our daughter, so I try to be careful to not need someone else to watch her.

But then I had to have foot surgery. This changed everything and I needed to hire a niñera to help take care of Sofía. I am on crutches and can’t drive, so I began the tedious task of looking for a niñera.

I had the best luck with care.com. I highly recommend it over other sites!

My preference of course was for a native Spanish-speaking niñera, but I didn’t make it a requirement for hire. When Sofía was younger, I would have made it a necessity, but now that she is more comfortable with her inglés, I left it at only a preference. What I really, really wanted was someone who would be young and energetic and take Sofía to do the physical activities that being in a cast prevented me from doing. In my area, that combination was challenging and coupled with last minute hiring, it leaned toward impossible!

SIXTY people applied to be our niñera for the summer! I was blown away by the large number of applicants since this was only a part-time position.  There were many times that I was overwhelmed with emotion because I thought I hit the jackpot of niñeras (local Kindergarten teachers looking for summer employment or college students, majoring in español, home for summer break) only to be let down by an extreme lack of professionalism or human courtesy. Several of the applicants accepted the job, we agreed to meet and then I never heard from them again! (I was particularly shocked when this happened with TWO school teachers that I had “hired”.)

¡No hay mal por bien no venga!

Luckily, I found the best niñera in the whole world!

The first afternoon she took care of Sofía, I called my husband and told him that I thought Sofía liked the niñera better than she liked us! The niñera was only 19 years old, but had the patience of a saint and an amazing insight on child behavior. She reminded Sofía to wash her hands before meals, chew with her mouth closed, and encouraged Sofía to clean up her room! The niñera wasn’t a native speaker of español, but she certainly was an excellent student in school. She used her español with ease and wasn’t shy to do so. (She even asked me new vocabulary words and then used them!) We feel extremely fortunate to have stumbled on such a competent person to take such good care of Sofía and that she does it en español!

For those of you who are looking or may be looking for niñeras in the future, here are my lessons learned:

1.  Make sure you hire a niñera who speaks a language with which your child is comfortable. It will help with separation anxiety.

2.  This process feels a lot like dating. If you don’t get an immediate response from someone, it probably means she changed her mind and is not interested. Move on to the next person.

3.  Text-messaging is IN. Emails and phone calls are out.

4.  Be direct and ask the applicant if she is available for the entire time you need help. I had to eliminate many applicants because they had too many summer vacation plans.

5.  Tell her what the job will entail (mine included light housework like cleaning up after playing and helping me moves things from here to there while I’m on crutches) and how much the job pays and ask if she is in agreement. (I like to do this via email before we speak so that I don’t waste my time.)

6.  Ask if the niñera is comfortable driving in the car with your child and/or comfortable driving your car.

7.   Treat the interviewing process like a CEO of a large company would: interview several applicants and tell them you will get back to them. This needs to be done quickly — niñeras get picked up rapidísimo — especially during high-demand seasons like the summer.

8.  Always meet in a public place for the first time.

9.  Contact references and access background checks if available.

10.  Have a back-up niñera.

11.  Have a Plan B if the niñera cancels right before she is supposed to care for your bebé on the first day.

12.  Once you hire the niñera, try to be home the first few times, making yourself invisible, in order to confirm that you hired the correct person. (We can never be too careful when it comes to the well-being of our bebés, cierto?)

13.  Relax, let go, and breathe!

Editor’s note: We continue with our 31 Days of Reading in Spanish. Check out the book review below and don’t forget to enter our weekly GIVEAWAY of $100 worth of books in Spanish!

BOOK DESCRIPTION/REVIEW

ABeCedario de Plantas, one in a series of ABC books available in both Spanish and English, is written by the incredibly talented bilingual author, Yanitzia Canetti.

I let my daughter Sofía choose the theme of which Canetti ABC book to purchase.  She carefully contemplated each topic:   plantas, music, nutrition, animals or professions.  Her LOVE of flowers made selecting AbeCedario de Plantas easy.

ABeCedario de Plantas covers amapola to zinnia in rhyming and alliterative verse. I was really impressed and delighted to see these literary techniques used; they are difficult to find in authentic Spanish-language materials yet so very essential to preparing our soon-to-be-independent readers.  There is even a section about interesting planta facts and a glossary of new words. Canetti also includes both the hard and soft sounds of letters like the C (conejo and cielo) which gives this book a mami’s two thumbs-up for fostering important pre-reading skills!

ABeCedario de Plantas is much more than just strengthening literacy skills through science however.  Reading this book aloud is festive!  Rolling off your tongue, the words sing, make music, and dance in your head!  It makes for great family reading!

BOOK DETAILS

Title: ABeCedario de Plantas

Author: Yanitzia Canetti

Age group: 2-8

Publisher/Year: BrickHouse Education/ 2010

ISBN: 978-1598351194

Price: $8.99 on Amazon

Editor’s note: We continue with our 31 Days of Reading in Spanish. Check out the book review below and don’t forget to enter our weekly GIVEAWAY of $100 worth of books in Spanish!

BOOK DESCRIPTION/REVIEW

Dita y Dito Van a la Librería is one in a series of books by Maria Gutierrez Serna featuring cute sister and brother piggies, Dita and Dito. We get a giggle out of pigs… so this book is one of our favoritos!

In the story, Dita y Dito’s parents take them to a book store for story time. Listening to the story stimulates Dita and Dito’s imagination and results in their parents purchasing the book to read together as a family at home.

After reading the book to my daughter Sofía, I was also able to open-up conversations about cultural norms; e.g., applauding to say “gracias” at the end of a presentation. My favorite, however, is when Dita and Dito’s parents purchase the book; it is wrapped in pretty paper just like in many tiendas in Spanish-speaking countries.

There are a few other things I like about the Dita y Dito books. The size of the books is perfect for little hands. The pages are thick and as highlighted on the back cover — washable! Each book corresponds with a different day of the week. Dita and Dito go to the librería on a sabádo.

No Spanish-language bookshelf is complete without Dita y Dito!

BOOK DETAILS:

Title: Dita y Dito Van a la Librería

Author: Mónica Gutiérrez Serna

Age group: 2-4

Publisher/Year: Ediciones SM/ Febrero de 2007

ISBN: 978-8467507867

Price: $11.04 at Barnes & Nobles

When it was forecasted that Huracán Sandy, was eminently going to strike our area, the first thing we did was go out and collect the beautiful fall leaves that colored our barrio. I knew that after the storm, we would be left with few vibrant reminders of fall.  Even so, I felt like we needed to add a little more color of fall into our lives.  So I reverted to a favorite childhood activity that my sister and I used to always enjoy.  As it turns out, this is a great activity to teach science concepts of solid and liquid changes of state through temperature.

What you will need:

• Cardstock, white
• PDF print out of letters O-T-O-Ñ-O
• Wax paper
• Red, orange, brown, and yellow crayolas
• Scissors
• Hot glue or tape
• Sticks
• Ribbon
• Iron
• Scrap cardboard

First print the OTOÑO PDF on white cardstock.  Carefully scrape the crayolas with scissors and let the shavings lightly speckle a piece of wax paper and the cardstock, leaving space between shavings.  Since you will be melting the crayolas, less is best.  Cover each with another piece of wax paper.

For Sofía, I made the shavings ahead of time and allowed her to sprinkle them on the wax paper and cardstock.

Using an iron on the lowest setting, carefully hold down the wax paper and cardstock, and pass the iron over the top wax paper to JUST melt the crayola shavings.  Sofía had to just watch this, but older niños could assist the adult. (I also placed all of the above on top of scrap cardboard for easier clean up.)

For the leaves, trace your niño’s hand and make a pattern out of cardboard.  Then trace the pattern 5 times on the wax paper with melted crayolas.  Be sure to cut out the hands/leaves only once the shavings are very cool.  The letters to spell out OTOÑO can be easily cut out by evenly folding the cardstock into fourths first.

Using tape and/or a hot glue gun, connect the letters and hands/leaves with small sticks or real stems of leaves.  String each letter (now connected to the hand/leaf) with ribbon or twine and use tape or hot glue to hold together.

Want to change up the activity a little bit?  Just use the hand/leaves to decorate your windows or mantel.   Instead of O-t-o-ñ-o, use the letters to spell Gracias!  Trace the hand pattern 5 times on cardstock also and use them as the feathers to make a turkey, using a traced foot as the body.  Maybe you want to make your own family or Thankful tree out of brown paper and use the wax paper hands/leaves to write names or things for which you are thankful.

Even if your barrio is left without those vibrant orange and red hues, this art and science activity will be sure to brighten your casa and hopefully spread a little bit of fall warmth.

Before my daughter Sofía was born, I didn’t know who Tinker Bell was.  Sad, but true!  Now, life, some three years late and I feel like I am a Tinker Bell experta!  So when I was asked to write a review of the newest Tinker Bell Disney Fairies Films, “The Secret of the Wings” or en Español, “El Secreto de las Hadas”, recently released in Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD and Digital on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, I jumped at the opportunity!  I love that Disney is now automatically releasing their DVDs with Spanish language sound tracks because in my casa, we only watch movies en Español!  I will admit though that for this movie, I did sneak off while Sofía was napping so that I could watch in English also.  I wanted to be able to compare the voices in English and Español and I concluded that they were matched very well!

Although the DVD I was sent refers to Tinker Bell as Tinker Bell (say it like Antonio Banderas), we usually call her Campanita and in España they call her Campanilla!  The Tinker Bell Disney Fairies Films are some of my favoritos of Disney.  The story lines usually have a moral, are appropriate from young toddlers to older children as well as entertaining for adults.  There normally isn’t any violence (not even mild violence), underlying innuendos, or any unwanted behavior that I wouldn’t want my toddler to pick up.  I feel comfortable letting Sofía and her friends watch the movies without worry.  The “Secret of the Wings” was no exception and it even offered more!  I really liked the element of Science that Disney wove into the story line.  It is no secret that we need to get more girls engaged in The Sciences and I think Disney has done this well in the movie. They illustrate concepts of nature that have to do with the transition of autumn to winter; how animals change their coats, hibernation, and plant life-cycles.  Without giving anything away, the entire film teaches the viewer about the Science behind frost and ice.  To say the least, I’m impressed with Disney.

Of course none of the additional Science bonuses takes away from the main storyline either –a storyline in which I think the Disney Fairies creators have outdone themselves.  In “The Secret of the Wings”, Tinker Bell and the other warm weather fairies become intrigued with the mysterious Winter Woods.  Tinker Bells’ sense of adventure and persistence lead her on a magical escapade where she makes discoveries that change the lives of the Pixy Hallow’s residents forever.

Although “The Secret of the Wings” and the other Tinker Bell Disney Fairies Films are targeted at pint-sized females, I really think that young boys will not be turned off by the film either. There is enough non-gender fun in the movie (adventure, a new invention, and heroes) to engage any kind of audience.

But don’t take my word only on how excelente “The Secret of the Wings” is…..enter our Giveaway to win your own copy of the Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD and Digital!  All you have to do is leave a comment here and tell us how you plan to watch “The Secret of the Wings” if you win!

ONE lucky winner will receive “The Secret of the Wings” Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD and Digital, a pair of Tinker Bell Charm Zipper Pulls, and a pair of Tinker Bell wings!

FOUR lucky winners will receive a pair of Tinker Bell Charm Zipper Pulls, and a pair of Tinker Bell wings!

In the meantime, here is a sneak peak at “The Secret of the Wings” trailer in Spanish!

¡Buena Suerte!  And don’t forget to tell us how you plan to watch “The Secret of the Wings” if you win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

After listening to a podcast of The Parent’s Journal with Bobbie Conner and her guest Tracey Wood (July 16, 2012), a children’s reading specialist, I realized I needed to stop dragging my pies and begin to investigate how to implicitly teach Sofía to read.  Yes, she’s only three-years-old, but really the reading process begins at birth (if not before) by constantly reading, rhyming, singing, reading, reading, and reading to our bebés.

There are also many studies that indicated that children, who learn to read and have strong literacy skills in their first language, will have success as they learn to read in their second language.  So as I began fostering my toddler, oops—preschooler (as of last week), in the amazing world of reading, it would be in español of course.

Even though I’m an educator, I don’t pretend to know how to teach Sofía to read or even begin with developing pre-reading skills, but with the help of my knack for research, I was able to compile and create some activities to do my part at home.  Here are the resources I have to share!

Abecedario Flashcards

I made Abecedario Cards en español for Sofía and me to read during breakfast.  This is especially helpful to me before my morning café has kicked in! You are welcome to print, laminate and cut the flashcards for your personal use!

Interactive Abecedario Slide Show Game

Expanding on the flash card idea, I created a simple Interactive Slideshow Game of the Spanish Abecedario so that Sofía could at least actively participate while answering questions about letter sounds and the abecedario.   This allows her to press buttons on the computadora, making letters and pictures appear.  The Slideshow Game is monolingual español and does not include inglés.  Again, you are welcome to download it for your personal fun!

(Read more about how to use the Interactive Abecedario Slideshow Game.)

Bilingual Abecedario Letter and Sound Recognition Mat Game  

My Etsy store, Dos Manos Fun, sells a Bilingual Abecedario Letter and Sound Recognition Mat Game that I created.  Since the store is on vacation for a while, you can access the mat’s direcciones here.  Feel free to print out and laminate the game mats for your personal use.  Note that you will also need a complete set of abecedario letters (wooden, foam, or plastic, etc…) in order to play the game.

Español Alphabet Pocket Chart

There was one resource that I didn’t make myself because I really didn’t have the time or energy to do it!  So I invested $29.00 and purchased an Español Alphabet Pocket Chart made by Learning Resources.  We love it!  The quality is excelente and the possibilities for varied activities are superb!  If you are interested in purchasing your own Español Alphabet Pocket Chart, you can visit SpanglishBaby’s™ La Tiendita through Amazon.

(Read more on the Español Alphabet Pocket Chart.)

Resources from La Tiendita

For those of you with children just starting school, there are also three other useful tools available made by Learning Resources.  The syllable and blends pocket charts and the syllable big book seem promising for teaching beginning readers in español and are available through our SpanglishBaby™ La Tiendita!

(Read more on resources available in La Tiendita.)

YouTube Video Clips

A simple search on YouTube can also be beneficial in one’s plight to promoting reading in our niños.  One of my favoritos is El Jardín de Clarlilú: AEIOU from Disney junior.

Sight Words en Español

Tracey Wood recommended teaching our children sight words.  Although she was talking about in inglés, the same concept can of course be applied in Spanish also.  Scholastic makes a variety of resources such as a workbook to teach sight words en español and mini-books with sight words.  I downloaded them for the whopping price of 99¢ each!  Just another reason that Scholastic Rocks!

(Read more about Sight Words en Español.)

Although I’m not a Reading Specialist, I do feel comfortable engaging in research-based activities at home that will assist Sofía in developing good reading skills-and I hope my list will continue to grow as I explore más!   If you have any questions or have ideas of your own to add about how you strengthen reading with yourSpanglish Baby at home, please share them with all of us!

¡Feliz Reading!

Last week, my daughter Sofía and I attended a free event, Uno, Dos, Tres Con Andrés, sponsored by our local library.  As a public speaker, educator and presenter, I’m a tough crowd to please and I have to say that this show was fenominál!

The show, Uno, Dos, Tres Con Andrés, used music, song, and dance to engage the audience in a language and culture fiesta.  We learned words in Español that had to do with colores, animales, and body parts as well as Latin American countries and dances.   But we didn’t feel like we were at school….we felt like were at a Disney show!

The songs Andrés sang were catchy and just plain fun.   His voice was sweet, the melodies continue to run through my head, and his super-amiable personality was the icing on the pastelito!  Since audience participation was a key part of the show, he taught us hand movements and lyrics so that we could interactively sing with him in both Inglés and Español! We were encouraged to jump, sing, and dance, and Sofía didn’t stop jumping or playing her lap congas until 10PM at night.  (Maybe he was too good!)

It was nice to finally be entertained by someone who knew his target audience so well.  Andrés interacted with us in the hallway before the show started–peaking our interest and getting us excited.  The youngsters loved him!  He obviously understood how to engage toddlers and young children at the same time.  He mingled amongst the kiddies and adults during the performance and called volunteers to participate in his songs via the microphone.  The show lasted for 45 minutes and every toddler, preschooler, and adult was absorbed until the last canción!  I wish I hadn’t been so enthralled with the show and would have remembered to record it.  You can visit the show’s promotional video HERE on YouTube or embedded below and get a taste for how great the music was.  Sofía watches the video daily and likes to share it with our guests.  As a result, Sunday after breakfast, she asked her abuelita to dance the tango with her!

Uno, Dos, Tres Con Andrés is perfect entertainment for any group of young children, especially one that is looking to jazz up Spanish-language and cultural learning.

Special thanks to Elizabeth for providing this activity. Visit her site, La Mother Tongue, for more activities for parents raising bilingual children.

{Photo credit:  Uno, Dos, Tres, Con Andrés}

When my familia decided to take a last-minute trip to the beach, I had to act fast and create a learning unit about the Oceano for my daughter Sofía.  I didn’t have as much time as normal for the planning, so instead of making my own actividades as I usually do, I turned to the internet to pull from resources already available.  Even if you have already past your Oceano Unit, these resources have mucho más to offer than just maritime themes.  Since we only speak in Español in my casa, all our actividades are monolingual, but you can easily use a text box to add words in Inglés to the documents to make them bilingual.

The first thing I did in planning my unit is to create a list of words that I wanted to center everything around so that I would provide consistency and a spiral repetition throughout the unit.  (Laymen’s terms, I wanted Sofía to see the same vocabulary repeated in all her actividades and not introduce the word mermaid on day 1 only to never see it again later.) Once a vocabulary list is established, it makes creating the actividades much easier and provides direction.  Here is my list of vocabulary words for our Oceano Unit.  I’ve included their meanings in Inglés as well.

Actividades

1.  Fotos of Animales. We used the first actividad as an introduction to the entire unit.  Over breakfast one morning, we talked about our upcoming trip to the beach.  I asked Sofía what kinds of animales she thought she would see at the beach (or that lived in the oceano).  As she gave me the names of the animales, I conducted a Google image search of them and pulled up real fotos so that she could see various pictures of the real animal.  Ahead of time, I had created a slideshow of these images to use as a summary tool at the end of breakfast.  Note that although maybe Sofía brainstormed an animal that wasn’t on my list, I still showed her a foto of that animal.  Then I was able to make a decision if it was an animal that I wanted to include in our list of vocabulary or not.

2.  Sorting and Categorizing Objects. For the second actividad, I gave Sofía a plastic basket and we combed through all her toys and belongings for objects that had to do with the oceano. When we pulled out her basket of stuffed animales for example, we made two piles, one for those animales that could be found in the oceano and one for those that could not.

3.  Animal Alphabet Coloring Pages.  The third actividad helps strengthen phonemic awareness and prewriting /prereading skills.  Ahead of time, I had printed out Animal Alphabet coloring pages for each of our vocabulary words.  Sofía and I talked about the animal and the beginning letter.  Then she colored the animal and traced the letter.  Here is the link of the index for letters and their actividades in Español available from Primera-Escuela.   Since not all the animales on our vocabulary list were available from Primera-Escuela, I ended up creating a few of my own animal letters by using sites like:  Hellokids.com and Fun-with-Pictures.com. All are included in the document linked above.

4.  Crab Craft.  We printed out this template from First-School, the Inglés site of Primera-Escuela.  We printed it in color then cut and pasted it together.

5.  Carrera de Observación and Collage. The fifth actividad is somewhat of a Carrera de Observación (Scavenger Hunt).  I used the Seashore Collage actividad from First-School and tweaked it a bit.  Instead of using their oceano shells template, I made and printed my own in color (to cover all the target vocabulary words) and hid them around the living room.  Sofía searched for all the animales del oceano.  She liked it so much that she asked me to do it several times! Later we glued all the animales to the “seashore” which I made by gluing sandpaper and blue construction paper to a half piece of poster board.

6. Online Book: Finbo.   The International Children’s Digital Library is amazing!  You really need to check it out for yourselves!  We found a book about a young whale and had lots of fun reading it over and over again on the computer.

7.  Book:  Debajo del Mar.  Enchanted Learning has a plethora of resources in foreign languages as well as in Inglés.  I particularly like their picture vocabulary sheets and little books.  We printed out the book, Debajo del Mar (Full version is available to members).  Sofía colored it and then I highlighted the beginning letter of each animal word and gave her sticky foam letters to match to each letter.

8.  Fish Bowl Craft: There is an entire lesson plan written up for this actividad.  We basically just printed out the black and white outline of the Fish Bowl Craft and used a color-by-number approach.  The lesson plan offers many optional actividades.

9.  Clay Fish:  We printed out a fish picture from Allcoloring.com and used acrcilla (clay) to color it.

10.  Video:  Lola Aventuras: Un Animal Muy Grande.  As I’m sure you already know, YouTube offers great resources in many languages.   This Plaza Sésamo short video, available on the Plaza Sésamo YouTube channel, is about whales and was a huge hit with my daughter.

I’m sure that once you put your thinking caps on to Oceano Over-Drive, you will be able to come up with a potpourri of small filler “doings” to enhance your study of the Oceano also.  Here are few to get you started!

• Have a fish-themed lunch!  Eat fish sticks, cheddar goldfish, and fish gummies.
• Use fish-themed plates.
• Read various oceano-themed stores that you might have around the house or find in the library.
• Do an oceano-themed puzzle together.
• Put on a mini-play with the some of the marine animales that you found around the house.
• Declare a certain day of the week for everyone to wear a piece of clothing with an oceano theme!

And most importantly, plan some special familia time together—of course at the beach if you can!

Have any actividades to add?  We would love for you to share them!

Special thanks to Elizabeth for providing this activity. Visit her site, La Mother Tongue, for more activities for parents raising bilingual children.

When my amiga, Amy, told me about this activity, I knew that Sofía and I HAD to try it immediately and share it with todos! From start to finish, this activity was so much fun and filled with sorpresas  for both mamá and hija.

After hiding some of Sofía’s little toys inside some globos (balloons), I filled them with water and froze them.  Then she went to work pounding and hammering the frozen globos until she excavated the sorpresas free from the ice.   This wasn’t an easy task by any means; the frozen globos are slippery and spurt out with each impact.  How do you hold on to ice and blast it with a mallet at the same time?  Perseverance!  It was a pleasantly surprising teachable moment that metamorphosed from a simple toddler sensory activity.   Sofía had become frustrated and complained that she couldn’t continue because the sorpresas wouldn’t come free with only one hit of the mallet. When I realized what was transpiring, I had to put the camera down and coax her.  ¡El Que Persevera Alcanza! (If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again!)  It really ended up being a beautiful opportunity to teach these concepts at a level understandable to a toddler.

Before you delve into your own Frozen Globo Sensory Activity, I have a few suggestions.  In spite of the fact that this activity uses water inside globos, I recommend using 12 inch globos and not actual water globos which are much, much smaller.  The globos, by the way, will come off the mound of ice almost immediately upon impact so there is no need to remove them beforehand.

Choose your toy sorpresas carefully.  I chose random, small, plastic and rubber toys that I thought could resist the temperature change and endure the imminent pounding of the mallet.

Once you have decided on your toys, carefully stretch the neck of the globo around the entire object until it is FULLY encased in the well of the globo.  It smarts the fingers un poquito but I found that if I stopped for a breather before the toy reached the well, I couldn’t get the toy to move again without tearing the globo. Then connect your globo to the faucet and fill to your desired level.  Por favor, note that the object inside the globo combined with the water will cause a geyser-spray all over your kitchen, dry dishes, clothes, camera…..if you don’t secure the globo by the NECK when removing it!

My last two recommendations have to do with the fine art of pounding the ice.  You may notice that there are two different hammering devices in the photos.  I strongly suggest using a rubber mallet instead of any other type of hammer.  You will also notice that Sofía is NOT wearing safety goggles.  This was an oversight on my part-don’t let your child be subjected to bad parenting like mine was!  Just look at that ice flying everywhere close to her ojitos!

I think that there are many variations of this activity that would make the Frozen Globo Sensory Activity acceptable for all ages.  For younger children, I would make the globos smaller, only partially freeze them and place them all in a tub so that the youngsters can really explore more with their hands.  For older children, I would definitely tie this activity into a science theme of dinosaurios, fossils and paleontology.  Or you could be just like me and run out and try the Frozen Globo Sensory Activity without any prior planning because it looks like something really fun to do on a hot summer day! Whatever you decide to do, remember to take the opportunity to converse about it in self and parallel talk; creating a language-rich environment for your youngster.  Seize the opportunity to expand on new vocabulary, ask questions, and narrate your actions and thoughts whether it is in English, Español or Spanglish!

Wow!  Not sure how summer has started in your barrio, but here in the Nation’s Capital, hace calor!  This means we have had lots of pool-time and fun with water.

Until recently, I really thought there wasn’t a way to make playing in the pool more fun, but my daughter Sofía found a way!  When I wasn’t looking, a little hand went into my glass of water and hielo (ice) and voilá…a whole new fun dimension of playing in the water! I can’t really take credit for this activity because literally she thought it up and I just took it up a notch!

What I like most about this activity is that not only is it super fun, it is a great way to learn about science concepts.  Liquids change to solids and back again to liquids through temperature changes.

Expanding on Sofía’s idea, I simply organized the making of lots and lots of hielo for her to play with.

We colored our water with Crayola Color Bath Dropz (They are non-staining.), filled the hielo trays and waited.  (Not only a lesson in science, but a lesson on me learning to be more patient!)

Really, you don’t need to add the color to the ice for it to be fun or educational, but it does bring about some aesthetic pleasure and helps the young learner actually be able to see some concepts such as melting.

The first time we did this activity, Sofía threw all the hielo into the pool at once. She was happily playing in front of her with a handful of hielo and when she turned around for more, she exclaimed, “Dónde está el hielo?”  (Where is the ice?) Obviously, this became our first lesson on solids changing to liquids using heat. So the second time we played with hielo in the pool, Sofía wanted to put it all in a tub.  She used a measuring cup to pour the hielo and observe it slide, color the water, and change shape.

The last little note about this Icy Hot Fun activity is that you don’t have to limit it to pool time either.  This can actually be a year-round activity, by dumping the hielo into a tub with a tiny bit of water to create a different version of a water table that can easily be played with indoors as well.

My one complaint about this activity is that Sofía wants hielo to play with all the time now!

¡Feliz Verano and Happy Water Play!

Thank you to Elizabeth for providing this article. Check out more activities and fun posts at La Mother Tongue.