Daily Blog

Since my girl doesn’t get to see her Abuelita very much, we’re always looking for excuses to get the two of them together. We try to get to El Salvador at least once per year, and my mom tries to visit us in Los Angeles once a year as well. This year we were able to find the perfect excuse to spend some amazing quality time together and create the best kind of memories at Disney World in Orlando. IRead More ...

I LOVE April 30th! Happy Día del niño/Día del libro! What can be better than celebrating kids and books, right? Here at SpanglishBaby we think it’s such a huge celebration that we’ve been running our first annual Celebrating Bilingual Readers Contest since last week. The grand prize? More than $300 worth of bilingual/Spanish children’s books so you can start your own home library AND a Kindle Fire for all those e-books now available in Spanish through Amazon’s Tienda Kindle! TheRead More ...

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of attending the National Latino Children’s Literature Conference, held every two years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The conference is organized by Dr. Jamie Campbell Naidoo, an expert on the portrayal of Latino cultures in children’s books and media (and recently consulted by Sesame Street as they focus on their Latino storylines!). Dr. Naidoo had organized an event at his local library as part of the conference to celebrate El día de losRead More ...

Many Spanish-speaking parents hesitate to teach their children to read in their home language because they worry that this will make it more difficult for their children to learn to read in English. Nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact, the more children know about reading in their first language, the easier it will be for them to learn to read in English. Thinking first about pre-readers, we know from years of research that there are certain foundationalRead More ...

This is our fourth year celebrating El Día de los Niños/El Día de los libros which happens on or around April 30 around the entire country. In honor of this very special day — because what could be better than celebrating kids and books, right? — we have put together a full week of reading related posts geared specifically towards bilingual children as well as an AMAZING giveaway that will allow one family to build its own bilingual home library forRead More ...

We´re fast approaching another year of  El Día de los Niños (Day of the Child) festivities and we´re excited to be celebrating a lo grande  the next couple of weeks with a Twitter party, special posts and even a Celebrating Bilingual Readers grand giveaway. Each year the United States Congress names April 30th as El Dia de los Niños to support the intellectual and emotional development of young people.  Over one hundred cities across the nation will be celebrating this day with parades, bookRead More ...

I admit it; I have used bribery with my kids before. I’m not proud of it and I don’t encourage it, but it is just one of those tools in the parenting toolbox that is available when all other tactics have failed. Some parents may disagree with me, but I willingly confess this child-rearing sin; my only problem is that the tables have turned. You see, the secret to a good “mordida” is finding out the one thing your childRead More ...

A few days ago I was invited to Hart Elementary in Austin to read to Pre-K and K classes. As always, it was a great experience and the kids took an active part in the reading. This time, I chose Un globo café chocolate and I gave each kid a “bolita de estambre”, a pompon, to engage them. I wanted them to imagine that they also had a balloon, like Pedro, Margarita and the other kids in the story, andRead More ...