We are excited to share our favorite bilingual and bicultural Holiday gifts with you! As we do every year, we’ve gathered some of the best regalitos of the season to feature in our 2013 Holiday Gift Guide for Bilingual Kids. This very unique gift guide includes Toys with English and Spanish features, our Favorites (De todo un poco) and Ana and Roxana’s Picks - our co-founders and experienced bilingual moms share their must-haves. Plus, check out the non profit organizations we’re featuring, spread the love this holiday season and donate to those who need it the most.

Click here to check out (and share!) SpanglishBaby’s 2013 Holiday Gift Guide for Bilingual Kids!

The Giveaway!

You know we love to share the love, so to celebrate the holidays we have a huge giveaway of some of our favorite items from our  2013 Holiday Gift Guide for Bilingual Kids!  ONE lucky winner will get one of each of these gifts featured below. The total value of this prize is over $450 USD!!

Looking for a decorative, yet educational and classy gift? Customizable World Maps by Children Inspire Design are perfect for a child’s room or anywhere in the house, really! Place your heart anywhere in the world where your’s belongs… (ARV $60.00)

Baby Alive Baby All Gone Bilingual by Hasbro - By holding her wrist down for a few seconds you can switch from English to Spanish! Doll comes with an outfit, bananas, spoon, bowl and a sippy cup. So sweet! (ARV $36.95)

The Dual Language Translator by Ingenio is perfect for your preschool aged kid. It includes 17 double-sided cards with useful everyday words including numbers, shapes, weather and much more. ¡Vamos a aprender español! (ARV $16.99)

We just love MamaYala’s creations! With the MamaYala Flash Cards  the whole family can play and learn vocabulary from Latin America and Spain. Includes a 100% cotton & customizable carrying bag, ¡Qué cute! (ARV $15.95)

You and your familia are going to love the Celebrations Around the World Activity Box by Lakeshore. You will have materials to celebrate five holidays: Cinco de Mayo, Kwanzaa, Diwali, Chinese New Year and Independence Day.  How cool is that?! (ARV $34.99)

The Orphaned Earring is a non-profit blog dedicated to bringing arts and crafts, school supplies as well as year-round festivities to four orphanages in Latin America, Nicaragua, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico through the sales of hand-made bracelets from donated orphaned earrings. The winner will receive a set of two bracelets. (ARV $15.00)

For kids ages 3-6 Ladybug en español is an excellent reading tool, plus your child will love the illustrations! Read our review A Magazine for Children: Ladybug en Español. The winner will receive a one-year subscription of both the print and digital publications of Ladybug en español, Ask en español and Babybug en español. (ARV of over $150 USD)

As soon as you arrive home from the hospital play Spanish lullabies to your sweet baby with  Twilight Turtle Tunes! With wireless Bluetooth technology you can get the Premium app (available for $1.99) and play your mix of canciones de cuna to soothe your precious bebé. (Prize only includes one Twilight Turtle Tunes, Premium app not included.) (ARV $51.95)

For ages 3-12 Baking Around The World Kit by Handstandkids is the perfect gift for kids who love to cook and bake (and for those who might like to!) With recipes from around the world, our young bakers will enjoy learning about other cultures’ sweets. Yummy! (ARV $25.00)

Lanugo — La Sinfonía de… includes a unique personalized CD with your child’s name sang in each fun & engaging song! Plus the CD comes with your child’s name printed on it, as well as with a set of stickers — we love it! (ARV $14.99)

Se habla Spanglish Tee by Dos Borreguitas - We can’t say the word Spanglish enough so we’d like to wear it as well! This makes a great gift for your mamá, hija, tía, or anyone in your Spanglish familia! (ARV $20.00)

Little Passports‘ mission is to inspire children to learn about the world. Kids can get a package every month with country-specific souvenirs, stickers, photos, activity sheets and much more! Recommended for ages 5-10 years old. Yes, you can raise a world traveler and explorador! Winner will receive a 1-month subscription. (ARV $10.95)

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This week’s round-up of Spanish activities and resources features a little bit of everything to get our bilingual kids in the school spirit. The activities feature printables and projects that are similar to projects they might do in school with the added benefit that they are in Spanish.

Back to School en Español // School Supply Flashcards in Spanish

Kali of For The Love of Spanish is ready for the new school seasons and has shared theses back-to-school  flashcards in Spanish to help us all prepare. The cards feature school materials and include the name in Spanish along with the pronunciations and English words for the materials. Click here for the post featuring the printable versions of the school supply flashcards.

Dollar Store Inspiration

Bitty Bilinguals shared their dollar store finds along with printables for their readers in Spanish. Click here for a squiggle story printable and to read about how these templates work in the classroom and at home.

Como Hacer Un Volcán

We’ve all had to do the volcano project at some point in our elementary school years. That’s why we love this DIY volcano project by Adriana of Hogar Mujer. The instructions and materials needed for this project are in Spanish which adds another educational element to this project, the opportunity to practice Español !

The Letter M Counting Book in Spanish {Printable}

Monica of Mommy Maestra shared these awesome Spanish printables featuring the letter “M” which encourages kids to count. Click here to find Mommy Maestra’s post featuring the Spanish printables.

Spanish Listening Practice – Adivina la palabra

Spanish Playground shared a fun and simple game to practice spanish vocabulary in which kids guess the word being described. Click here for a list of Spanish vocabulary and clues to play.

When I first heard of snail painting I thought this would be an awesome way to introduce painting to my boys.  They love icky, slimy critters and they like to get messy.

Slugs in Spanish are Babosas

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find snails, caracoles, here in Ecuador so we went with babosas. My patio is regularly filled with these unwanted guest so why not have some fun with them.  We usually don’t see them out during the day but today was our lucky day. My 2 year old was immediately intrigued and they watched them intently for 15 minutes.

Here’s our slug painting:

This was the finished product before it crawled away when we weren’t watching.

Here’s the snail painting from Creative Flourishes. I really like the fat lines the snails create as they crawl around the page.

What’s summer without a good book to read while lounging under a tree? As relaxing as it sounds sometimes reading is not what our kids have in mind for their summer vacation. This week we are sharing fun activities that will get niños excited about reading, communicating, and learning about animals and insects  in Spanish. Check out each activity below and just click on the links for the full description.

35+ Ways to Keep Your Child Excited About Reading

Latinas for Latino Literature shares a list of 40 simple and easy ways to keep our niños excited about reading. These are great tips to show our kids that reading is fun and not just for homework. Check out their list and make sure to check out their summer reading program for kids!

Printable Spanish Questions with Pictures – Una Preguntita 7

Spanish Playground is currently sharing a series called Una Preguntita which encourages kids to practice their Spanish language skills. Each post in this series comes with a set of questions that parents or teachers can ask and a worksheet with images (see above) so that kids can either point or circle the correct answer. Click here for the latest post in this series and the printable version of this activity. 

Proyecto de Trabajo: Las Obejas

Actividades Infantil is sharing 10 printable activity sheets for our bilingual kids to enjoy that are all about bees. These activity sheets encourage kids to solve math problems, learns a few facts about bees and honey, and learn new vocabulary words.

Learning Spanish at the Zoo: Animals (Animales)

The zoo is a fun and educational place for our kids. Why not make it a Spanish learning experience too! Frances of Discovering the World Through My Sons Eyes shares a simple and fun way for our kids to learn the names of the animals at the zoo in Spanish. Click here for a full description of this fun activity and resources.

Manualidades con Niños: Cuadros Reciclados

Reina of Soy Mama En Casa shares this cute and simple DIY to make a decorative craft  from recycled materials. We love this craft because it is a great way to relax and enjoy a conversation with our kids.

This is a sponsored post brought to you by Walmart. ¡Gracias!

The kids are so excited for our Fourth of July celebration. This year we will not be purchasing fireworks because our neighborhood has banned the use of fireworks. We are totally ok with that because we know we will be able to watch big fireworks in the sky put on our town.

To get started with the celebration I wanted to have the kids create something that would remind them of the years past.

I thought it would be really cool to do flameless DIY celebration sparklers. Now wouldn’t those be cool to celebrate our countries Independence Day? While they aren’t your typical sparklers, they are pretty cool and so easy to make!

Here is what you need to make your own Celebration Sparkelers:

1-Round dowels or wooden sticks. Walmart has a great price on 16 sticks for $.97

2-Scissors

3-Tape. Clear tape works best

4-Cellophane in your color of choice

5-Curling ribbon

6-Styrofoam balls. Walmart has a bag of 12pc for $4.97

Let’s get started!

1. Cut your cellophane to 4×4 squares and 3×3 squares. You will need about four of each so a total of eight cellophane squares.

2. Choose your foam ball. We used one of the smallest. Insert the stick and wrap with a larger square. Secure with tape.

3. Starting with the smaller squares first, make a slint in the center of the celephane squares. Slide stick thru from the bottom to the top at the base of the foam ball and wrap around and secure. See image above.

4. Continue adding all sqaures and securing each with tape at the base.

5. Lastly, decorate the stick with ribbon. Starting at the top, wrap around and secure with tape.

¡A celebrar se ha dicho! Let’s celebrate!!!

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. Click here for more details and a printable version of this activity.

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. Click here for more ideas and the free printable.

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. Click here for a full description of this activity and more ideas.

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. Click here for the full description of this fun kids activity.

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!

I’m so excited to share this video project I was hired to host for eHow on their Mom channel. We shot a total of 10 videos all under the main theme of Get Involved. As a mom raising a bilingual and bicultural child, I’m well aware of how important it is for us to be completely involved in how and what our children are learning. Everything from the music and apps we choose for them, to making sure the DVD is being played with the Spanish track on, to making huge sacrifices to immerse them through travel and education, being involved, present and having a commitment is key.

And now that my girl is on her first official summer break (she’s a kinder graduate!), videos like these below are helping spark the creative flame to fill in those long summer days with fun, memorable and educational activities.

There are 10 videos in total as part of the series:

1. Fun Lessons With Common Household Items – With these simple crafts projects, you can teach your children about everything from music to nature to light and color.

2. Making Music From Natural Objects – Show your kids how to make musical instruments using common objects found in nature like grass, twigs, rocks and fruits and veggies.

3. Raising Kids Who Care: Volunteer Opportunities for Kids – This simple advice will help you select the best volunteer opportunities for your children.

4. Sneaky Ways to Boost Problem Solving Skills for Kids – These three activities help teach your children essential problem-solving skills.

5. Taking Math Outside: Sidewalk Chalk Math – Do your kids dread doing their math homework? Make it fun by doing math problems with sidewalk chalk outdoors.

6. Childhood Startup: Teaching Your Child About Money – These simple activities teach your children how to save money, make financial goals and become financially responsible.

7. Fun Science Experiments You Can Do with Your Child – Using common household ingredients, you can create safe science experiments that teach your children about density, chemical reactions and more.

8. Fun Science Activity for Kids: Making Elephant Toothpaste – This delightful experiment teaches kids about chemical reactions.

9. Fun Science Activity for Kids: Making a Lava Lamp – Using common household ingredients, your kids can create a homemade lava lamp.

10. Fun Science Activity for Kids: The Parachute Egg Challenge – This fun experiment teaches kids about gravity and air resistance.

Ana’s note: The holidays are still going strong in our households as we await la llegada de los Reyes Magos! Last week we brought you a recipe for a yummy Rosca de Reyes and today we asked Ruby to share with us another cute Reyes Magos craft since the one she did for us last year was such a hit! She went to Walmart for all her supplies to create with her two kids this super cute, simple and affordable Reyes Magos Felt Board Finger Puppets. 

To create your own you will need:

1-Tacky Glue

2-Felt in at least 8 colors*

3-Template- download below

4-Markers that will stay on felt; usually all permanent markers work

5-Scissors

6-A frame(We got ours at Walmart for less than $5)

7- One or two felt pieces measuring the width of your frame for felt board background*

* We purchased a 12pk of multi-colored felt at Walmart for less than $3

Let’s get started!

1-Download, print and cut out the pieces to your template

2-Start with the body. You will need 6 pieces 2 for each king. Use 3 different felt colors one for each king.

3-Add glue to one part of the body only around the edge but not on the bottom leaving room to insert finger once dried.

4-Cut the face out using a skin colored felt. Glue face and add a face using your markers. Repeat two more times.

5-Cut a beard using the template and adhere around the face of your king. Repeat 2 more times.

6-Add a hair piece to 2 kings. 1 king will need a different colored hair piece that will become a turbin for his crown. Do the same for the crowns and adhere.

Wait for them to dry and Done!

Felt Board Frame:

We can’t take credit for this awesome idea we found on pinterest. Using an 8×10 frame from Walmart we used felt to create a scenery. We placed the felt pieces then the glass and the backing of the frame. It makes the perfect Felt Board !

Use your Reyes Mago Felt Board Finger Puppets to tell the story of the Tres Reyes Magos. Kids will be sure to enjoy this Reyes Magos craft!

Find more Día de los Reyes Magos inspiration on our Pinterest board!

Disclosure: We are thankful to Walmart for their sponsorship of SpanglishBaby.

I’m officially on vacation… and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t plan on doing much the next two weeks, except spend lots of time with my kids and my husband doing pretty much NADA!

But before I sign-off until 2013, I just wanted to share with you some of the great Christmas content we’ve gathered throughout the years since we launched SpanglishBaby. After all, this is the fourth holiday season we’re celebrating! From posts about how we celebrate La Navidad in our bilingual and bicultural households to really cool Christmas-related activities and yummy recipes, there’s something for everyone, so check it out:

POSTS ABOUT CULTURE/TRADITIONS:

A Christmas Gift: 9 Villancicos Navideños {Printable Lyrics PDF}

Christmas Carols for Posadas – Villancicos Para Pedir Posadas {Printable}

Celebrating Las Posadas: From Mexico to the US

Navidad in El Salvador

A Bicultural Christmas Photo — We asked our regular contributors to share one photo that represents Christmas for their families.

Posadas in Mexico: The Largest Nativity Scene in the World

Santa Claus: Does It Matter What Color He Is or What Language He Speaks?

A Mexican Holiday in Pictures

Your Bicultural Holiday Traditions — A series of posts written by bloggers and our contributors exploring how the holidays are celebrated in their bilingual and bicultural casitas.

A Multicultural Noche Buena Feast

POSTS ABOUT ACTIVITIES:

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas Bath Fun: Christmas Kids Activity

Christmas Party Favor: Snowman Play Dough

Burrito Sabanero Puppets on a Stick {Holiday Craft}

Christmas Activity for Kids: Snowman Bowling

Christmas Activity Sheets in Spanish {Printable}

Poinsettia Craft {Printable Activity}

POSTS ABOUT FOOD:

Gluten-Free Quinoa, Almond and Sherry Cake — Christmas with a Twist

Christmas Baking with Kids: Gingerbread Man

Choco-Mint Christmas Cookies

Last Minute Holiday Drink: Warm Winter Margarita

MERRY CHRISTMAS! ¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!

{Photo by jcortehals}

One of my biggest tasks is to keep the kids entertained while the family is busy cooking and preparing everything during the holidays.

Lately the trend has been these amazing glittered body art designs. I like to think of them as the modern face paintings.

Not only are these fun and festive but the designs are endless.

While my son was excited about getting fall leaves, my daughter requested a rainbow turkey.

Since we didn’t use body glue (which lasts 3-7 days), we tried out a more temporary adhesive for a day of wearing our designs.

I am sure this will be a hit with the kids this holiday!

To make your own Glitter Holiday body art designs here is what you need:

Supplies

1-Fine glitter

2-Elmer’s Glue

3-Makeup sponge

4-Dry brush

5-Paint brush

I’ve created this easy-to-follow-along video so you can see how we got our design started. Follow along with the video or the steps below.

Instructions

1- Clean the area where you will place your design

2- Using the paint brush, apply your glue

3-To make the turkey like we did start with 2 circular shapes to form a turkey

4-Tap on the glitter using the same glue brush

5-Tap off the excess glitter

6-Using the makeup sponge firmly press down on design

7-Use the dry brush to remove any unwanted glitter surrounding your design.

8-Repeat the steps to finish your design.

9- We added 4 fathers to our turkey. Apply one at a time. We also added eyes and a beak.

Enjoy creating these designs. We hope they are a hit with the kids at your next holiday gathering!