This year, as a Windows Champion Ambassador on behalf of SpanglishBaby, I will be exploring all this new platform has to offer you, with a focus on information, tips, and apps for bilingual families.

For this second post I promised to show you some Windows 8 apps which aren’t intended for bilingual learning, but which can be used that way nonetheless. Here’s a video that will take you through our 4 favorite apps, and then details along with links to each app down below!

4 Favorite Windows 8 Apps for Practicing Spanish – (which weren’t meant for practicing Spanish)

1. Fresh Paint – We use the Fresh Paint app to play our own version of picture charades. The first player draws a picture and the second player guesses what it is by writing the word in Spanish, (or other target language), on the screen. If your child can’t yet read and write, they can instead simply guess the picture aloud. Price: FREE

2. Bing Travel – We wish we could travel at least once a year to El Salvador and other places in Latin America to practice our Spanish, but Bing Travel is a fun, free substitute. You can travel the world and learn about all kinds of different places. Our favorite feature is the 360 Cities Panoramas which make you feel like you’re really there. (You can even physically move around with your device to navigate the panoramic picture!) … While we “travel” to the different locations, we talk about them in Spanish. Price: FREE

3. TuneIn – Getting tired of listening to the same playlist or CDs and having trouble tuning in to anything other than English-language radio stations? The TuneIn app literally opens up the entire world of radio stations to you. You can search by language or region. We have a lot of fun listening to DJs and music from all over Latin America and beyond. Price: FREE

4. Wordament – This game is an excellent brain workout in English or Spanish but is best suited to 10 years and up. It’s challenging to find a substantial amount of words within the allotted time, and you’ll be surprised by the new vocabulary you and your child learn! Price: FREE

Stay tuned for my next post! I’m not sure what I’ll talk about yet since we’re still exploring and discovering new things with Windows 8. We may make up more games in Fresh Paint or learn to play the touchscreen marimba – ¡Vamos a ver!

Disclosure: I am part of the Windows Champions Program. As a Windows Champion, I am loaned a laptop, and, on occasion, Microsoft products such as software to assist me in developing content for my blog posts. All opinions are my own. 

Image source: itupictures

We just love the holiday season because it’s such a great time to of year to celebrate with all of you and to make some great giveaways available to you!

For the last months I’ve been writing for Time to Play Magazine about bilingual and bicultural toys and games because we go as far as we can to spread our message.

Here are my articles:

5 Ways to Discover Other Cultures Through Play

5 Apps to Expose Your Kids to the Spanish Language

The Importance of Play to Teach Your Child a Second Language

Time to Play has offered to give away to one SpanglishBaby reader a huge prize pack with some amazing toys to make your holiday even merrier!

One of you will win one of each of the toys below!

LeapPad2 Explorer , $99.00

Perplexus Maze Game, $24.99

WWE Rumblers Apptivity Rey Misterio, $11.90

Pony Royale, $14.99

Barbie Collector Dolls of the World – Mexico, $41.99

For a retail value of over $200!

We also invite you to find live online pricing details of the hottest toys and games with the new price comparison tool on Time to Play .

The Giveaway!

One winner will receive a prize pack worth over $200 with all of the toys mentioned and pictured above. Just leave us a comment telling us who you’d like to share these toys with, then enter the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Watch any gamer in action and you’ll see a firsthand demonstration of how the learning curve actually works.  Because video games can be so engaging and addictive, the challenge has become how to harness their power to facilitate and support learning.  The result is gamification in education.  This concept has enormous potential to revamp traditional teaching techniques while pushing students to reach greater levels of personal achievement.  It can also be a vehicle whose long term effect will be to create and develop a desire to learn within the student.  Gamification in education is currently enjoying rapid success at all grade levels and in a variety of academic disciplines.

Fact: over 5 million students spend 45 hours a week playing video games. Worldwide, we spend 3 billion hours a week in front of a computer or gaming device.

As our youth increase access to these devices, with the proper strategy, this can be an opportunity for us to transition our children from unproductive gaming to educational gaming.

Research has shown that in any learning situation, students are typically more engaged when they face a challenge that they feel they can meet.  Naturally, to be effective, the level of challenge should match the student’s skill level. If the task is too difficult, the student may give up quickly, and if it is too easy, the student may lose interest.  We know that students also benefit from multilevel games which become progressively more complex and challenging. Therefore, an effective game allows students the option to begin at varying levels of challenge and gradually increase the level of difficulty.  This is the heart of gamification in education.

As the use of gamification gains momentum, some nursery schools are making computer labs an integral part of their curriculum.  Using gamification to reinforce basic concepts of early childhood education has proven to be very effective and inspiring for the young students.  At the more mature end of the gamification spectrum, at a private school in Sweden, students are tasked with creating online games about themselves.  In this way they not only learn about gaming and success factors in game design, but they also gain insight into incentives and motivations which translates into corporate level business applications.

In response to the need for improved language skills, a company out of San Diego, CA called Tiny Factory has developed a multi-language learning app for iPad, called Lingual.  In its initial launch, it has taken on the challenge of language education, focusing on English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese.  The app is being test marketed to varying age levels and has received enthusiastic responses.  You can help support Tiny Factory and language education on Lingual’s kickstarter campaign through November 9th.

Check out this video to get you excited:

Adiós, Goodbye, Zai hui

Michael Sacca founded Tiny Factory in 2009. Tiny Factory is an application design and development company based in San Diego. Currently, They’re focusing on building apps for the language education community. Bilingual Child is available in the App Store, and Lingual will be released December 2012.

{Photo by  flickingerbrad}

Since we’ve been sharing so many kid-centered apps with you lately, I thought it was time to find one that’s more versatile – for intermediate Spanish learners of all ages. Play & Learn Spanish HD from Selectsoft Publishing is an iPad app that packs a serious learning punch.

Use different scenes, such as the classroom or city streets, or choose categories, like numbers and body anatomy, to see and hear the corresponding common Spanish vocabulary. Each time you tap an item in “Learn Mode,” the word pops up on the bottom of the screen in both Spanish and English. In “Game Mode,” you will hear and see the word in Spanish and have to tap the correct item to win points in each section. Add multiple profiles to allow the whole family to take the quizzes individually and compete!

Kids can use this app to quiz themselves or simply explore the graphics, but teenagers and adults that are learning or refreshing their Spanish will benefit most from Play & Learn Spanish HD. Recommend this one to your friends who are desperate to learn Spanish or will soon be traveling to a Latin American country.

Find Play & Learn Spanish HD in iTunes

Available for iPad

Recommended for ages 4 and up

Price: $3.99

Check out Selectsoft’s website for more.

What’s better than a bilingual app? A bilingual app that relays a great moral! 2 Tigers, the latest storybook app from 33 Loretta Kids’ Books, is a fantastic way to introduce the topic of sibling rivalry. In the story, the younger of the two tigers, Delilah, is jealous of her big sister, Sophie. So, she tries to come up with something she can do that her sister can’t. Just like human siblings, the tigers fight and get in trouble. It would be a great one for an older sibling to read to a younger sibling, or for the whole family to talk about together.

Choose to have the story read aloud in English or Spanish, or just show the words so you can read it to your kids. Each page has adorable animations and sound effects, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny. Not to mention, muy lindos!

2 Tigers is an awesome addition to any iPad or iPhone app collection!

Find 2 Tigers in iTunes

Available for iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone

Recommended for ages 4 and up

Price: FREE

Check out the Vimeo book trailer for 2 Tigers

Have you ever looked at a foreign language textbook and not known where to begin? All those pages of vocabulary…

A great app by Noyo is helping us avoid the symptoms of Overwhelming Textbook Syndrome. This iPad app is overflowing with useful Spanish vocabulary – over 1800 words! Each of the eight themed sections has over 20 pages of labeled pictures with written vocabulary (in Spanish and English) that can be shown or hidden so that you can test yourself about the items in the picture. For further support, turn on the audio feature to hear each word pronounced. Then, complete the multiple-choice assessment at the end of each section to track your progress.

While it looks like a middle-school Spanish textbook, the vocabulary is extensive enough for adults who are still learning or brushing up on spelling and pronunciation. Review categories like “Los viajes” or “Las estaciones.” The kids will especially love “Los animales” and “Los deportes.”

The most appealing thing about this app is that it can be used for entertainment (what child doesn’t love tapping and interacting with colorful pictures?) and education. It truly lives up to Noyo’s slogan: “Picture-Perfect Language Learning.”

Find Noyo Spanish Vocab Builder – Beginner in iTunes

Available for iPad and Android

Recommended for Spanish learners in the first 3 years of language acquisition

Price: $7.99

Check out Noyo on Facebook

Apps that teach letters and numbers or read us interactive books are fun…but what about going above and beyond the basics? Now, we can have a companion in guiding our young readers (1^st – 3^rd graders) to an understanding of Spanish phonics and spelling. Spanish Word Wizard: Spanish Talking Movable Alphabet with Spell Check + Spelling Tests is a great app to supplement formal Spanish lessons, or as an introduction to the sounds of el alfabeto.

The Spanish version of the acclaimed Speak ‘N’ Spell for the iPad Generation, this app talks in customizable voices (your kids can change the pitch of the speaker’s voice), features cursive and block letters for practice recognizing both, and multiple levels of predefined spelling lists, as well as the option to create your own.

I particularly love that this app demonstrates the effect that accents have on Spanish words. If you choose an unaccented letter when an accent should in fact be used, you can hear how the word would sound without the accent. The app is comprehensive in its stress of the all-important stresses in the Spanish language!

Even my husband, a native Spanish speaker, found himself loving the challenge of spelling in a language he rarely uses for writing. It’s an excellent tool for all ages — like having your very own Spanish spelling bee at home!

Find Spanish Word Wizard: Spanish Talking Movable Alphabet with Spell Check + Spelling Tests!  in iTunes

Available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Recommended for ages 3 to 10

Price: $2.99

Check out L’Escapadou on Facebook and Twitter

We all want the best for our niños. We are careful about the food that they eat, the toys they play with, and of course strollers and car seats that we buy for them. When we hear that there has been a recall on a certain product that resembles one our kids have, we run to check if it’s the same as ours. It’s hard to keep track of our kids products and monitor their safety.

Recalls Plus allows us parents to create custom lists of our kids’s products, such as strollers, cribs and car seats and alerts us if there is a recall. Recalls Plus also alerts us on foods that get released with undeclared allergens or could cause major health issues due to salmonella or other harmful bacteria that can lead to food poisoning.

We will surely rest a little more at ease with an app like Recalls Plus, because it allows us to get the information that is vital and relevant to keep our family safe!

You can download Recalls Plus app today on iPhone, Android & Facebook

Our friends at Fisher Price are really in the mood to celebrate by the looks of this huge prize pack they´ve put together for ONE of you to take.

The Fisher Price Bicultural Birthdays Celebration prize includes four different toys with a total retail value of $235. These toys would make great presents for your little ones on their cumpleaños….or you can start stocking up for la Navidad!

Get ready to have a blast with Rock Star Mickey!  Your kid can boast to be one of the first ones to get his hands on this rocking Mickey which hits stores on September 6th.  Have fun watching your kid  dance, bop his head and sign along as Mickey jams out on his guitar and performs his signature move, the Mickety-Slip!

Moms won’t have to be the only ones cooking for birthdays and other special celebrations anymore! With Dora Fiesta Favorites Kitchen your kids can be part of the preparation too! This interactive kitchen includes recipes such as tacos and empanadas that Dora guides them through in both English and Spanish for hours of bilingual fun.

The Kid-Tough See Yourself Camera is perfect for any birthday celebration or special occasion in your kids life. This picture and video camera allows niños to capture special moments themselves and even OF themselves thanks to the rotating lens.  It also includes peace of minds for the parents because you can rest assured it will survive drop after drop. The Kid-Tough See Yourself Camera also includes fun stamper and distortion effects for the pictures on the camera.

Finally, the Laugh and Learn Apptivity Case is made to fit your baby´s hands so she can enjoy your iPhone or iPod without you having to worry about damage or sticky fingers on your gadgets. The durable rubber case is easy for your baby to hold and play with, and it´s fun for them even when there isn’t a device inside. Your baby can enjoy the rattle beads on the handles and a mirror on the back when you need to make a call.  Fisher Price has even created Laugh and Learn apps you can download at the iTunes store.  

The Giveaway!

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to the winner: Harriett!

We’re giving away one huge Fisher Price gift pack (RV $235) with all the products you saw above to one very, very lucky winner.  To enter just tell us which one of the Fisher Price toys in the gift pack you´re the most excited about and why.

That’s all you have to do to enter this giveaway. If you want to up your chances at winning, then this is how you can get additional entries (only after you’ve completed the step above):

**Please leave a separate comment for each so we can count them and avoid mistakes.

1. Subscribe to receive blog updates and subscriber-only content via email and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so or that you’re already a subscriber. Make sure to leave the comment using the same email you subscribed with.

2. Follow us on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway including a link to the post, @SpanglishBaby and the hashtag #BiculturalBirthdays. Copy the link to the tweet in an additional comment on the giveaway’s post.

3. Like SpanglishBaby on Facebook and join a thriving community of parents.

This giveaway ends Wednesday, August 10 at midnight PST and is open to everyone with a U.S. mailing address over 18 years of age. Check out the Giveaway Rules.

Wow..this was a short month! I feel I just finished writing last month´s, and the first one in the series, Educational Apps of the Month post. As I mentioned last time, most of the apps we´ve reviewed are for the iTunes apps platform just because that is what I use. However, Susan jumped in on the apps game and wrote a review of several Android apps for bilingual kids. Check it out.

Now on to our Educational Apps spotlight for February…

This month, TodoBebé–a leading global mom and family media company and creators of Viva La Famila (Univision)–launched a set of four apps, in Spanish and Portuguese, for children. These are all available only for the iPhone and iPad, but the Android versions are currently in development. They are:

1. TodoColores {$1.99}

This is your typical digital coloring book, but with the option of listening to the audio in Spanish or Portuguese. If you choose Aprende los Colores from the main menu, you will be taken to a color palette where your child can press on the color he likes and hear a voice say the name of the color and an object, with an accompanying picture, that represents it. If you choose Colorea, you’re taken to a vertical slide of fruits, animals and objects to paint. The images are simple and large enough for a toddler to be able to use. I love that you can brag about your pequeños digital art masterpiece by sending it via email, FB or Twitter. Go, flaunt it!

2. Oir+Aprender {$1.99}

This apps name describes perfectly what children will do with it: listen (Oir) to sounds and learn (Aprender) about them.  Sounds are divided into categories: transportation, animals, nature, home sounds, instruments and wild animals. The “Escuchar” game lets your kid press her finger on a figure and hear it make a sound.  The other option, “Identificar”, reverses the play by making the sound first and asking her to press on the figure that makes that sound.  Very simple, yet incredibly interactive.  Just make sure you´re not expecting a quiet moment because your child will most likely start growling like a león!

3. TodoFoto {Free}

Kids love seeing themselves on any screen.  With TodoFoto you can easily add frames and seals to your child´s beaming face and share it with friends and family via Facebook, Twitter and email.  The options for frames and seals is still very limited, but we hope to see more in future updates.  It would be great if the kids could add stickers and bling to the frames themselves.

4. Leer + Escribir {$2.99}

I had been looking exactly for an app like this since my daughter is starting to learn to write letters and numbers, as well as recognizing them.  Leer+Escribir gives you two learning options: Concepts and Writing.  With Concepts your child will hear a voice prompting them to press on the image that starts with the letter (or the number, if on that mode) on the screen.  I wished that the voice pronounced the letter when prompting, but she says it after the child has identified the corresponding object.  The illustrations are very clean, colorful and attractive for children.

On the Escribir game, children can learn how to trace letters and numbers.

I did find one more bilingual app that´s an extremely simple one to keep your younger toddlers entertained with safari animals:

BabySafari {$0.99}

I see this app in the hands of toddlers that don’t know how to use the touchscreen yet, but can be entertained by watching safari animals pop out while the background scrolls vertically. If they randomly touch the screen, they will get cute surprises. Make sure that you go to your devices main settings area to set this app to function in Spanish mode.

You´re next.  Have you found any educational kids apps–iTunes or Android–that you´re loving?  Please share with us!