Cinco de Mayo is almost here! For those of us who will be celebrating this day, whether it just be with the family or with friends and neighbors  we want to share a super cute Cinco de Mayo party kit. What’s awesome about this party kit is that it’s printable! No need to run around town collecting decorations or rush ordering things. This festive party kit is great for niños and grown-ups alike.

The party kit includes invites, cupcake wrappers and toppers, popcorn boxes, play figures and ornaments, a loteria game, garlands, party signs and more. The kit even includes tutorials and templates for mini piñatas! This awesome little party kit was created by Happythought  and it is only $5 ! You can purchase it here. 

Happythought wants to offer SpanglishBaby readers a special discount of 50% off you purchase! All you have to do is enter this code when purchasing: SPANGLISHBABY

This weekend the kids and I are preparing to attend our first ever Festival to celebrate Mexican Independence Day! With the Fiestas Patrias coming up I felt it was only right to teach the kids a little more of our Mexican culture and so we’re crafting for Hispanic Heritage Month!

Since we will be attending a festival that is said to have a parade, what better way to show our pride then by waving colorful Papel Picado Flags!

Papel picado is one of the most used decorations in the Mexican culture. While it has become a modern trend at weddings and birthday parties, these stenciled tissue papers are usually hung like streamers. To have them on a little flag is not only cute, but very easy for kids to celebrate with!

To make some of your own here is what you will need:

-Tissue paper

-Wooden sticks

-Scissors- decorative and/or  regular

-adhesive- we used dots

Let’s get started:

1- Fold your tissue paper (appx. 8×10 in size) and fold in 5ths

2-Folding only in 4th and leaving the 5th portion off cut the bottoms in decorative form. We used zigzag scissors.

3- Cut shapes, Like  half circles, at the fold. Remember not to cut the fold off completely this will cut your flag in to pieces.

4- Open it up half way and do the same. The more cuts the more decoration on your flag!

5- Open up your flag and place adhseive on the stick directly. I found that if you roll the stick onto the tissue flag that it is easier to secure.

All done with your Banderita! Repeat with different colors and enjoy!

Now Let’s Celebrate!

My good friend Sisi — the mastermind behind our Spanish book club — has been hosting a Fourth of July parade for the kids for the past three years. I had never been able to take my kids because of work until this year… and I’m so happy we finally did. The kids had a blast decorating their bikes and wagons and when everyone was ready Sisi turned on the Sousa marches (that reminded me so much of my dad) and they were off!

We normally celebrate July 4th by going to watch the fireworks display in our town, but since the beautiful state of Colorado is burning, they’ve all been pretty much cancelled. So this year we’ll just stay home and read some of the books in Chelsea’s awesome list of Independence Day children’s book recommendations.

I’m glad we joined Sisi and all the other kids in the third annual Fourth of July parade and I hope this is one of those traditions my bicultural kids and I will be doing for many years to come! Gracias, Sisi!

Happy Fourth of July to all!

“International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.”

Don’t you love the intent behind this celebration?  A day to recognize the importance of nurturing our mother tongue as a bridge to our heritage and our culture.  A day to create bridges not only to our own mother culture, but also to the myriad diverse cultures, languages,  and traditions. By being aware, and teaching our kids, of how ethnically and linguistically diverse our world is we create tolerance and understanding amongst us.

We encourage you to celebrate your mother tongue, multilingual education and your love for languages and cultures today and every day!

PS:  You may download the official poster here.

Photo by AndrewEick

In honor of my daughter, Vanessa, who turns 4 years today, I’m re-posting this article from July 16, 2009, so I can spend the day having fun with my bilingual child. ¡Feliz Cumpleaños, hija linda!

I absolutely love summer…for a lot of reasons, but mainly because my daughter is a summer baby which means we get to celebrate her cumpleaños outdoors in the melting heat (as opposed to indoors hiding from the snow.) In fact, both Vanessa and Camila (and now even my son, Santiago) were born pretty much in the middle of the summer, so both Ana and I will be celebrating their birthdays pretty soon.

This got me thinking about a little tradition we have at our house regarding the songs we sing when it’s someone’s birthday. It all started even way before Vanessa was born almost three years ago. As I’ve mentioned in the past, my husband is from Puerto Rico and I’m from Perú, which means we sing completely different songs when celebrating birthdays.

My version goes something like this (to the beat of Happy Birthday):

Cumpleaños feliz,

te deseamos a ti,

cumpleaños (fulanito),

qué los cumplas feliz!

My husband’s version has nothing to do with the original Happy Birthday song. It goes something like this:

Feliz, feliz en tu día

amiguito, que Dios te bendiga

que reine la paz en tu vida

y que cumplas muchos más

We always sing the traditional Happy Birthday and then since our friends are pretty much from all over South America, we kind of go around the table asking each one to sing their version. It takes a while, but it’s fun to hear everyone else’s interpretation.

And, even if there are no Mexicans in the house, we ALWAYS sing “Las Mañanitas“. One, because I like it and two because I spent part of my childhood in México and I just got used to it. In case you don’t know the lyrics to that one, here goes the first part:

Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey David

Hoy por ser día de tu santo, te las cantamos a ti.

Despierta mi bien despierta

Mira que ya ameneció

Ya los pajaritos cantan

La luna ya se metió.

If you want to know what other countries – not limited to South America – sing around the birthday cake, check this out. I thought it was pretty cool.

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to cumpleaños…there’s the whole other topic of  the different names we have for the birthday “cake” in Spanish (pastel, torta, bizcocho, queque – for starters), as well as the different ways we actually celebrate one. So why don’t you please share your traditions with us so we can all learn something new .

Growing up, I definitely remember celebrating El Día del Niño. I don’t particularly remember the date of this celebration, but that’s probably because it takes place on a different date in each of the Latin American countries I lived in as a child – Perú, México and Argentina. I do remember, however; that it was “our” day and everything revolved around us, just like when everything revolves around mami on Mother’s or papi on Father’s Day.

I hadn’t really paid too much attention to celebrating this day here in the States, but thanks to all the research associated with putting together this blog and the fact that Vanessa is now old enough to enjoy this type of celebration, I was thrilled when I found out about El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros – which turns 13 years old today and is the brainchild of award-winning bilingual children’s author, Pat Mora – not only because it celebrates a los niños, but also one of my favorite things in the whole world: LIBROS!

In Mora’s words,  she created Día (as this celebration is known) in an effort to “link all children to books, languages and cultures.” This is how Mora, a native from El Paso, Texas, describes how the idea was born: “As a mom, I knew that children often ask, ‘Why do we have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and not Children’s Day?’ As a reader, I wanted (and want) to foster ‘bookjoy.’ Ah-ha, I thought. What if we link a celebration of children with literacy, an issue central to the well-being of children.”

Let’s Celebrate!

Today, April 30th, is the culmination of a month long celebration of children and books sponsored mostly by public and school libraries, museums, community centers and bookstores around the country. I know that in Colorado, where I live, there have been a series of events throughout the state and that more than 400 libraries nationwide have posted their celebrations at Día’s official website. But even if you can’t find any events near you, the main idea behind Día is that we all encourage our children to read and our libraries to reflect this country’s diversity.

Pat Mora - Photo by Cheron Bayna

“When the idea for Día came to me from above in the spring of 1996, I had been writing first for adults and then for children, and I noticed that books by Latinos and about Latinos were not being published and supported as they should be given our demographics,” Mora said via email from her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, right before she left to participate in Día celebrations across the United States. “One in four children under five today in the U.S. is Latino, yet only 2% of the children’s books published are by or about Latinos.”

Mora, who was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, has written more than 25 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for adults and children – many of them bilingual.

So what else can we do to help change this? The simplest answer: READ, READ AND READ. I love the idea that Ana came up with to start a tradition to buy Camila a new Spanish-language book every year on this date, El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros. So I copied her idea and went and got none other than Pat Mora’s beautifully illustrated Book Fiesta! – her latest bilingual children’s book.

When I read the title to Vanessa, she got really excited and asked: “una fieta, ¿pa mi?” And I told her that indeed, it was a party for her because it was her day, El Día de los Niños! Both my daughter and I were enthralled by the intense colors that jump off the pages to convey a simple message: Reading is fun!

Vanessa’s favorite page, by far, is the one with the big picture of the moon because she has to flip the book on its side to be able to read what it says:

Y en nuestras camitas                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      le leemos a la luna,

All About Books…

Book Fiesta is actually an expansion of the song Mora came up with a few years ago to celebrate Día. You can read the lyrics here. Another one of the great things about this book is that it includes a list of ideas for celebrating El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros, including:

Pat Mora @ 2008 U.S. Senate's Día Celebration

Host a Book Fiesta with food, music and games – but make sure books are at the center of your celebration!

• give away books as party favors or gifts
  
• select one book as the party theme and decorate accordingly
  
• help children dress up as their favorite books or characters
• include storytellers and puppet shows whenever possible
• make your own books and/or bookmarks

“I encourage parents to read to their children from the time they are little and to make that time a special time,” explains Mora. “It’s also important that children see us reading and that we make visits to the library and book stores pleasant events.”

I know for a fact that this is great advice. When I think of mi papá, the image of him holding a book always comes to mind. I never understood how he managed to find time to read, but he did and it made him happy. I’m infinitely grateful to him for showing my siblings and I that reading is awesome! I guess Mora was lucky to have a parent who thought so, too.

“I love to read, one of the many gifts my dear mom gave me. It’s a huge pleasure to share what we love” she told me. “Also, I know that literacy is power and essential in our democracy.”

¡A leer!

The Giveaway

As a special gift to SpanglishBaby readers, Pat Mora is giving away one autographed copy of  “Book Fiesta!” to one lucky visitor. ¡Gracias, Pat!

All you have to do is leave us a comment letting us know what you think about having a celebration like Día or what you do to celebrate books and reading with your children?

If you want to increase your chances of winning you can get additional entries by doing any of the following:

1. Subscribe to our feed by email and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so. Make sure to leave the comment using the same email you subscribed with.  And please make sure you verify the subscription when you receive the email to do so.

2.  Subscribe via RSS.  Once you do, or if you’re already a subscriber, email us the “Secret Phrase” at the bottom of the post to:  giveaways@spanglishbaby.com.

3. Blog or Tweet about this giveaway. Just make sure to send us the link in an additional comment below.

4.  Email 5 friends and BCC us to:  giveaways@spanglishbaby.com.  Don’t worry-we’ll never share or collect anyone’s emails.

For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Sunday, May 3rd 2009.  Good luck to all!

Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted.  Sorry, just need to keep  it fair…