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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When one of my daughter’s first words was D-d-d-dora I knew there was something special about this character. As a new mamá, I am watching children’s programs for the first time, getting to know what they are about and trying to figure out which are best for my daughter, Little L. Although she just turned 1, I do rely on some TV to help me with raising her bilingual. Little L’s exposure to Spanish is limited, and as I am away from most of my family and my country I appreciate all the help I can get — even when it comes from a 7-year-old cartoon character.

When it was time to plan her first birthday party and pick a theme, it was a no brainer: Dora the Explorer.

Not only does Little L adore Dora, I think she is an incredible role model for adults as well. Dora loves her familia and is proud of her culture; she is a great team player, cares for others, she is forgiving, adventurous but cautious, and is always trying to save the day. The fact that she is not only Latina but also bilingual just makes her even more extraordinary and a perfect example for Little L. I want my daughter to grow up with a kind heart like Dora’s and to be proud and confident to speak English, Spanish and why not Spanglish as well.

As a Latina food blogger I pay a lot of attention to the food I serve, so for this fiesta, I created a menu that was kid-friendly and that represented our Latino heritage. I took this as an opportunity to tell a story of our culture and language. Regardless of planning a Dora theme or not, we can all use food as a channel to engage and enrich our guests. To make the celebration and the menu more personal, I suggest you look into what matters most to you, what makes you unique and what you want to share about it. In this case, it was all about representing a side of Little L’s background that is friendly, lively, colorful, vibrant, diverse and welcoming. I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and although that is what I am most proud of about my heritage, I realize Little L is going to grow up in a country where she will be mostly seen of Latino descent not just Dominican. So I incorporated a menu that was going to give a tour of the Americas including other Latin American countries and the U.S.

The idea was to use the menu as a map (Dora’s map) for guests to go around the party almost like on a scavenger hunt looking for dishes and food items listed on the map. The labels for the food served were written in español and in English. We encouraged guests to try to read and say terms they were not familiar with out loud, can you say ‘agua’?. This exercise became a fun part of the party and fostered great discussions and lots of learning from both sides. I think it’s an idea that can be applied to any party, so I want to share the menu I created for you to use at your next Dora or Latin inspired theme party.

In this HungryFoodLove post, I have included recipes, ideas and a printable PDF version of the map for you to download. Enjoy!

To check out Melissa’s post with a printable of the map mentioned above click here

I can’t believe our first press tour is done and our Bilingual is Better launch party is over! Ana and I had such a packed schedule last week that it all felt a bit like a blur… until Thursday when the day of the fiesta arrived and we were beyond excited to be able to share our book with so many wonderful people, including a few celebrities and a lot of chiquititos! As well as a ton of media!

The party, beautifully put together by Zikei Events, had two major sponsors and today we’re bringing you highlights from one of them: Fisher-Price. But first let me start by telling you that the venue for the party was, simply put, perfecto! I’m sure those of you who live in South Florida have heard of Cool de Sac because I know that, as a mom of two little ones, if I had something similar near me, I would have a lifetime membership.

If you’ve never been, I think I should just let the photos explain what this awesome space is all about. Suffice it to say that there was not one kid in that place who wasn’t having a blast — especially with the awesome bilingual toys brought by Fisher-Price, which included those from their Laugh & Learn line, as well as the Potty Baby Dora and the Fantastic Gymnastics Dora.

The party was a huge success! We loved seeing so much support from so many people we love and meeting a bunch of news ones who, like us, believe that Bilingual is Better!

We have tons of photos from the event, but we figured the best way for all of you to enjoy them would be with a slideshow. So click away and enjoy!

[Show as slideshow]

My girl and I enjoyed our family visit to the Universal Orlando Resort so much last year, that we went back for more a few weeks ago during our trip to Florida. We´re so thankful we got to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel since Camila´s favorite water slide is there and it was a tough time getting her out of the pool! We were able to convince her by reminding her how much fun she had at Dr. Seuss´Landing at Islands of Adventures and at the Curious George water play area in Universal Studios. Not only that, but we got to check out the brand new Blue Man Group show and had even more of a blast this time.

What we didn´t get to do because we were there just a week too early is to check out the two brand new entertainment experiences Universal Orlando Resort just launched - Universal’s Superstar Parade and Universal’s Cinematic Spectacular.

It’s great to see the look on our niños faces when they get to meet their favorite animated characters in person, and they get to do just that when they visit Universal. The parade happens daily and features Dora, Diego, Boots and Baby Jaguar,  Spongebob and his Bikini Bottom friends, and characters from HOP and Despicable Me! During the day guests get to meet and take pictures will all the before mentioned characters.

We also missed out on getting to experience Universal’s Cinematic Spectacular – 100 Years of Movie Memories. This all new lagoon show, also at Universal Studios, features a collection of the best moments from iconic Universal pictures movies, which are all projected onto huge waterfall screens in an awe-inspiring show.

Check out the video below and get a little peek at these new additions:

photo: © 2012 Universal Orlando Resort. All rights reserved.

As we mentioned last week, this month marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of Dora the Explorer character—the energetic bilingual Latina girl loved by all children and their parents, but especially by those of us raising bilingual children. In honor of this milestone, Fisher Price just debuted a singing and dancing “We Did It” Dora doll that will put your niños a bailar—or at least that’s what happened at my house when she came out of the box!

The first thing my daughter loved was Dora’s long, silky black hair. She quickly figured out that to get Dora dancing, all she had to do was press the pink flower on one of her shoes. And so she did time and time again because each time the flower’s pressed, Dora does something different.

First she dishes out a few commands in both languages so kids can learn how to follow her in the “We Did It” dance using words like arriba and abajo often. I don’t know how she does it, but she had my daughter repeating the commands and following suit as soon as she turned her on.

Soon she had Vanessa playing the Freeze Dance game by giving her the following instructions:

“When I say baila, dance! When I say para, stop!”

This was, by far, my daughter’s favorite.

Although this is not the first time they come out with a dancing Dora doll, I think this is by far the most realistic. Her arms move up and down and she twists side to side with her long, beautiful hair swaying to the rhythm of the música. I have to say that I think it’s awesome that there’s a doll out there which allows my daughter to feel like she’s not the only one who speaks two languages out there!

In fact, Dora points it out in the Say it Two Ways bilingual dance game. So for example, she’ll start twisting and will say:

“Now twist! In English we say twist. In Spanish we say gira.”

I have to admit that both the music and the dance moves of the new doll are really contagious. So much so that each time my daughter turns her on, her baby brother, Santiago, can’t hold back and immediately starts to boogie!

Check him out here:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wdlgWuzKk

The Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all for entering. We’ll announce the winner shortly.

We’re giving away one “We Did It” Dora doll to one lucky winner just tell us why you want to win it and who’ll be playing with it.

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 our feed via email or RSS and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so or that you’re already a subscriber.

2. Follow us on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway including a link to the post.

3. Blog about this giveaway making sure to include our link, and you’ll get TWO additional entries.

This giveaway ends Sunday Sept., 5 at midnight EST and you must have a valid U.S. address to enter.

Disclosure: A sample product was provided for review purposes; all opinions are 100% ours. Check out our full Disclosure + Privacy Policy. If you click on a link above and it takes you to La Tiendita and you purchase a product, we will hear pennies fall in el cochinito.

Giveaway Rules.

Editor’s note: In honor of Dora the Explorer’s 10th birthday this month, here’s a post we originally published back on October 29, 2009 based on an interview with the co-creator of the Latina character with whom so many of our niños identify. ¡Felicidades, Dora!

FYI: Be on the lookout for a pretty cool Dora giveaway coming up very soon on our Finds section!

Her original name was not Dora and Latina she was not.

More than 10 years ago and after working with outside creators to come up with new ideas, Nickelodeon’s Valerie Walsh Valdes and Chris Gifford were given the opportunity of a lifetime: to develop their own show. This is what they thought up: a show about a preschool girl who has a bunch of animal friends and goes exploring every day. Her name was Tess.

But the network’s executives had other ideas. They had just come back from a conference which dealt with the fact that Latinos were the most underrepresented minority on television. What to do about it? Convert ‘Tess’ into a bilingual Latina girl called Dora. The problem? Neither Gifford nor Walsh Valdes were bilingual. So they hired a Latino writer and several Latino-savvy consultants, including Spanish language experts, and Dora the Explorer was born.

“We wanted to give an authentic cultural identity to the character, but also to the world around her,” said Walsh Valdes, the co-creator and executive producer of both Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go.

Making the character a 7-year-old bilingual Latina was Nickelodeon’s response to the lack of positive Latino roles in the media.

“The idea was to make learning a second language appealing,” explained Walsh Valdes. “We were trying to make that [being bilingual] into a positive, something you should be proud of.”

But the idea was also to make Dora universally appealing.

“We didn’t want to alienate audiences who don’t speak another language, who are not bilingual,” said Walsh Valdes.

Which is the reason why Dora the Explorer is not really about teaching Spanish, it’s more about a little girl who goes on a different adventure in each show and happens to be bilingual in English and Spanish. However, since learning at this stage of a child’s life is something fun, the creators of the show definitely take advantage of that, according to Walsh Valdes.

Preschoolers are introduced to a new Spanish word or phrase which Dora uses repeatedly throughout each particular episode. Although Walsh Valdes said they’ve never “claimed to be teaching Spanish,” countless parents around the country credit Dora the Explorer with helping their children learn lots of vocabulary in Spanish.

The show is not only insanely popular in the U.S. – according to Nickelodeon, it’s the top preschool show on all of commercial television – but also at the international level. And it might have to do with the fact that bilingualism is a pretty normal way of growing up in most of the rest of the world.

“It’s not just kids who speak Spanish that identify with Dora,” explained Walsh Valdes. “Other bilingual kids see themselves in her.”

The co-creator of this show credits its unthinkable success to a couple of reasons. The first one is that each show presents “really great stories for that age group” – universal stories that appeal to preschoolers no matter their background. The second one is the “interactive” nature of the show. In other words, the fact that Dora always asks for the audience’s help so the adventure can move along, hence the short silent period right after a question is asked.

Although my daughter, Vanessa, didn’t really start “watching” TV until after she turned two – meaning it’s only been about a year – I have noticed how much more motivated she is to respond to Dora’s request now that she is a little older and has a larger vocabulary.

Gifting her daughter with bilingualism

Ironically, even though Walsh Valdes is not bilingual – despite taking four years of high school Spanish, as she says – she is raising her 2-year-old daughter to be, thanks to the creation of Dora the Explorer. Remember the Latino writer they hired back when Dora was being created? She married him. So now, thanks to her Cuban-born husband and their Latina nanny, Walsh Valdes is experiencing first-hand the amazing ability of children to learn two languages at once.

“I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m learning more from my daughter than I ever did in high school,” Walsh Valdez shared. “My husband says she is as verbal in Spanish as she is in English, which is amazing!”

Her original name was not Dora and Latina she was not.

More than 10 years ago and after working with outside creators to come up with new ideas, Nickelodeon’s Valerie Walsh Valdes and Chris Gifford were given the opportunity of a lifetime: to develop their own show. This is what they thought up: a show about a preschool girl who has a bunch of animal friends and goes exploring every day. Her name was Tess.

But the network’s executives had other ideas. They had just come back from a conference which dealt with the fact that Latinos were the most underrepresented minority on television. What to do about it? Convert ‘Tess’ into a bilingual Latina girl called Dora. The problem? Neither Gifford nor Walsh Valdes were bilingual. So they hired a Latino writer and several Latino-savvy consultants, including Spanish language experts, and Dora the Explorer was born.

“We wanted to give an authentic cultural identity to the character, but also to the world around her,” said Walsh Valdes, the co-creator and executive producer of both Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go.

Making the character a 7-year-old bilingual Latina was Nickelodeon’s response to the lack of positive Latino roles in the media.

“The idea was to make learning a second language appealing,” explained Walsh Valdes. “We were trying to make that [being bilingual] into a positive, something you should be proud of.”

But the idea was also to make Dora universally appealing.

“We didn’t want to alienate audiences who don’t speak another language, who are not bilingual,” said Walsh Valdes.

Which is the reason why Dora the Explorer is not really about teaching Spanish, it’s more about a little girl who goes on a different adventure in each show and happens to be bilingual in English and Spanish. However, since learning at this stage of a child’s life is something fun, the creators of the show definitely take advantage of that, according to Walsh Valdes.

Preschoolers are introduced to a new Spanish word or phrase which Dora uses repeatedly throughout each particular episode. Although Walsh Valdes said they’ve never “claimed to be teaching Spanish,” countless parents around the country credit Dora the Explorer with helping their children learn lots of vocabulary in Spanish.

The show is not only insanely popular in the U.S. – according to Nickelodeon, it’s the top preschool show on all of commercial television – but also at the international level. And it might have to do with the fact that bilingualism is a pretty normal way of growing up in most of the rest of the world.

“It’s not just kids who speak Spanish that identify with Dora,” explained Walsh Valdes. “Other bilingual kids see themselves in her.”

The co-creator of this show credits its unthinkable success to a couple of reasons. The first one is that each show presents “really great stories for that age group” – universal stories that appeal to preschoolers no matter their background. The second one is the “interactive” nature of the show. In other words, the fact that Dora always asks for the audience’s help so the adventure can move along, hence the short silent period right after a question is asked.

Although my daughter, Vanessa, didn’t really start “watching” TV until after she turned two – meaning it’s only been about a year – I have noticed how much more motivated she is to respond to Dora’s request now that she is a little older and has a larger vocabulary.

Gifting her daughter with bilingualism

Ironically, even though Walsh Valdes is not bilingual – despite taking four years of high school Spanish, as she says – she is raising her 2-year-old daughter to be, thanks to the creation of Dora the Explorer. Remember the Latino writer they hired back when Dora was being created? She married him. So now, thanks to her Cuban-born husband and their Latina nanny, Walsh Valdes is experiencing first-hand the amazing ability of children to learn two languages at once.

“I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m learning more from my daughter than I ever did in high school,” Walsh Valdez shared. “My husband says she is as verbal in Spanish as she is in English, which is amazing!”

Valerie Walsh Valdez

VALERIE WALSH VALDES is creator and executive producer of preschool phenomenon Dora the Explorer.  She is also the creator and executive producer of Nick Jr.’s hit preschool series Go, Diego, Go!.
A graduate of New York University, Walsh Valdes earned a master’s degree in Film and Dramatic Writing, and a master’s degree in Education.  While at NYU, she was a member of the Creative Arts Team, an educational theater company dedicated to creating and performing issue-based dramas in New York City schools.  Walsh Valdes has also worked in independent film and theater and produced numerous short films, directed both theater and independent features, and written several screenplays.
Walsh Valdes lives in NY and LA with her husband and daughter.

FYI: We’re giving away FIVE copies of “Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom” – the latest special episode in the Dora the Explorer series which airs Sunday on Nickelodeon – over at our new sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. Don’t miss out!