The LéaLA Spanish book fair is returning on May 17th through 19th to the Los Angeles Convention Center for the third year in a row! We have been attending since the first year it came to LA and are more and more excited every year it comes back. It’s been great to see the success of this book fair and how much it grows each year. It truly shows that we, Angelenos and Latinos, love to read en Español and literacy matters a great deal to us.

This free, three day cultural event  will feature 100 publishers showcased in 200 booths which means plenty of opportunities to stock up on libros en español ! Whats great about LéaLA is that there are plenty of book presentations, workshops, and theatrical events for kids to keep them excited about learning and practicing Spanish. It’s also a great opportunity to connect with other Spanish-speaking families and have plenty of fun en español.

You can head out next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to this FREE cultural event and the Los Angeles Convention Center. For a printable version of the 2013 program click here.

In the meantime we’d like to share a few of the many highlights we are looking forward to this year at LéaLa:

• En español se oye más bonito – a workshop for parents and children all about reading en español and how fun it is!
• La calaca tilica y flaca – a Day of the Dead themed workshop where kids get to create a special craft to take home.
• Los muralistas- a workshop for kids where they learn about famous Latino muralists and kids get to create their own works of art.
• José-Luis Orozco – For our musical and dancing needs José-Luis Orozco will be present all three days.
• The many book presentations throughout the weekend including: La Casita, Trencitas, and La vuelta al mundo en cinco cuentos among many more!

We strongly encourage you to attend this wonderful event! I’ll be there with my family for the third year in a row for sure! You can also follow LéaLA on Twitter and Facebook.

Next week I will be representing SpanglishBaby at the Zimmer Children’s Museum on Wednesday, May 8^th from 2:30-5pm for a free afternoon of play that celebrates Latina motherhood!

I would love to meet some of you there!

Bring your kids and your Moms for a special afternoon where you will enjoy a bilingual concert by Birdie’s Playhouse, make a tea hat for Mami, and enjoy bilingual story time. Food will be provided by Chipotle. Yum!

Plus, each family present will be entered in a raffle to win a year-long membership to the Zimmer!

If you want to attend just go to this link HERE to register for free and leave me a comment below letting me know you’ll be there.

In December I got an email from Deepa Fernandes, early childhood development correspondent for 89.3 KPCC Public Radio in Southern California. She wanted to interview me and visit Camila’s elementary school because she was working on a series on bilingual education. The 3-part series finally airs this week and I got to listen to the first one live this morning. You can listen to it here or below.

The series called “Bilingual Learning: The science, options and dilemma of dual language education” started off today by showcasing the many dual language immersion early education and elementary options available for children in the Los Angeles area. California now has over 300 schools that offer this program, with Los Angeles being the county with the most offerings starting in kindergarten. What makes me happy is to know that these programs are increasing exponentially and there are just so many more options available at every level than we had even four years ago when we started exploring bilingual education on SpanglishBaby.

KPCC has also  put together a very comprehensive and impressive site at projects.scpr.org/bilinguallearning. I urge you to explore it even if you don’t live in Los Angeles because it’s full of information on language learning and the developing mind and stories of the bilingual education dilemma some immigrant families face.

If you do live in the Los Angeles area, then you must dig in and bookmark this site. There are profiles on the following schools and programs:

1. Academia Semillas del Pueblo

2. East Rio Vista YMCA

3. El Marino Language School

4. Bell Tower Trilingual School

5. Ceci’s Home Daycare

6. Long Beach New City School

7. Los Angeles Leadership Academy

8. Franklin Magnet School

Courtesy of 89.3 KPCC, a picture of my daughter hugging me after I finished reading a book in Spanish to her classroom at Franklin Language Magnet.

KPCC’s site also includes a comprehensive map of the state’s more than 300 bilingual schools that you can search by city and language of choice. This was so needed and I’m thankful for it! Check out the map here.

To culminate this fantastic coverage on bilingual education, on Saturday, January 26th, I will join KPCC’s Early Childhood Development correspondent Deepa Fernandes for “Should Kids’ Classrooms Be English-Only?”, a conversation about those and other questions surrounding bilingual education in Southern California.  A panel of professional- and parent guests will kick off this audience-inclusive discussion to be held at Los Angeles Leadership Primary Academy in Lincoln Heights. I would love to see many of you there. If you’re in the area and would like to join us, please RSVP here and/or help us spread the word.

A good friend tipped me off to this event put together by the Parents Education League for parents looking for multilingual education offers in the Los Angeles area. This Sunday, April 15th from 2:00-5:00 pm you can go to Vistamar school in El Segundo and meet preschools and K-12 public and private schools offering foreign language curriculum and find information about language enrichment programs and products in a single location.  They will also have an arts and crafts area for children.

The Multilingual Education Fair  is free with pre-registration, $5.00 per person at the door.

Let me know in the comments section if you plan on going and maybe we can meet up!