Disclosure: This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Latina Bloggers Connect and WGBH.

Just in time for Halloween, PBS Kids is premiering the first ever Curious George Halloween special called “A Halloween Boo Fest” Monday, Oct. 28. We got an advance copy and my kids and I sat down to watch this super cute movie starring Jorge el Curioso and we had so much fun!

The movie is all about the legendary No Noggin, a spooky scarecrow who is known to kick the hats of the heads of trick-o-treaters every Halloween. But is this a folk tale or a true story? That’s what Curious George will attempt to find out.

Santiago was a just a tiny bit scared during certain parts of the movie, but not enough to not want to watch it two times in a row. At 7 years old, I thought Vanessa wouldn’t be that interested, but she loves Jorge el Curioso, so she really enjoyed it.

Before I let my kids watch the movie a second time, I decided to take advantage of the movie’s theme to talk to them a bit about legends, folk tales and fables. And I did that while we made these super cute Scarecrow Cookies in honor of No Noggin.

These cookies were not only fun for my kids to make, but they were so easy that even my 4-year-old was able to help, which made him real happy! All you need for these Espantapajaros cookies is:

• Sugar cookies (face)
• White frosting
• Wafers (hat)
• Bran cereal (hair)
• Chocolate chips (eyes)
• Corn candy (nos)
• Chocolate sprinkles (mouth)

It took us no time to make a dozen cookies that the kids shared with their best friend and also their babysitter. They were so happy of their accomplishment. Hopefully, they also understood what I tried to to teach them about fables and folktales. Now that we’ve talked a bit about the topic, I’m going to be on the lookout for some books in folktales in Spanish to reinforce what we discussed.

All in all, we had a great movie night! By the way, along with the movie, a bilingual book called Curious George va a una fiesta de disfraces, we also got some fun activities you can download for your kids to enjoy too:

Spanish: http://to.pbs.org/19Ls6UU ; http://to.pbs.org/194FvX7

English: http://to.pbs.org/16KfblE ; http://to.pbs.org/GZwiGD

And don’t miss the premiere of A Halloween Boo Fest on Oct. 28 on PBS Kids.

Sesame Street is really going all out with their Latino-themed videos for Hispanic Heritage Month!
Earlier this week we shared Romeo Santos’ video singing with Elmo and today we found this adorable one of Rosita singing about what being Mexican means to her. Love!

This is one announcement that has us incredibly excited and hopeful that the mission we’ve all embarked in together to teach Spanish to our children is being taken seriously by those companies we rely on for educational and entertainment resources for them.

We’re thrilled to be PBS KIDS Parent Ambassadors and be able to break the news to you that they just announced more than 25 PBS KIDS games are now available in Spanish. Join the Cat in the Hat, Curious George and Sid the Science Kid for fun games and stickers en español. ¡Qué emoción!

Kids can now play games from their favorite shows in Spanish; the games from each series are grouped into collections that are all linked by a common theme and math curriculum. The collections of games now in Spanish include:

Curious George – Busy Day (16 games)

Join George on his very busy day as he learns about numbers and counting and is introduced to addition and subtraction.

Sid the Science Kid – Sid’s Super Fab Lab: Science Fair (9 games)

Check out the science fair displays with Sid and his friends, and play games that involve measuring (temperature, weight, and size), sorting, symmetry, addition, and finding patterns.

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! – Cat’s Math Safari(2 games)

Help the Cat in the Hat collect the missing pages of his Animal Safari Book. You’ll have to use shape recognition and spatial skills, counting and measurement.

The games are all enhanced with researched-based improvements to level selection and instructions. ESL students or children learning Spanish will learn math skills that will benefit them not only at home, but also in the classroom. The games are part of the Ready To Learn Initiative, an early learning project of PBS KIDS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), funded by the U.S. Department of Education to support the development of early math and literacy skills in children ages 2-8, especially those from low-income families.

You can check out all of PBS KIDS online games in Spanish HERE. Additional games in Spanish are also available there, including Spanish language-learning games from web-original series Oh Noah! and Maya and Miguel.

We’d love to know if you and your niños check out the games and share with us which one is their (and your) favorite! Let us know with a comment below or tweet us @SpanglishBaby with the hashtag #bilingualkids.

Many of the activities I take part in with my kids have an educational factor. I’ve turned to PBSKIDS.ORG many times to keep them entertained with activities and crafts that are age-appropriate, fun, and star their favorite characters!

PBS KIDS has an amazing new series coming October 7th named Peg+Cat! Peg + Cat is based off the books “The chicken problem” by  the show’s creators Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson.  It’s focused on preschool math and problem-solving skills. We were able to check out the series before its premiere and my kiddos had such a great time watching and helping Peg solve math problems. Peg has such a cute personality and her Cat is amazingly smart.

PBS KIDS also announced some pretty exciting news. They’ve partnered up with Whole Foods Markets to encourage a lifetime of healthy eating. Already they have recipes, tips, games and activities to promote healthy eating in our families.

We recreated Peg +Cat The Pirate’s “Great Banana” Fruit Salad Recipe and Craft Activity and the kids had loads of fun!

This activity gave me the opportunity to visit my local Whole Foods Market with my family to pick up fresh organic fruit for our salad.

Visiting Whole Foods was so much fun with the kids. We had our list and went on an adventure to find all the fruit for our salad. Everyone pitched in to make sure we had everything we needed. My kids even practiced the names of the fruits and counting in Spanish!

At home, we created our very own treasure chest thanks to the easy directions on pbskids.org/healthykids

 I had the kids finish up their craft and on to the kitchen we took our new treasure chest waiting to be filled with a healthy fruit salad.

Next, we followed directions to prepare our fruit salad. “Wash all the fruit going into the salad,” my daughter had the best time helping.

 We had the kids recite with us how many of each fruit we needed to cut. This was such a fun way to incorporate math skills.  We then had the kids scoop the fruit pieces into their treasure chest as directed: 5 bananas, 6 strawberries… and so on. The kids had it down perfect

The kids loved their salad. The fruit was fresh and sweet, the perfect combination of flavors. They were so proud to have been a part of creating our family snack. I was happy to incorporate  math into our activities. The best part was seeing the kids understand the basic math skills and to be able to also practice our Spanish with math and healthy eating! I look forward to our next PBS KIDS activity!

For more information on Peg+Cat and healthy eating activities visit pbskids.org

Be sure to check your local listing for Peg+Cat series premiere October 7th!

TribalNova’s educational program Aprendes Con has recently launched with four diverse apps for preschoolers:

Aprendes Con Boing: Planeta Boing

Aprendes Con Boing: ¡Aventuras en la sábana!

Aprendes Con Poko: ¡Contar y sumar!

Aprendes Con Bo: ¡La alimentación!

By the developers of PBS Kids Play!, these apps challenge kids with math skills (counting and basic adding), science (particularly nutrition), language, and following directions. Kids also get to simply have fun creating characters and collecting prizes – items collected from outer space.

Not only do these apps track important abilities for the preschool age group, but they are visually attractive and there is always something cute to listen to or look at. All directions and questions are in clear, accurate Spanish. I like that the apps are teaching other school-related skills while also testing Spanish listening ability. Since the apps aren’t Spanish-centered, yet are entirely conducted in Spanish, they make for a perfect method of sneaking language into the playtime of kids who might be rebelling against all things español.

As a bonus, signing up for an account allows parents to track a child’s progress across all four apps. When your child completes a level, you’ll receive an email. You can see statistics showing where he/she stands in relation to other children his/her age and recommendations for moving forward.

Find Planeta Boing, ¡Aventuras en la sábana!, ¡Contar y sumar!, ¡La alimentación!  in iTunes

Available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Recommended for ages 3-6

Price: FREE (one lesson for each app; $2.99 to unlock each complete app)

Enjoy these four apps and then check out more from Aprendes Con on Facebook.

Do you have a blossoming ballerina at home? Then this “People in your Neighborhood” segment from Sesame Street is just for them! The Lincoln Center and New York City Ballet team up with Sesame’s Murray Monster and Ovejita for this adorable — and bilingual!– video. Murray and Ovejita travel to Lincoln Center to join four dancers in the studio to learn about ballerinas. Dancers Kristen Segin, Alina Dronova, Callie Bachman, and Sara Adams explain how they use their bodies to tell a story and explain terms like “barre” and “plié.”

Enjoy!

There are 13 different location-based categories to explore, including “En El Parque,” “La Ciudad,” and “La Cocina.” Each category includes a game and a thorough list of activities, broken down by age, that parents can do with kids in each location. I got some great ideas from this app, including how to make up fun rhyming games that are age-appropriate for my son.

Parent notes are included with each game, explaining exactly which literacy and math skills are present in that particular game.

If you’ve covered all the games or you want to let your kids enjoy a cute, relaxing activity, there is a sticker section, where kids can move the characters, animals, and objects around to create their own scenes.

As with all PBS creations, this one is wonderful. It’s a truly unique concept and the fact that it’s in both English and Spanish makes the PBS Parents app the perfect companion to any SpanglishBaby reader’s phone or tablet.

Find PBS Parents Play & Learn/ Play & Learn HD in iTunes and the Amazon Appstore

Available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle Tablet, and Android Phone

Recommended for parents of children ages 0-5

Price: FREE

Check out more from PBS Parents on their website, Facebook, and Twitter.

A new study from WestEd has found that engaging low-income parents and their preschool children with PBS KIDS content and games improves math learning and helps prepare kids for kindergarten. The study examined improvements in preschool kid’s math knowledge and skills by studying families that use online games and at-home activities from the PBS KIDS Lab which features well-known character such as Curious George, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, and Sid the Science Kid. The study showed that kids who were exposed to these PBS KIDS games and media outscored peers who hadn’t been exposed on the Test of Early Mathematics Ability. 

To read more about this study click here.

We already love PBS Kids resources, especially since so many are also available in Spanish.  In honor of this great resource we have put together a list of our favorite 10 educational PBS Kids math-centered games. Check them out below:

Curious George Games

The Curious George games focus around George’s busy day and how he uses math to get through it. There is something for every kids’ taste at George’s Busy Day. Check out our favorite three games below and then explore all 17 games with your kids!

The Curious George Game Maker is a perfect resource for our bilingual kids. Parents can create a game of their own using all of the tools available in the game maker, and then explain the game to their child in their language of choice. The game maker provides objects, math symbols, grids, and frames. You  are free to creative missing number games, sorting games, counting and graphing, or write out simple math problems.

Curious George train station is the game  your train obsessed niños will love. It’s an interactive math game that prompts kids to do simple math by asking them to match the train lengths in the station.

Apple Picking with George is a mathtastic game. While kids help George pick the right apples they are learning number sequences to identify the missing number.

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! Games

The Cat’s Math Safari includes nine different math themed games that all feature familiar Cat in The Hat characters.

The Huff-Puff-A-Tron game encourages kids to identify two-dimensional shapes, patterns, and colors. In order to make the kite fly kids have to correctly match shapes and patterns that go into the huff-puff-a-tron which then makes more wind for the kite. The patterns get more complicated as the game progresses.

Sketch-a-Mite encourages dimensional shape recognition, drawing, and simple physics. The goal is to draw or select shapes to build a tower faster and taller than the termites. There is also the option of simply making the tower without having to beat the termites to it.

 The objet of Beaver City is for kids to help the beavers build their home. To do so they have to compare lengths.

Sid the Science Kid Games

This series of games focuses on games that are all about weather, temperature, and math. Check out all nine Sid the Science Kids games here.

In the game Weather Surprise kids help Gerald match items with the environment with the right temperature.

In Vegetable Harvest kids help Gabriela pick the vegetables in her garden and count them.

 In Vegetable Planting  kids follow Gabriela’s instructions to make sure the seeds go into the right box. Kids practice measuring and measuring vocabulary.

{First photo by  ShashiBellamkonda }

All other images Copyright © 1995 – 2012 PBS. All rights reserved.

 Little Pim, the cute panda who teaches foreign languages, is one of our favorite characters for Spanish-language education. We have reviewed several Little Pim resources in the past, including the Word Bag app.

This PBS Kids iPad app, Little Pim Spanish, follows with the award-winning quality of other PBS Kids products. It is a simple, effective way for preschoolers to learn new vocabulary – 60 words and phrases, in fact. Aimed at English-dominant children who are learning Spanish, Little Pim Spanish is narrated by the title character in English, with just the new vocab words being presented in Spanish. In this way, it also supports code-switching skills for those who may already be comfortable in Spanish.

Rather than just being a touch-responsive app with pages and pages of icons, this is an interactive game that is easy for kids to follow on their own. There are three categories of words with three levels each, progressing from nouns to verbs, then short phrases. Little Pim asks you to repeat the new word aloud, then reinforces it by having you find the item on the table and in a bubble.

If you love other Little Pim products or just want a fresh, engaging game for your 3-5 year old, this app is a great choice!

Find Little Pim Spanish in iTunes

Available for iPad

Recommended for preschoolers

Price: $2.99

Check out Little Pim’s other products and additional apps from PBS Kids as well as our list of favorite Spanish-language resources and online games from PBS Kids.

Oh Noah/ Noah Comprende

We’ve shared with you before how PBS is embracing bilingualism with their show Oh Noah. For their second season they added even more bilingual fun to their site. Today Oh Noah or Noah Comprende continues to be a fun bilingual resource for kids. Check out the website here.

Sid The Science Kid/ Sid El Niño Científico

Sid The Science Kid is an educational animated series that promotes science readiness in preschool-age kids. Sid uses music and humor that celebrates a child’s natural curiosity. Check out the Spanish website here.

Curious George In Spanish

We all know the lovable Curious George, and we celebrated when PBS made Curious George games available in Spanish. So head on over to the Curious George “juegos” page and enjoy with your niños.

Maya and Miguel

Maya and Miguel features two ten-year-old twins and the many adventures they find themselves in. They live in a diverse neighborhood where their familia and amigos are often part of the crazy situations Maya and Miguel are in. You can find Spanish activities and games at the Maya and Miguel site.

PBS Parents

PBS Parents is an online resource for parents where you can find everything from child development information, education, games, and birthday parties information just to name a few. This page is available in both Spanish and English. Check it out here.

PBS Kids Lab In Spanish

You can find plenty of Spanish games and activities featuring your niños favorite PBS characters in Spanish at the Kids Lab!

Sesame Street

- As we all know Plaza Sésamo is the Spanish version of Sesame Street with an addition of original and lovable Spanish-speaking characters. The show airs on Vme and you can check out their Spanish website for games and tips for parents here.

- In addition, you may also love the the bilingual Sesame Workshops. Below are some of the resources that can be found in the Sesame Workshop.

• Healthy Teeth Healthy Me
• Food For Thought
• Learning Is Everywhere
• Math is Everywhere

 
Special ¡Gracias! to PBS SoCal for providing these resources!