Pictures from a familiar story, beads and cord to string them on are all you need to do this activity. With the necklace, your child will be able to tell a story to herself and to family and friends. As they retell a story, children learning Spanish practice vocabulary, sequencing and pronunciation.

To make a necklace you will need small pictures of the story. You can draw them or use clip art. Click here to print pictures to use with Eric Carle’s Oso pardo, Oso pardo ¿Qué ves ahí? Most of the images are black and white so that children can color them. Click here for images to make a necklace to tell Ricitos de Oro y los tres osos.

Making a storytelling necklace

Print or draw pictures for a familiar story. Use card stock for a sturdier necklace and color them if you like.

Cut out the pictures. Pinch together the top corners and punch a hole through both layers.

Thread the cord through both holes. String the pictures in the order of the story, alternating the pictures with beads.

Tie the ends of the necklace together and tell the story!

Using a storytelling necklace with children learning Spanish

- You can make a storytelling necklace for any familiar story. Stories with patterns work especially well. If the story is new, read the book to your child several times before you make the necklace.

- Have the book available as you make the necklace. Read together what happens and choose the image to put on the necklace.

- The necklace does not have to include an image for every detail in the story. For example, the images for Ricitos de Oro are los osos, la casa, Ricitos de Oro, un plato de sopa, una silla, una cama, los osos, un plato de sopa, una silla y una cama. The picture of the soup reminds children that the first bowl estaba demasiado caliente, the next estaba demasiado fría and finally la sopa estaba como a ella le gustaba.

- When the necklace is done, offer to tell your child the story using the necklace. Point to the images as you tell the story.

- When your child tells the story, she may skip pictures or talk about them in a different order. She may change the story entirely and make up her own. However she tells the story, it is good language practice. There is no need to correct or interrupt unless she asks for your help.

- Continue to read the book with the story to your child. The more familiar the story is, the easier it will be for her to use her necklace.

- Encourage friends and family to ask about her necklace and listen to the story. Friends can make the same necklace and they tell the story together. If friends make different necklaces, they can tell stories to each other.

Special thanks to Spanish Playground for providing this activity. Visit their site for more activities to teach Spanish to kids.

Not sure if you’ve noticed already or not, but the reason why I don’t write any of the craft or activity posts on SpanglishBaby is because I am not crafty. At all. It’s not even in my blood. I actually have a case of envy, tinged with respect and desire, every time I read blog posts with pictures from creative moms and their kids. I feel my daughter is missing out on that.

But, since I’m not one to dwell on the not-haves, I do what I can and I get all the help I can to help me be creative with my daughter. Camila loves doing arts and crafts and I certainly don’t want to deprive her of that.

Enter the BabbaBox from BabbaCo.

Never heard of it? Heard of it but curious as to what’s really inside the box? Briefly, the BabbaBox is a monthly subscription box for kids ages 3-6 which arrives at your door and delivers themed projects to get creative and engage with your child without the hassle!

Watch this silly video of Camila and I discovering our first BabbaBox with the theme of Sprouting Seeds so you can get a better idea of all the goodness these boxes pack, then scroll down for more info, a discount code and a giveaway!

As you saw, inside the BabbaBox you will find neatly packaged bags with different activities and accompanying instructions, all under one monthly umbrella theme to Create, Explore, Story Tell and Connect.

What was inside our BabbaBox?

Create: A potted herb plant and flower pens

Explore: A magnifying glass to explore and sort the seeds for the herb plant

Story Tell: A Curious George Grows a Garden book!

Connect: Seed-themed digital downloads with the Lorax

Plus, every box comes with a little surprise for mamá or papá! This one had a Vosges chocolate I’m gobbling as I type.

Another detail to love are the visually modified instructions available online for each theme for children with autism and related disabilities.

I’m thrilled someone thought of creating something for busy moms like me who need a no-hassle way of creating enriching moments with our kids. I can definitely see this being something we’ll look forward to receiving every month and create memories from. Also makes for an amazing gift, don’t you think?

Go to BabbaCo and sign up to try it out for a month using this coupon code to get 20% off the first box: SB20OFF You´ll be hooked!

Or, enter our giveaway for one free box!

The Giveaway

We’re giving away one BabbaBox to one lucky winner!

To enter, all you have to do is visit the BabbaCo website here and tell us what you like the most about the BabbaBox.

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 the BabbaBox newsletter 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. Like BabbaCo on Facebook and leave a comment letting us know you did so.

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

Click to Tweet Ex: Visit @SpanglishBaby to win one BabbaBox from @BabbaCo to entertain create, story tell, explore & connect! http://bit.ly/MJpVGa

This giveaway ends Tuesday, June 26 at 11:59 p.m. EST and is open to everyone with a U.S. mailing address over 18 years of age. Check out the Giveaway Rules.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of BabbaCo.com  All links to BabbaCo.com are affiliate codes. All opinions are always our own.

My daughter is at the ripe age where new words are just constantly flying out of her mouth every day.  I’m in total awe of this natural language-acquisition process of an almost two-year old.

I’m also in awe that she’s definitely already a bilingual little niña, using her hundreds of new words to construct mini Spanglish sentences, like: “Más jugo, please.” “Shoe acá pié.”

I’m totally not bothered by it because that’s exactly how my own brain functions, moving seamlessly from one language to the other.

That’s why the language-introduction approach used in the Professor Pocket CDs was completely relevant to us. Professor Pocket is a family-owned company that’s created two bilingual (Spanish/English) CDs and supplemental materials to help children develop a lifelong passion for learning languages.

At first, I thought Camila was still too young to completely understand and follow the storyline in “Our Silly Farm Adventure” since it’s recommended for children ages 2 and up. That was not the case at all. Maybe she still doesn’t grasp the context of what she is listening to, but she loves the silly animal sounds, the catchy songs and the identifiable kids’ voices. I’ve also caught her adorably repeating the key words and anticipating the songs many times.

You will like:

• How it naturally and aptly flows from English to Spanish through the wacky interaction of the three main characters: Professor Pocket (English), Desi the Dinosaur and Chico the Chicken (mostly Spanish).
• The original story lines with just the correct dose of silliness to entertain toddlers and older kids alike. A dinosaur on a farm?  Yes, it’s far-fetched, but it works.
• Spanish words and key concepts are effectively reinforced with the use of songs which you will find yourself singing along to in no time, like: “¡Ay, caramba! No hay dinosaurios” and “La la la la Leche” (a song about a cow that produces chocolate milk, yum!).
• PERFECT FOR LONG CAR RIDES!! OK, in my book, this should be reason enough to love these CDs. Your child will be absorbed, entertained, she’ll learn new words in both English and Spanish and you’ll have a smile on your face from watching her dance in her seat and imitate the voices she hears. At least I do.

The two mom’s behind Professor Pocket, Nathalie and Paula, want to give you a chance to win a free copy of both “Our Silly Farm Adventure” and “Our Hawaiian Hula Adventure.”

To enter to WIN:

All you have to do for your chance to win is visit the Professor Pocket website Shop section where you can listen to samples of some of the songs on both CDs. Come back here and leave us a comment telling us which song you liked and why. Please be detailed so we know you visited their site.

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

1.  Blog and/or tweet about this giveaway. Please leave an additional comment with the link.

2. Subscribe to our feed via 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 do verify the subscription once you receive the email to do so. We will check in order to validate the entry.

3. 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.

4.  Become a fan of our Facebook page.  Leave us another comment letting us know you did so.

This contest will close tonight at midnight PST Sunday, July 5th at midnight EST…so don’t hesitate and enter now. These two Professor Pocket CDs could be yours!!!

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

Scroll down to the next post for another giveaway from fabulous t-shirt line with a Latin attitude: ChíChí&Flaco