The creators’ passion, perseverance, and love for learning about other languages and cultures shines through their product Tonji: The Musical Ambassador by Mommy Americana.  Designed to engage a child through international music, if you go to their website you will see that they have put together popular and traditional lyrics from around the globe. Each song includes language & visual repetition suited for specific age groups. For instance, my two-year-old daughter loved pulgarcito. She would mimic Tonji’s fingerplay and try to sing along. In fact, when I played the CD in the car she would ask for “más nene (Tonji), más avión.”

I am always so curious to share a product review with my daughter. I analyze the product from a bilingual educator’s perspective and from a mother raising a multilingual toddler. Most importantly, though, I look closely to how Sabrina will respond and to how I can play a part, too. This is definitely a product where parent and child will interact with the songs and eventually one where you will find your little one independently singing along and moving their body to the rhythm of the music!

One of the perks this Ipad app offers is the opportunity to record yourself and your child singing each song! Though the app is user-friendly, there is a link on their website that explains the purpose behind each icon. This is definitely a product worth exploring which will include songs in nine different languages from around the world!

I hope you enjoy the beautiful music Tonji (which means unity in Chinese) has to offer. What I loved most about sharing this experience with my daughter was how much the importance of exposing our children to other cultures, while nurturing the ones they come from resonated from the information I read about Karina Garcia Neffs’ MommyAmericana, the creator of Tonji.

The Giveaway!

We’re giving away a 25 CD set of Tonji: The Musical Ambassador to TWO winners to share with their classrooms or playgroups! That’s a total of 50 CD’s!

But that’s not all, all of you can download the Tonji: The Musical Ambassador app FOR FREE while this giveaway is running! Just click HERE .

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Image from Los Tres Cerditos on Speakaboos

Reading plays a critical role in raising a bilingual child.  My sons and I always enjoy reading books together.  Thanks to modern technology, we are able to have a wide range of exciting and interactive reading experiences.  While traditional books have always been fun, we also enjoy stories and books on-line.

The website Speakaboos offers an engaging and interactive way to develop your child’s reading skills.  This educational site features well-known and fun stories presented through video.  The text is also provided which enables children to read along while listening and watching the story.  The illustrations in the videos are beautiful, and many are narrated by well-known celebrities such as Tim Daly, Kelly Ripa, Daisy Fuentes and Clay Aiken.  Many different types of stories are presented from fairy tales and fables, to holiday stories and nursery rhymes.  There are even songs with accompanying videos that kids can listen to or sing along with in a karaoke format.

The site provides both parents and teachers with an abundance of resources and activities to make the stories both interesting and educational.   There are worksheets, quizzes, puzzles, word searches, and even arts and crafts ideas to enable parents, teachers and children to delve more thoroughly into the on-line stories.  This site is an educational resource that develops language and literacy skills.

I was especially pleased to see how international the site is.  A whole section is devoted to Bollywood Stars and there is another section featuring stories in Spanish.  The company is planning to grow its catalog of stories from around the world and to have them translated into different languages for children to enjoy.  There are currently some stories in Spanish, with plans to release another album this spring and eventually there will be an entire Spanish-language site.

Using the stories, videos and resources on the Spakeaboos website is a great way for teaching both my sons and my students.  While the site offers access to free resources and stories, the majority of the content is reserved for members.  Membership is available on a monthly basis for a reasonable $4.95. This website is an educational resource that I am sure you will enjoy.

Speakaboos and SpanglishBaby have a Valentine´s gift for all of you–a free pass to enjoy ALL Speakaboos has to offer until March 31, 2011.  Just use the following info when you login:

User: spanglishbaby@speakaboos.com
Password: spanglishbaby

We´d love it if you let us know how your Speakaboos experience went! You can let us know in the comments below, or at our Facebook page.

Our little Dora moved to the city, grew long hair, replaced her furry friends for new Explorer Girls BFFs and now wears a hot pink dress and bedazzling jewelry.  Ay, our niña is all grown up.  Next, she´ll be wanting a Quinceañera!

The much discussed arrival of Mattel´s new Dora the Explorer franchise aimed at girls ages 5-8 is finally here after some eight months of waiting and guessing what kind of girl Dora would grow up to be.

Well, from the press release I received yesterday (haven´t played with the real thing yet)  announcing the arrival of Dora Links as part of the new Explorer Girls line, I can tell you she´s pretty trendy, techie, green and still very bilingual.

Your tween will get a new group of interactive friends who live in an imaginary Puerte Verde which, by the way, is full of Latino neighbors.  The Dora doll connects interactively to this city via USB to your computer.  Once you set up a private account for you child on DoraLinks she can start going on her own adventures with the Explorer Girls.

What has amazed me the most about this whole new interactive doll concept is the way your child can make changes to Dora on-screen and then see them happening to the actual doll.  So, let´s say she changes the color of her eyes to blue on the site, then look at the Dora doll and her eyes will now be blue.  You can even make her hair shorter!  How cool is that?

Dora Links retails at $59.99 and is now available at  major retail and online stores.  Of course, your best bet is to get it through La Tiendita and pay only $50.46!

{We´re working hard to get a Dora Links doll to give away to a lucky reader, so make sure you’re subscribed to the SBFinds feed via email or RSS so that you can be notified when it happens.}

What a concept! An online toy retailer which sells dolls, books and products that actually represents this country’s growing multicultural population.

In fact, check out Dolls Like Me‘s philosophy: “Children need to see the world the way it really is. They need to begin to develop global understanding, cultural awareness, and self-esteem as early as possible–and children of color need positive images that look like them.” I totally agree, don’t you?

I first stumbled upon Dolls Like Me way back when we started SpanglishBaby. I was writing this post about bilingual toys and I was flabbergasted by how little I could find out there made with bilingual + bicultural kids in mind. The thing is that as the minority population increases in the U.S., more and more companies are realizing the need for products to reflect our country’s growing cultural diversity. Luckily, Dolls Like Me has basically gathered it all under one site. Therefore, you can find all sorts of stuff in this multicultural online store including puppets, memory books, costumes and hair + skin products–to name a few.

As its name states, you will find a variety of ‘ethnic’ dolls. In other words, dolls that represent what us Latinas–and most probably our children–look like. The website’s selection of dolls is fairly large, but my favorite is one called Apolonia from the Dominican Republic. Although pricey (it goes for $99), the doll is absolutely stunning. It actually looks like a collectible and I can’t imagine what it would end up looking like at the mercy of my three-year-old.

Because their selection of products is so large, I suggest you actually go visit the website so you can see for yourself all the wonderful multicultural stuff you can get your hands on for both your kids and as gifts for others.

Dolls Like Me has been generous enough to offer you a limited time 10% SpanglishBabyFinds Discount on everything in their store in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. The discount will be valid from now until October 31, 2009.  To take advantage of this offer, use discount code: spanglish at checkout.

{Make sure you’re subscribed to the SBFinds feed via email or RSS so that you can be notified of our weekly Finds, special discounts and awesome giveaways.}

Go Go Lingo is a new on-line language game that uses animated games and a fun “playful immersion method” to teach children in the 3-7 age range some 200 words in Spanish.  I was very excited when I found out about it a couple of months ago and wished my daughter was more in the age range to play with it.  Well, I sat her down anyway while I played around with my Lingo (the fuzzy character that learns the language with you).  I found that the colorful animations work wonders at trapping a kid’s distracted attention, the large hand-shaped pointer makes it easier for them to control the mouse and the vivid audio captivates.

However, even if my daughter didn’t fall within the age range, she was still too advanced for the simple Spanish words since that is her primary language for now.  This story-driven game is designed for English native speakers wanting to learn or increase their vocabulary in Spanish. I would also recommend it for OPOL families or those using a Time & Place method as one more tool to engage them in Spanish activities they will enjoy.  Especially since the Go Go Lingo experience customizes itself to your child’s personal learning curve.  So, the more she plays, the more vocabulary is introduced and she will learn.

Go Go Lingo has also understood that parental involvement in a child’s language learning and their love for it is a must.  To this extent, they’ve created an excellent resource area for parents to get expert advice and commune with other parents via their forum. What I can see parents enjoying the most is the Parent’s Dashboard and weekly emails which track your child’s progress with charts and lists of words she’s been learning.  This is helpful for  you to continue the language learning experience at home. They even provide  you with tips and downloadable activities just for that.

This is a Find we suggest you check out for yourself because it’s the best way to know if it’s for you.  Luckily, you can do just that right now since they have a free sign-up trial for a limited time only.  Go here to sign up.  Let us know what you think!