Mango, Abuela, and Me -- Book Review & Craft

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

What happens when a faraway grandmother comes to live with you and share your room? And what if she does not speak the same language as you? How are you going to get to know her? This is the storyline of Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina and illustrated by Angela Dominguez. 

Foreign Language for Kids by Kids -- New Year Resolution Review

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links where I will receive a small commission if you purchase through them at no cost to you. I was given access to Foreign Language for Kids by Kids programs for six months free of charge in exchange of writing honest reviews. All opinions in this post are my own. 

Do you make new year resolutions? I often do not or should I say I pretend to but never keep them. Now that it is over a week past New Year's Day, I have time to think about what I want 2016 to really look like. This week I am going to share with you some of the products that are helping me with some of my resolutions or let's say desires for the new year. 

Resolution #1

The first resolution is to work more consistently with Hazel on her Spanish. Back in September we shared a new program that we are trying. I had big hopes but first grade brought things like homework and exhaustion. But now that it is January my goal for us is to do the lessons at least four times a week. 

Heartprints --Bilingual or Board Books Review & Craft

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge from Ideals Books./Worthy Kids. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today we are sharing a book by P.K. Hallinan called Heartprints. It was originally published in 2002 but is being released again on December 8th. I received two versions of the book for this review: a board book and a bilingual paperback book. 

Both books have the same story in English. The bilingual version also has the words in Spanish.

Learning Spanish in 10 Mintues a Day

*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links where I will receive a small commission if you purchase through them at no cost to you. I was given access to Foreign Language for Kids by Kids programs for six months free of charge in exchange of writing honest reviews. All opinions in this post are my own. 

Do you want your child to learn Spanish? Is your child taught a foreign language at school currently or do you wish he or she was now? Hazel's school is a classical school and it teaches Latin to the students. Since it is such a small school, they do not offer any other languages. Since I took Spanish in school, I want to teach Hazel Spanish. I bought some books and CDs and won some as well as a DVD, but we have not gotten very far. Hazel can count to ten in Spanish, say hello and goodbye and knows most of her colors. The truth is even though I was in honors Spanish from seventh grade until eleventh I don't remember everything and do not know the best way to teach it by myself. Luckily along came Foreign Language for Kids by Kids. 

Sharing Saturday 14-12

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to those who went to visit the many amazing posts! I know I was inspired by the many that were shared! Here are a few of my favorites.

A Few of My Favorites

 

1) From For the Children: Preschool Construction Measuring Up

2) From Buggy and Buddy: Flower Crafts for Kids: Textured Tissue Paper Flowers

3) From Like Mama ~ Like Daughter: O is for Owls and Ocean

4) From For the Love of Spanish: Arco Iris Activities & Free Printable

5) From Buggy and Buddy: Easy Art Projects for Kids: Splatter Paint and Tape Resist

6) From Enchanted Homeschooling Mom: Charlotte's Web Storybook Decorations for Your Family Dinner Table

7) From Living Montessori Now: Montessori Monday - Montessori Inspired Sewing Activities

8) From JDaniel4's Mom: Easter Game - Egg Toss Bottles

9) From Sparkling Buds: Flashback Friday's: 3-D Palm Art

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

Featured Button Code:

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From Your Hostess: This week we shared a simple St. Patrick's Day craft and Round-Up of all our past St. Patrick's Day crafts and activities, our Iceland post for Around the World in 12 Dishes, our second Virtual Book Club for Kids March post by sharing Hopper Hunts for Spring, we reviewed The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade book by Meomi and are giving one away an Octonauts DVD  and we explored raspberries for our fruit exploration this week!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for the fun Octonauts DVD!!

Now for This Week's Party  
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post. 

3) Post the Sharing Saturday button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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4) I would love it if you would follow me on Facebook,  Google+, and Pinterest 

5) If you do not have a blog, but want to share an idea you can leave it in the comments or e-mail it to me with a picture (if possible).

 

 Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest.

Baker's Passport--Product Review

Disclosure: I was sent this product to review free of charge from Baker's Passport. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today I am going to share with you a wonderful experience and together time. Hazel and I tried Baker's Passport Little Bites in Spanish this weekend. We had so much fun. Now I will admit this is definitely meant for slightly older children (who can read and write), but we had fun reviewing our Spanish and baking cookies. Baker's Passport sends you a little packet that includes the recipe with Spanish lessons built in. The Spanish is the numbers, colors and some other phrases. They have places to read and write in the Spanish as well as trace some words. They offer Little Bites in Spanish, French and Japanese and I get to give one of each away, so three winners!!

We got to work. First of course the instructions are to wash your hands. We also put on our aprons (and Hazel put on her hat). Then we got right to work. Here are some pictures of Hazel softening the butter (in the microwave), measuring the brown sugar, mixing and scooping the cookies.

Then there were places with Spanish lessons like matching, a crossword and just vocabulary. Plus all the steps were numbered in Spanish. And the answers are available on their website, so you do not have to know the language to make sure you are doing it correctly!

 Now this was a fun day of baking and learning. Even if you do not bake often or like to bake, this is a fun and easy recipe to follow. The instructions are very clear and easy to do. Oh, and I should mention that we all loved the cookies. They were gobbled right up and Hazel insisted on bringing some to Nonni's since she was going there for her weekly playdate with her grandmother.

 

The even better part of Baker's Passport is for every purchase $1 is donated to Action Against Hunger. So there are three positives with every purchase, learning, baking and helping. Now if you do not want to wait for the giveaway to end, you can get 15% off today on your purchase with the code: BAKINGFUN14. This code is only good through February 7, 2014. 

Now for our fun giveaway!! Please follow our Giveaway Rules and do what the Rafflecopter asks. There will be three winners!! Each winner will get one of the Little Bites.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Teaching Spanish at Home

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Now if you have been following along for the past couple of weeks, you know I am involved in helping with the Little Pim Giveaway being run by Squishable Baby.  Part of my involvement is to also include a little about how I am going about teaching Spanish to Hazel.

Last spring we made the decision to switch schools for Hazel since we were having some issues with the discipline at her school. We moved her to a private Christian school that has a traditional curriculum. As part of a traditional curriculum she will be learning Latin. Now I do think knowing Latin can be helpful. I took a year of it in high school myself, but I also want her to have some experience with other languages (besides saying ciao to her Italian grandmother). I took Spanish from fifth grade until my junior year in high school and was in honors classes most of the time. However I have not spoken much Spanish since, so I need to relearn some. 

I know based on all the research out there, that now is the time to begin to teach her, so I am starting. I found some resources and have won some that we have been enjoying.

The first resource is a CD with book. It has songs that sings sayings in English and in Spanish. We often listen to this in the car. Hazel really enjoys it and is repeating some of the words. The next is a board book of Spanish numbers. It goes from 1 to 12 and then has 20, 50 and 100. Then it has adding and subtracting sentences in Spanish and English. We read this often at bedtime. She has started counting in Spanish, so it is working. The last two we have not spent much time with yet, but will be expanding our words with the dictionary and eventually she will not freak out that she does not understand the Spanish when I put on the DVD. Our only time watching it, she asked me to turn it off since she did not understand anything.

I also found some good resources at our local library. We are still exploring them and some are a bit ahead of Hazel's level, but we are working to it.

It is amazing what resources are out there. There are also some great ideas on many of the blogs I like to check out. 

• Spanish Playground
• Toddling in the Fastlane
• All Done Monkey

Needless to say I know I would find the Little Pim DVD series a huge aid in our lesson!! I hope you will come and enter the giveaway!!

Amazing Prizes I Won This Month

This month I have been very lucky! I won two contests!! I won first place in the Multicultural Kid Blogs Pinterest Scavenger Hunt and I won one of Daria's contests on her Monthly Song Page. I thought I would share with you some of the amazing things that have been arriving in the mail the past two weeks. 

Now first we won some electronic books. Now we are a pretty low-tech family (old fashion cell phones, etc.), so I do not have a Kindle or anything of that sort, so I got the pdf versions. From Be Bilingual, we got the pdf version of Be Bilingual Practical Ideas for Multilingual Families by Annika Bourgogne. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but since Hazel's new school focuses on Latin, I think I may try to refresh my high school Spanish and teach her some as well. Which leads us into our next electronic prize. From the Spanish Playground we got Los Pollitos Story and Coloring Book and we got Spanish Animal Cards (cards are available for purchase here). To go with the Los Pollitos we got this adorable wooden chicken toy. 

When you hold the toy by the handle the chickens peck at the food. The toy next to it also came from Spanish Playground. It is a top game called Toma Todo. Hazel and I tried to play the other day. It is a great introduction to learning Spanish for us.

Next we got some books. From Hartlyn Kids we got The Bamboo Dance by Cress Sia and one mock passport. The book contains a sticker for the passport. The Bamboo Dance is about two boys in the Philippines. It introduces some Philippine food, dance and culture. It is a perfect book to add to our Multicultural Library. 

We also received two wonderful books from Lee & Low Books.  The first is Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell.  This book is about a group of kids who are visiting their grandfather on a rainy day. Normally they go out to play, but with the rain, they cannot. Their grandfather suggests making his famous rainbow stew. It requires going out to the garden and picking all the colors of the rainbow to put in the stew. It is a wonderful book about family togetherness, healthy eating and more.  Hazel asked to make rainbow stew after we read it.

The second book from Lee & Low Books is How Far Do You Love Me? by Lulu Delacre.  This wonderful book travels the world with how far a parent loves her child and the child loves the parent. It covers all the continents and gives a quick view of each as well as culture there. Another wonderful addition to our library.

The next  thing we won is a stuffed China from Plushkies. I thought Hazel would be more into this, but she did not seem as interested as I expected. However maybe the next time we discuss China she will get more into it. She was also overwhelmed since there were three packages awaiting our return from Cape Cod this week.

Our final prize for the Multicultural Kid Blogs Pinterest Scavenger Hunt is a Caxixi Woven Rattle from Africa which was provided by World Music for Children by Daria. We also happened to win Daria's monthly contest and won two kazoos. Hazel LOVES the kazoo. She figured since we won two, one is for her and one is for me. She has not stopped playing hers since we opened them the other day.

Now Daria has several contests on her Monthly Song Page each month and this month she has a link party for African posts. Make sure you stop over to enter and share!

Thank you to everyone who provided prizes for the contests!! We are loving ours! And a huge thank you to Leanna over at All Done Monkey who organized the amazing scavenger hunt!! And if you are interested in checking out the posts that needed to be pinned for the hunt, you can check out my board. There were so many great multicultural ideas shared there.