As you know, I try my best to raise my children in a bilingual environment. I speak Spanish to them as much as possible, as do my parents, we sing songs in Spanish, read Spanish or bilingual books, and sometimes, we also watch cartoons in Spanish. My husband is very supportive in this effort and will point out new Spanish shows to us when he finds out about them and tries his best to repeat the Spanish spoken. It was actually him, who first introduced our daughter to El Perro y El Gato.

If I remember correctly, we were staying at a hotel and as he was browsing the channels, he stumbled upon HBO Latino, which was showing cartoons that morning. As I walk out of the shower, my baby girl screams out to me, “Mami, look! Perro y Gato! In Spanish!” She loves to point out when music, shows, books, etc., use Spanish. We watched the rest of the show wishing that we were HBO subscribers at home, since we had just found a new, funny, cute, bilingual show. Check out this behind-the-scenes look to hear from the show’s creators, animators, and even the voices of El Perro y El Gato.

El Perro y El Gato premiered a new episode titled, “Sigue Soñando / Keep On Dreaming,” on Thursday, September 15, the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month. We were sent a sneak peek DVD of the new episode, which of course, was enjoyed by all. The main characters of El Perro y El Gato are an overexcited orange dog (El Perro) and his laid-back, always hungry friend, a purple cat (El Gato). To keep our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month going, today we have a 4-DVD set of El Perro y El Gato to give away to you!

ModernMami™.com Reader Giveaway

We want you to enjoy El Perro y El Gato with your children, so we’re giving away a 4-DVD set of the show, as pictured above!

How to Enter

Required entry: If you’d like to enter this contest for a 4-DVD set of El Perro y El Gato, simply leave a comment below sharing why watching bilingual shows is important to you and your family.

Extra entries (optional):
Each of the following will count as 1 extra entry. You’ll need to leave a separate comment for each entry.

1. Follow @modernmami on Twitter.
2. Tweet the following: Encourage #bilingual learning at home. Enter to win El Perro y El Gato DVDs from @modernmami! http://bit.ly/mPSylQ #giveaway #contest
3. Receive post updates by subscribing to our RSS feed. You can do so either via email or through a RSS reader. Leave a comment saying you did so or are already a subscriber.
4. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
5. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing the details of this contest. Be sure to include a link back to this post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Friday, October 14, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. You must be 18 or older and a U.S. resident. No purchase necessary. Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.) Winner will have 48 hours to respond and claim prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen.

El Perro y El Gato Photos and Video Provided and Used with Permission

Custom Hispanic Heritage Banner by Justin Edwards
and © ModernMami.com

Today is the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Unlike other heritage months, where an actual calendar month is dedicated, Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 – October 15 each year. This year’s theme is “Heritage, Diversity, Integrity and Honor: The Renewed Hope of America” and because my husband and I are big on our daughter learning about her heritage this is a great chance for us to expose her even more to her Latina half.

There are several events happening locally to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in Orlando, as I’m sure there are in many other cities across the nation. I’d also like to do some learning activities at home with her and will check with her preschool if they are planning to include anything in their curriculum during this next month. Of course, there are plenty of sites with activities, lesson plans, and information to help me celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with my preschooler. Here’s a few you can browse.

12 Resources to Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Your Kids

Lessons for Hispanic Heritage Month from Education World

Offers 12 activities to begin exploring Hispanic heritage. A brief description of each activity is provided, along with the appropriate grade-level.

Hispanic Heritage Month Resources from Colorín Colorado

Provides activities, information, ready-to-use tools, as well as lesson plans and book ideas.

Hispanic and Latino Heritage in Books for Children and Teens

Lists a variety of reading lists, award-winning books, and articles featuring books for children and teens that focus on Hispanic and Latino heritage and other themes.

Hispanic-Heritage Resources for Teachers (or parents)

Though this site was written with teachers in mind, any parent can use the lesson plans, printables, activities, and references provided.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage on NickJr.com

Includes various activities, ideas, and recipes featuring NickJr.com characters – perfect for preschoolers.

Hispanic Heritage Month Book List on PBS

List of Spanish-language or bilingual books to share with your child.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Maya & Miguel on PBS Kids

Celebrate the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the United States with Maya & Miguel of PBS Kids.

Hispanic Heritage Month Party on Playhouse Disney

Throw a party to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Handy Manny! Page includes recipes, games, activities, and party checklists.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage from Scholastic

Information on Latinos in history, famous Latinos, and Hispanics in the Americas.

National Hispanic Heritage Month Activities from Crayola

Coloring pages, crafts, and ecards to enjoy with your children.

Hispanic Heritage Teaching Resources from Smithsonian Education

Lots of resources, including information on carnivals and masks, Latino families, music, and art.

Hispanic Heritage Free Resources from Gale

Includes Spanish-language eBooks and a range of resources to help users study and celebrate Hispanic Heritage.

Do you plan to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with your child(ren)? What are some activities you plan to do?

Disclosure: I received Little Pim products for review purposes. No other compensation received.

By now you know that my husband and I have committed to raising bilingual children. Coming from different cultures ourselves, our daughter has the benefit of growing up multicultural and learning two languages – English and Spanish. Though my first language was Spanish, having moved to Florida at a young age and living here the majority of my life, has resulted in me speaking mostly Spanglish rather than true Spanish. I often have to force myself to think of the words in order to hold a Spanish-only conversation. That is why I love to compensate speaking Spanish around the house with Spanish books, shows, games, and music, so that my baby girl can be exposed to Spanish as much as possible.

I’ve had the pleasure of receiving some additional Little Pim products to add to the Little Pim Spanish DVD I had previously received and reviewed. This time, I was able to review the Little Pim Spanish Word and Phrase Cards, Little Pim Spanish Bop CD, and the new Little Pim Word Bag app for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards

With 60 cards to choose from, my daughter has fun picking out a few cards at random and making up a story about Little Pim. I love this for two reasons: 1) She’s not just staring at the card and words and repeating them one after the other. It’s much more interactive, which helps (in my opinion) her learn the word or phrase better. 2) Making up stories is a great way to encourage imaginative play!

We take out these cards a few at a time and either make up stories or just review how to say the word/phrase in Spanish. But, we’re usually making up stories – it’s much more fun!

Little Pim Spanish Bop CD

This CD has 15 songs from artists like Dan Zanes and Milkshake. There are three songs that are repeated in English at the end and all the lyrics for each song are included in the pamphlet in both Spanish and English. My daughter especially liked “Tía Monica” and its merengue rhythm, but other fun songs include “Clap Clap Clap” and “Las Comidas.” Of course, a personal favorite of mine is “El Coquí” since Coquís are native to Puerto Rico (no bias whatsoever here).

Little Pim Word Bag iPhone/iPod Touch App

Little Pim’s Word Bag allows your child to play in either Spanish or French. We enjoyed playing with this app on our iPod Touch and I love how it matches the style and feel of the DVD. Using the app, my daughter was able to easily find what words were in Little Pim’s word bag. It’s easy for her to use her finger to “take” the words out of his bag, hear and see the word, and laugh along with Little Pim.

Image from AppShopper

However, I think that it would have been much more cool to be able to “match” the words to the picture and make it a bit more interactive and game-like. It would have been fun to play a game and perhaps help Little Pim find his way through a story scenario by finding the words he needs. Or something like that anyway. Clearly, I’m not a game designer; I just think an interactive element to the app might make it even more fun than it already is.

Where to Purchase

You can purchase the Word and Phrase Cards and the Spanish Bop CD directly from the Little Pim site for $14.95 each or you can also find them on Amazon for the same price (in case you have Amazon gift cards you want to use).

• Purchase Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards on Amazon for $14.95
• Purchase Little Pim Spanish Bop CD on Amazon for $14.95

You can buy the Little Pim Word Bag iPhone App for $1.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Giveaway

One of you will win a set of the Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards and the Spanish Bop CD.

How to Enter

If you’d like to enter this contest for a Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards and Spanish Bop CD, simply leave a comment below and tell us which product you think your kids will enjoy from the Little Pim site.

For extra entries:

1. Tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.
2. Follow @Little_Pim on twitter and tweet the following: “@little_pim Hola Little Pim! Following from @modernmami for the #modernmami contest!“
3. Become a fan of ModernMami.com on Facebook and leave a comment with your Facebook name.
4. Subscribe to this blog via email and leave a comment with the email you used to subscribe. (You can use the email field to do this instead of putting your email in the comment if you prefer.)
5. Subscribe on friendfeed and leave a comment with your friendfeed ID.
6. Write a blog post on your own blog sharing with your readers your favorite Little Pim product you found on the Little Pim site. Make sure to link back to this contest page in your post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Thursday, March 11 at 11:59 pm EST. Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.)

While reading the memoir of former first female CEO of IBM, Carly Fiorina, Tough Choices, I learned her family philosophy: What you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God. How perfect and sublime. This is something that is written in the souls of driven people. Being one such person, it spoke to me directly as the truth I had been living, though never bothered to put words to. Then as I thought about it more and how it applies to my life, the more it expanded, unfolded, and began to demonstrate exactly the spaces it takes up in my life.

I have always told each of my children that they were gifts to me from God. I do not own them, but I have been charged with the care of these gifts for in time my gifts will leave my side. I have a heart for each of my gifts, that grows with each day and each breath they take. These are the words of love I whisper into their ears from time to time. It is the best way I can manage to explain my love for them. And now with this new revelation, I have discovered that while God has gifted my children their individual talents, temperaments and struggles, I am co-gifter as well. As mother I must bestow my children with as many gifts as possible, so that in turn, that gift to God they create with their lives and selves is that much more expressive of the love that was invested and created.

When I speak to my children in Spanish, the language is not the only gift I give them. The culture that I can filter through to their generation, the awareness of an ancestral presence in their lives and the spiritual beliefs that have cradled me in good times and bad are all the gifts that I pass on to them. Each of my children receives these gifts in a different manner, and as a mother, I must stand back allow them the space to create their own unique gift to God from them. My gift is getting to watch.

Most of you already know that we are a bi-cultural family and I myself am bilingual. As such, my husband and I decided that we would make an effort to raise our children bilingually so they could learn both English and Spanish. So far, our daughter is doing a great job of acquiring both languages and most important of all, actually showing an interest in Spanish, which is the minority language.

It helps that my parents are a big part of her life, since they both speak Spanish more often than I do. Because I speak English to my husband, spoke English in the workplace, and speak English for 95% of each day, it gets a little difficult sometimes for me to “switch” my brain and speak Spanish to my daughter. I have to remind myself. So, any little help I can get is useful in not just exposing her to Spanish, but also reminding me to do so. Which is why I love bilingual books, TV programs, and other toys.

When I was contacted by Smart Play about their new bilingual toy line, Ingenio, I was highly interested in reviewing their products. As the email I received said, “there are very few affordable toys/games available for parents who want their children to be bilingual.” In my experience when shopping for baby girl, this has been true. Their products fill this need since 8 out of the 10 products they have so far cost less than $12.99. All ten products are designed for children 3-8 years old, which is perfect for my baby girl.

We received the Animal Learning Puzzle and the Spellable Puzzle Card Game. I was looking forward to playing the Spellable game with baby girl because it allows you to spell 3 letter words in English and Spanish. I thought this would be a great way to step up her learning and go beyond just the alphabet and on to forming words and promoting word recognition. Like any preschooler, she was super excited at the beginning, but after about 10 words or so, her focus began to fade. Since I don’t want to be a drill sergeant and “force” learning on her, but rather have it be a natural part of her playing and surroundings, I followed her cue and put away the game for another time.

But, just in that short period of time, I saw a few things that I liked about this product:

• Each letter is color coded; consonants are green & vowels are purple. I like this because you can add variety to the game by sorting the letters. Now she’s not just working on phonics, but also classifying items.
• Every letter card has a picture on the back that doubles for a word in English AND Spanish. So, you have pictures of juice/jugo for J and lamp/lampara for L, etc. Even the hard letters like Q work; Q has a quesadilla on the back.
• The spelling cards are also color coded; blue for English and red for Spanish. This helped my daughter know which language to use when trying to spell the word.

The animal puzzle was also fun to play with and has the name of each animal printed in both English and Spanish. It also displays the words for the surroundings in both languages. For example, tree/árbol and mountain/montaña. It’s a very cute puzzle and my daughter enjoyed teaching her dad the names of the animals in Spanish when they later put it together without me.

Giveaway

You too have a chance at trying out some Ingenio products! One of you can win a set of the Alphabet cards along with the Spellable Puzzle Card Game. The winner will receive both products.

How to Enter

1. If you’d like to enter this contest, simply leave a comment below and let me know if you already promote a bilingual home or why you would like to expose your child to another language.
2. For an extra entry, you can tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.

All entries must be in by Sunday, November 22nd at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.)

It’s funny how the world sometimes reaches out to you. I’m not normally one to go around “looking for signs,” but sometimes you just can’t miss them.

Two months ago, I wrote about how brown dolls are not enough and we need more multicultural dolls.

This weekend, I came across an article titled Mattel introduces black Barbies. Introduces? It seemed odd since there have been black Barbies in the brand for a while. But, as the article’s opening line states, the So in Style dolls are “…a new line of black Barbie dolls with fuller lips, a wider nose and more pronounced cheek bones — a far cry from Christie, Barbie’s black friend who debuted in the 1960s and was essentially a white doll painted brown.”

Facial features. Going beyond just painting dolls brown. Finally!

The last connecting dot in all this is that the dolls’ designer, Stacey McBride-Irby, was just at the Blogalicious 2009 conference held this past weekend. So here I am on Monday, reading some of the conference recaps and the #blogalicious tweets and find myself circling back to the article I just read. And back to thinking about my baby girl and how she just might have a chance at seeing things differently growing up.

All of this on a day where part of the world celebrates and the other part watches Reconsider Columbus Day and nods their head in agreement.

It is encouraging to see that my baby girl will have dolls in her likeness to play with. And though I agree with the critique that the Barbie So in Style dolls have mostly long straight hair, I also see that there’s a huge improvement over the dolls I played with. Side note: two of the dolls do have short, curly hair, so I can see that it was given some thought. And my husband also pointed out just what the dolls’ designer had in mind – little girls love to comb their doll’s hair.

It is also encouraging to think that my daughter may not have to celebrate Columbus Day, but instead might have a chance at real education on the subject of Columbus and the history behind him “discovering” America. That is, in school, and not just supplemental education provided by my husband and I.

Most wouldn’t even connect these two. Dolls and Columbus day? But, the world calls out sometimes in a funny way and your mind connects the dots in an even more interesting manner.

So here I am. Feeling optimistic that my multicultural and bilingual daughter will be able to embrace both sides of her family, both cultures, and be loved by all as the Black and Latina woman she will become.

Watch these videos and consider the following questions:

• Why haven’t I seen any commercials for the dolls? The article was the first time I heard about them.
• Why haven’t I seen them in the stores? I was *just* in the Barbie aisle the other day at Target looking for a present for a birthday party we were attending Saturday. I do not remember seeing these dolls.
  • Edited 10/13/09: Ok, I went into a Target again last night and did see a few of the dolls.
• What will I teach my child(ren) about Christopher Columbus?

Reconsider Columbus Day

Barbie So-In-Style Dolls Friends Of Barbie Meet The Designer Part One

As part of a recent collaboration I had with Little Pim, they sent me the first DVD of the Little Pim Spanish series for review. You may have seen me carrying a Little Pim bag at BlogHer and may have even received a demo from me.

Little Pim is a foreign language DVD series that uses a full immersion method to teach children a second language. Little Pim DVDs are meant for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and use animation mixed with real kids to introduce words and phrases for everyday activities. They currently have the following languages: Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew and English.

The DVD we were sent was Eating and Drinking, which is also available digitally, along with all the Little Pim DVDs.

Things I Liked:

• The pronunciation of Spanish terms was very good. No Dora-like pronunciation.
• Each episode lasts 5 minutes, which means that young babies can watch one and you can then turn it off. You can then pick up later on a different episode and it still makes sense. Older kids, like my daughter, can watch the entire 35 minutes and it still flows well from one to the other.
• The Little Pim character (the panda) is adorable and makes the experience fun. Instead of just looking at a bunch of kids doing different actions and hearing a narrator describe the actions with different terms and phrases, you get a cute panda who entertains you along the way. It adds a fun element to the DVD.

Things That Can be Improved:

• Images displayed should always match the phrase.
  • Example: When “ella tiene sed” (she’s thirsty) was being said, there was a little girl drinking from a cup. Now, someone who doesn’t already know what the phrase means and can make the connection might think they were saying something like “she’s drinking”. However, we didn’t have the English subtitles on, which might solve that issue.
• There should be a pronunciation guide for parents. The parent guide that came with the DVD suggests you repeat the phrase after it’s said, but if you don’t know how to pronounce it, you might be doing more harm than good in repeating it.
• Towards the end of this particular DVD, they showed dogs and cats and taught the terms for the animals. Our initial reaction was, “What do pets have to do with eating and drinking?” It was at the end of the segment that they showed the pets eating food. So, I guess that was the connection, but it seemed a little odd.

Daughter’s Reactions/Thoughts:

• “Awww he’s a cute panda!”
• “Mommy, Little Pim is so silly.”
• “Look what Little Pim did! Ha ha ha ha ha”

In addition to the remarks about Little Pim, the character, she also asked many, many questions about the different things the kids were doing and the different phrases. She also started repeating the terms and phrases and did a really good job of pronouncing them properly.

Overall, Little Pim is a cute and fun way to introduce your child to a second language. The panda is entertaining, the interactive nature of the episodes engage children, and the repetitiveness of the phrases is good for learning. I can tell my daughter enjoyed the DVD and she’s asked to see it a couple of times since we initially had her watch it.

Thanks again Little Pim for being a sponsor of my BlogHer trip!

Today’s post is a hodgepodge (who thinks up these words anyway?) of updates. Hence, the title.

By the way, “un poco de todo” means “a little bit of everything.”

5 Resources for Raising Bilingual Children

First off, it’s another Wednesday where you’ll find me at the Family Eden blog.

Today’s post – 5 Resources for Raising Bilingual Children

Here are the resources I listed, but for a bit of back-story on our family, you’ll want to click over and read the full post. (I also included more information on each resource in the post.)

1. Colorín Colorado – A bilingual site for families and educators of English language learners.
2. SpanglishBaby – Raising Bilingual & Bi-Cultural Children
3. Cody’s Cuentos – Classic children’s fairytales…in Spanish.
4. Latin Baby Book Club – Celebrating our Culture
5. Circletime Kids - A global gathering of children and the people who love them.

Contests

I also wanted to remind you about the two contests that are currently running.

1. There’s only 3 days left to enter to win a free ticket to the Florida Conference for Women. I will be attending and hope to learn, reflect, and network with other women in the area. Doesn’t that sound like something you ABSOLUTELY want to do also?
2. You can also enter to win a Mother’s Day makeover courtesy of a new salon in town, Adore de Salon. If you win, you can opt to hand over the prize to your mom. So even if you don’t live in Central Florida, but your mom does, you can still enter the contest and treat mom to a nice gift!

Meetups/Tweetups/Fun

There are several events happening in April and May in the Orlando area. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make them all. If I did that, my kid would probably forget who I am. Here are the ones I do plan to attend.

• Orlando Tweetup II – Hosted by Etan Horowitz of the Orlando Sentinel on April 30th. A recap of the first tweetup he did can be found on his blog. More info on round 2 & RSVP on the Facebook event page.
• National Mom’s Nite Out – This event is one of many around the country and will be held at the Seminole Towne Center Mall on May 7th. More info & RSVP on the Facebook event page.
• Market Leverage Women Bloggers Meetup – If you’re a woman blogger or Internet marketer in the Central Florida area, you can join us on May 8th for a meetup with the Market Leverage company. More info & RSVP on the Facebook event page.

And please? No more events need pop up in the months of April and May. I’ve got enough going on before my :ahem: birthday and oh yea! – trip to Puerto Rico.

If you’ll be attending any of these events, let me know! And be sure to enter the contests!