Ideas for Activities, Online Resources & Books
Ideas for Activities
- Fish pond — Plastic toy fishing rods from dollar store, ranging in price from $1.00-$6.99, or simpler dowel/string combination, construct simple booth or utilize wading pool, provide bilingual bookmarks as prizes to promote literacy or inexpensive novelties.
- Storytelling — Recruit local talent from the community or use library staff. Decide whether performances will be bilingual, in English, or in Spanish. See Bilingual Storytime formats and then look at the scripts for bilingual storytimes ready-to-go.
- My Own Book, Mi Librito — Make copies of this little book (pdf) and encourage kids to become authors by writing and illustrating their own story. Double-sided print on legal-size paper. You can customize your own book using this document (doc).
- Poetry or Short Story Contest — Work with local schools/teachers to promote participation, offer prizes, advertise and promote the event at the library and in local newspapers, and on school district listserv. Invite all participants to attend the event and recite before the group, announce winners at the event.
- Seek out local performance artists, such as Latino folk dancers, a balloon artist, clown, mime, singers, craftsmen, etc.
- Face painting by volunteers or staff with animal, flower, or superhero motifs as well as flags from around the world.
- Invite community agencies and organizations that work with Latinos to provide informational tables, answer questions and distribute printed matter.
- Español Básico Basic Spanish Bingo. 50 basic Spanish picture words with photos, for 3-36 players, ages 4 and up, includes 36 bingo game cards, answer mat, 50 calling cards, bingo chips. Vendor: Carson-Dellosa Publishing. 1-800-321-0943. Product ID 8919, $9.99
Online Resources
- How to Make a Mexican Paper Flower. Simple instructions for Mexican paper flowers that may be adapted utilizing 4, 6, or 8 sheets of colored tissue paper, pipe cleaners or garden wire, and colored markers for highlighting flower tips.
Books
- Fleming, Maria. 25 Spanish Emergent Reader Mini-Books (Grades K-1). Wilmington: Teaching Resources, 1999.
About the book: Totally in Spanish, no English text, paperback. - Garza, Carmen Lomas. Making magic windows creating papel picado/cut-paper artwith Carmen Lomas Garza. San Francisco, Calif: Children's Book P/Libros Para Ninos, 1999.
About the book: Instructions and patterns for creating paper banners in the traditional Mexican “papel picado” cut-paper style. - Moore, Helen H., and Jaime Lucero. 25 Billingual Mini-Books (Grades K-2). New York: Scholastic, 1999.
About the book: Reproducible one-fold, two-fold, three-fold, multiple fold books, accordion fold books, fold and cut books, diamond cut books, pinch fold books and slider books, fully bilingual, paperback, offers materials suitable for a wide variety of ages in terms of complexity of designs. - Schecter, Deborah. My First Bilingual Little Readers: Level A 25 Reproducible Mini-Books in English and Spanish That Give Kids a Great Start in Reading (Teaching Resources). Wilmington: Teaching Resources, 2005.
About the book: For grades K-1, fully bilingual, paperback.
Source: Rosemary McAtee & REFORMA de Utah