Espacio- Planetas y Astronautas

Between illnesses and just being busy, our space-themed activities ran about three weeks. I choose this topic because Diego has a genuine interest in space. While doing my research I found a TON of great activities to do about constellations, comets, rockets, etc. I finally decided to narrow it down to two topics that Diego loves planets and astronauts. We started by reading several books about the planets.

These first books are a set that we own that covers each planet individually. They are appropriate for older preschoolers and younger elementary. There is no fun story here, but a lot of good facts and pictures. Diego has been asking me to read these to him for months at bedtime so he already knew basically what planets are and their names.

We checked out several other books from the library in Spanish but most were too difficult and technical.

We completed a chart of information about each planet comparing size, color, and number of moons.

We put our Melissa and Doug Solar System puzzle together several times. The only complaint that I have with this puzzle is that the planets are shown as if you are standing on the moon. This, of course, makes the Earth look larger than all of the other planets. Diego already knew that Jupiter was the largest planet so this was confusing for him.

We made a toliet paper roll astronaut. This activity and several space-themed coloring sheets can be found here.

We decoded some more secret messages with the answers being the names of planets.

Finally, we completed a Solar System kit that my husband bought for Diego months ago. It is basically foam balls and wooden dowel rods. You could certainly put this together without a kit but he found it on a clearance rack so it was very cheap. First Diego had to paint the planets.

Next we had to cut the dowel rods so that the planets with different distances from the Sun.

The last step was to hang the Solar System in the boys' room.

This was a really fun unit and I am glad that we didn't rush it. We had plenty of time to pretend to be astronauts and explore the planets. We did this outside flying around on our spaceship (a.k.a. the swingset) and jumping on the couch cushions on the living room floor trying to avoid the lava of Venus. I am sure that we will revisit this topic several times and add a little to it each time.

Películas y Palomitas

I am not a big fan of my kids watching t.v. I try to limit it as much as possible. Yes, I agree that there are some good children's programing but I have a couple of problems with television shows. First, the commercials. Children's shows are just full of enticing products that make me have to hear "I want that" or my favorite "I NEED that" for days after. I am just not ready for my four year old to be trying to keep up with the latest trends. Second, we prefer that when the boys to watch television, that it is in Spanish. They are hearing more and more English from outside of the house so we want to maintain the Spanish as the language inside of the house.

Although I still very much limit the screen time, my solution to this problem is DVR and DVD's. If you are looking for some preschool programs in Spanish, check out Univision on Saturday mornings. They have Pocoyo, Dora, and Go Diego Go ALL in Spanish. I record them to watch during the week and we can just fast forward through the commercials.

On Friday evenings we have implented Películas y Palomitas (Movies and Popcorn) int he playroom where Diego gets to pick a DVD and we all cuddle up to watch a movie with some popcorn. Diego will watch the entire movie but Mateo just watches for a few minutes and then goes and plays.

I snapped this picture of them watching a movie last Friday.

What my child is reading...

I have been meaning to do a post about our favorite books lately, but I never seem to get around to it. I really would like to have record of some of them so that I remember to check them out again. We are very lucky to have a library system FULL of great books in Spanish. However, since it is made up of over ten libraries, I have to look for the books online and order them to be delivered to my closest library to prevent driving all over town.

Mateo is obsessed with dinosaurs right now. I mean OBSESSED. He has never had a favorite stuffed animal or lovey that he was really attached to. He has found love now in the form of little plastic dinosaurs. He eats with them, bathes with them, reads with them, and carries them everywhere. I think that is why I love these books so much- the little boy reminds me so much of Mateo. This is a series of books about a little boy, Dani, who finds a box of old dinosaurs in the attic, fixes them up, and carries them around in a little blue bucket. So far we have found four at our library and I am looking for a couple more. They are available in English too.

The next couple of books are all from a series of books made by a company called The Magic Castle. They are also available in English and I highly recommend them. They would make fairly easy early readers and (the Spanish versions) would be great for beginning to intermediate Spanish learners.

This book is about a little boy who finds a spaceship with an astronaut ready for take-off. Pablo wants to go to the moon also but he keeps remembering more and more things that he would like to take with him. After filling the ship with his pets, food, toys, and materials to build a house, the ship can't lift off of the ground.

We have read this book so many times that I probably should just buy it. A little boy finds a dinosaur that grants him a wish. The boy wishes that the dinosaur with stay with him all day and be his friend. The two get into trouble when the boy tries to teach the dinosaur tricks.

Besides dinosaurs Mateo also loves hippopotamuses. This is mostly due to a book that I will mention next time. I checked out this book just because of the main character but it turned out to be one of our favorites. The little hippopotamus gets hurt because he is playing dangerously and his mother and father show him how to behave safely. My favorite part of the book is a "Be Careful book" that they suggest you make at the end of the book. It covers not touching poison, not talking to strangers, etc. It is a great way to talk about safety at a level that preschoolers can understand and we plan to make our own safety book soon as a StArt project.

Head over to Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns to see other great book recommendations.

Super Niños

Gracias Papi!! We love our cool new superhero masks.

(Made from felt.)

Spanish product reviews

I have received so much advice and suggestions from my fellow bloggers as we have begun our journey to learn French and become a trilingual family. I would like to return the favor by sharing some of our favorite Spanish language books, CD's, DVD's, and toys. My plan is to mention one or two a week.

I have meant to write a post about this product since I won it back in December from Wanna Jugar with Migo. I had planned to save it as a Christmas present but Diego saw it so we opened up early.

Product: A children's CD and song book called Rimas y más Rimas by Susy Dorn.

Who I would recommend it to: Beginners to Native Speakers

Why we love it: The CD is made up of short, silly, rhyming songs. The phrases are repeated several times. Some children's music is difficult (annoying) for adults to listen to, but I have to admit that I walked around singing these songs as much as Diego did. If you are a beginning Spanish student, you would benefit by the simple, repetitive vocabulary and pronunciation practice with the rhyming words. The song book that come with it will help you will any unfamiliar words. If you are a native speaker, you will enjoy the funny stories and lovely voice of the singer. Diego requested to listen to "Ratón Ramón" for EVERY car trip that we took for a month. I plan to buy another CD from this artist soon.

French Zingo

I did a review of a game that Diego received for Christmas, Zingo, a couple of months ago. This game is still a huge hit and Diego ask to play it almost every day. The playing pieces and cards all include a picture of the object and the word written in English. We have never played Zingo in English, instead we call out the words in Spanish.

In order to incorporate more French into our playtime, we have started playing French Zingo. First, I had to translate all of the words into French (for myself), make a cheat sheet, and ask my friend, the French teacher, to help me with the pronunciation. Next, I pulled out the game and told Diego that we were going to play it in French. My always easy-going up-for-anything son was instantly on board. I called out the words in French and Diego repeated them. After a couple of rounds, he would say the word in French without prompting. I am amazed at Diego's willingness to learn French. I really think that it is partly his personality and also that he is so used to having two ways to saying everything that he is fine with having one more. We plan on doing the same process for more of our favorite games soon.

*** I recently found that you can buy a French and Spanish version of Zingo on Amazon. I am not going to by another game but I thought that someone might by interested.

Typical Saturday morning

Our Saturday mornings generally consist of music playing in the background, playdough everywhere, and Papi cooking way more food than we can eat. It is wonderful.

Mateo is showing the camera his two snakes and saying "CHEESE."

To say that my children love playdough would be an understatement. Diego will spend HOURS playing with it. This playdough started out as eight different colors and ended up as a lovely shade of gray as usual. I don't mind at all if they mix the colors or even if they make a mess. Diego especially is so creative and absorbed in his playdough activities that I wouldn't dare interrupt him.