New Project for Learning about The World!

Time has gotten away from me. I have no other excuse for not keeping up with the blog.  Summers are busy days for playing with my boys. Sometimes, instead of me wearing them out, they wear me out so much, that their nap time becomes mine as well. I can’t complain about that. I do love my naps and that I am able to spend my days at home with them. I know I am lucky. Things do tend to get in the way of my working on my various projects, though.  I will attempt to do better.

I think I have found the perfect way to do so. One of my fellow Multicultural Kid Blogs Contributors from Kid World Citizen has created the coolest Diversity Calendar out there (in my opinion) and I can’t wait to start celebrating some holidays that are new to me, but important around the world.  Here is the description from their website.

Our Diversity Calendar is a month-by-month, thorough collection of holidays around the world! For the past three years, we have interviewed religious leaders from all major religions, and heavily researched our calendar to assure that the most important holidays have been included (and are happy to include any additional festivals or holidays our readers add in the comments!). This fabulous diversity calendar includes 285 special days including:

•multicultural and ethnic festivals

•religious holy days from all major religions

•environmental days to celebrate and honor our planet

•United Nations International Days such as “Global Youth Service Day“

•fun holidays that celebrate friendship, empathy, and kindness.

Even though it is probably intended more for teachers and homeschoolers, I know that my boys and I can come up with some fun things to do with it. From World Friendship Day to International Talk Like A Pirate Day and so many animal appreciation days, I think this will be a fun project!  I’m excited to show them how beautiful the world is in all of it’s celebrations.  Want to do it with me? I’d love to find ideas on how to celebrate some of these with you!

If you would like to purchase your own calendar you can do so HERE.

Let’s Celebrate Each Other!  

Excited to Add New Things to Our Celebrations!

 

 

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Easy and Cute Teacher Gift!

Hi!

The kids and I got crafty for Teacher’s Appreciation Day and we wanted to share it with you.  I saw this on Pinterest (of course) and had to try.  The post I saw used shadow boxes, but that is way to pricey for my budget so we used canvas instead.  Here is what you need:

• Canvas (I used 8 1/2 X 12 at $7.99 for a 5 pack)
• Crayons (2 boxes of 64 count total $3 a box)
• Glue Gun and Glue Sticks (I already had these)
• Rope of ribbon of your choosing (I used rope I had)
• Paint (optional) we used Dot Paint for a pretty finish

Because 3 of the things used are standards in my craft room, we spent a little over $1.50 per gift. Not bad for a days work!

First print or draw the letter you want to use as a guide for your product on a sheet of paper. Copy that same letter onto your canvas.  I cut the printed letter and used it as a stencil so they matched.

Second start arranging your crayons to fit the letter and cut them to size.  I just used a sharp knife, but you can use a small electric saw if you have one and are comfortable using one.  I am not, so I stuck to what I felt comfortable with.

Once you know how you want them, start transferring them over from your sheet to your canvas and gluing them with your glue gun. I recommend doing one at a time. I tried to make a line and quickly setting more than one to go faster, but the glue dried before I could get them over.  Oops!  One at a time works better for me. Because I had to to them this way, I didn’t let the boys use the glue gun this time around.  Way to easy to burn your fingers when you are holding the crayon.  Not much room for error, ask my fingers.

Once they were dry, I gave the leftover crayons to the boys and they went to town on the canvas. Here is where our Spanish Lesson came in.  We reviewed our alphabet and then named the letters we needed. We reviewed our colors as they picked their crayons and named the ones that were glued.  They also got to count the amount of crayons used. Learn & Play, I say!  

They loved the idea of drawing with crayons around crayons for their favorite teachers.  Sweet Boys!  For the finishing touch, we used the dot paint to make the pictures pop. 

Once everything was set, I glued a piece of the rope to the top for hanging. Wrapped them up and Ta-Da! Pretty gifts!

You could do everything in a day (though the cutting was the must time consuming task so be prepared for that).

Hope you like it!  Happy Teacher Appreciation Day to all of the Fabulous Teachers out there Past and Present!  

Hugs to you all! 

 

Favorite Times

Hello!

Life gets crazy sometimes and there is really nothing we can do about it but try to keep up.  The saving grace for me is the time I get to spend with my littles.  There is just no other feeling like that love you feel when it is just you and your kids, cuddling, chatting and giggling. 

One of my favorite times is night time or as we call it “nite-nite time”. I get to cuddle with my little ones individually, read stories, sing songs and TICKLE! I love their giggles and just having that special bonding time with each of them. It fills my heart.

I have sang the same Spanish songs to both boys since they were born.  My mother gave me a CD from Grupo Truhui when my first was born and it was like magic.  It truly did help him calm down and fall asleep. Not only that, but it worked with my second, too! Because of that, I learned some of the songs and created a mashup version that I now sing to them every night. 

The other night, my oldest was playing with the camera on my phone while we were getting ready for bed and decided to make a video of our songs. I wanted to share it with you because it means so much to me and I will cherish this video and our memories always. Sorry for the bad lighting (night time) no makeup look, goofy faces and the not-so-perfect singing from me (I do not claim to be a good singer).  But M IS in my opinion, so concentrate on him.  He just makes me smile!  I hope to one day make a singing video with my little one as well.  When I do, maybe I will share it, too!

Thank you for reading and may all your nights be filled with song!

Frida!

“A charismatic and unforgettable figure to the very end, Kahlo will forever be remembered for her grace and artistic gifts.” My Modern Met Check out the beautiful pictures of Frida by Gisèle Freund HERE

 

Showing Love And Affection Around The World!

Hello World! Hope you are having a LOVELY day!  This month, I am the host of the blogging carnival for Multicultural Kid Blogs and I couldn’t be happier. Although I am not one to celebrate Valentine’s day, as it turns out I AM a bit of a sucker for love. That means this month’s theme is quite fitting.

In this post I will share with you how my fellow multicultural bloggers and I do just that as well as where you can find them. You will read posts about how people greet each other where they are, how parents show love to their kids, how extended multicultural families show their love, how families kiss, greet each other and much more. So let’s get started.

First, let’s learn how to say I Love You around the world!  Check out it out HERE!

Kissing is a common way of showing love all over the world.  But how many kisses are expected depends on where you live. The Piri Piri Lexicon wrote this funny post about kisses in France. Bisous? 1, 2, 3, 4? French greetings: how many kisses? 

Here is a hillarious one also about kissing from Sarah at A Life with Subtitles An American Girl’s Guide To Kissing How many awkward kisses have you experienced?

Showing love to kids will help them grow up unafraid to show others love as well. Not only that, but it will help them be comfortable enough to show their other emotions as well.  Leanna at All Done Monkey has a very cute post on showing kids love that I will definitely try: Monkey Kisses and Dinosaur Hugs: Creative Ways to Show Kids Love 

Here is a beautiful take on love wherever you are from thanks to Olga at European Mama: Rethinking Intercultural Relationships

If you speak Spanish or have heard it being spoken, you know that we love our nicknames. They are more than just nicknames to us, though, they are truly affectionate terms.  Elisabeth at Spanish Mama wrote this great post on just that: Terms Of Endearment In Spanish-Speaking Countries 

Here are some more, this time from Puerto Rico thanks to Frances at Discovering the World Through My Sons Eyes. Puerto Rican Terms of Endearment and Expressions of Love 

Can’t forget Valentine’s Day!  Here is a post from Lisa at Cooking With Languages just in time. Valentine’s Day: Showing Love and Affection in Spain 

I also wrote this one for MKB last year on Valentine’s Day Around The World with some great ideas (also thanks to many of my MKB friends): Please do check it out.  

Here is an educational one on co-sleeping with your baby from Lisa at Lisa Lewis MD: Sharing Love: Co-Sleep Safely and Affectionately! As Lisa says “HAPPY SNUGGLES”

I hope you have enjoyed our February Blogging Carnival for Multicultural Kid Blogs! Please follow the group on the MKB site and Facebook page as well as all of our fabulous contributors!  We Love to Share the Love All Around Our Beautiful World! 

How Do You Show Love?

Donating Halloween Candy for Veteran’s Day!

I may a little late to do things, but this year I was not going to let the chance to donate the kids halloween candy pass us up yet again. They got a ton a candy, way too much for two little boys. Really, way to tempting to stay in the house with that chocolate junky that takes over my body every time she smells that delicious scent.  MMMMMM….wait, were was I?

I researched different ways to contribute and found this great list that I will keep for future reference. Check it out: Sweet Ways to Donate Your Halloween Haul to Those in Need

The one we chose is Operation Gratitude. The only way my boys were going to let go of so much deliciousness was knowing that it was going to some of the people they admire: Soldiers! Once I told them that we would be sending the rest of the candy to soldiers that don’t have access to any where the are at, they were all for it.  They were able to keep 5 pieces each and we packed up the rest. We had 4 pounds of candy!  Crazy! But I could see why they were such a hit…

Then it was time to get crafty, of course.  We each made a little thank you card for the troops to add a little extra cheer.  T’s is quite artsy, I say.  He chose the colors himself it turned out really beautiful. I wish I had a better picture of it. M’s melts my heart.  He drew a soldier with a feather on his cap.  The little guy in there is himself.  He said he was there to cheer him up and that is why they are smiling. The whole picture tells a story. I love it.  I’m very proud of my little guys.

While reading about Operation Gratitude, we found that you can send all sorts of things year round!  Save the information somewhere where you can easily access it and send a little love to those so many take for granted anytime you feel like giving. Click Here to save it.

With that, I end this post and say, Happy Veteran’s Day and Thank You to all of the men and women who have served, are serving and will serve for keeping us safe year round! 

 

Super Easy Halloween Crafts

Hello!

Halloween is almost here and my boys couldn’t be more excited! They have been wearing their costumes since we got them for them and have been busy creating some of their own.  We have also been doing my favorite thing…getting crafty! Yep, you can never have too many crafts! Here a few super simple crafts and ideas for your last minute Halloween fix.  

Paper Skeleton Costume

My oldest wanted to be a skeleton one day, so I searched on Pintrest for an easy to make costume and came across a million ideas, of course.  Here are a couple of super easy ideas for the skull and another for the rest of the skeleton.

Skull from Red Ted Arts

What you need:

• Paper Plate
• Marker
• Scissors
• hole punch
• Pipe cleaners or something to tie with

1. Follow the middle circle on a paper plate with your marker to make a horseshoe shape. 
2. Draw two half circles on both sided of the horseshoe
3. Draw lines on the grooves at the bottom of the plate for teeth
4. Draw circles for eyes and an upside down heart for the nose.

5. Punch holes on both sides and tie a pipe cleaner or string through it. 

Body

For the body I found a printable template on Poofy Cheeks that was perfect.

What you need:

• printer
• paper
• scissors
• black marker
• tape
• kids in dark clothing 

I just printed two for both of my boys and cut out the shapes.  I wasn’t about to cut each individual bone, so I just colored in the blank spaces with a black marker. Perfect for people that want to be a little crafty but don’t have a lot of time.

I hand drew the arm and leg bones myself so I could make them the right size for my littles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally I taped them to some dark clothing, added the mask and the skeletons were complete!

SPIDERS!

I wanted some spiders to hang on our fake spider web, but I wanted them to be extra special. I solicited the help of three very talented artist (aka the fam) and a spider family was born.

What you need:

• pipe cleaners
• pom poms
• googly eyes
• glue gun (with glue sticks) or regular glue
• scissors

1. Cut and shape the piper cleaner to the sizes you want the legs to be.
2. Let your imagination run wild. Glue the legs to the pom poms and add eyes.DONE! 

Paper Plate Ghosts

This one is fun for little hands, too!

What you need

• white paper
• white paper plates
• tape
• white party streamer
• markers, crayons or paints

1. Trace your little ones hands or have them do it on a white piece of paper
2. Cut out hands
3. Tape the cut outs to the back of the plate where you want the ghosts hands to be
4. Make the ghosts face with whatever you fancy
5. Add streamers to the bottom of the plate. Tape to the back of the plate.
6. Say boo!

Here are some easy food decorating ideas.

Quesamummy! 

What you need:

Tortillas

• cheese
• olives
• any other filling you would like on your quesadilla
• edible marker (optional)
• a stove or microwave

1. Warm up one tortilla for each person being served
2. Flip to warm both sides
3. Remove from heat and cut into strips
4. Warm up another tortilla for each person being served
5. Flip
6. Add your filling. We did ham and cheese.
7. Let cheese melt and then remove from heat.
8. Add your strips of tortilla on top leaving enough space to see through and leaving the smallest strip out. 
9. Cut round pieces of cheese and place where eyes would be
10. Cut olives in half to make eyes and place on top of round cheese
11. Draw a smile on the little strip you didn’t use and add as mouth.  Easy peezy! I added tomatoes and cucumbers to the plate just to make it a bit healthier.

Sandwich Art

I am that cheesy mom that send decorated sandwiches to school.  Although my art skills could you some work, the boys really enjoy them.  I’ll keep on doing it until they tell me to stop or I don’t find it fun any more, whichever comes first.

What you need

• A sandwich (duh)
• edible markers

1. Draw to your hearts content.  Just remember your canvas is pretty small so don’t try to get to detailed unless you are crazy talented. It’s not easy to show too much on bread. Here are a couple of examples.

There you have it.  This is how I’ve been keeping busy these days.  What crafty things are you up to?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Language is a Bond

Did you hear the news?  The US has more Spanish speakers than Spain.  This shouldn’t really come as a surprise due to the size and population differences between the two.  What is amazing to see (for me at least) is how many Spanish speakers there actually are in the United States. A recent study conducted by Instituto Cervantes* found that there are 41 million native Spanish speakers in the US plus 11.6 million others who are bilingual.  How awesome is that? 

For me this means that I am not alone in wanting to teach my kids to speak, understand and love Spanish. There is an awesome community right outside my door. Thanks to someone special, we were able to put both boys in Spanish summer camp this year. M went last year on his own because T was too little. We thought T was ready this year. That is still up for debate. M loves school, comes home excited about the new words he learned that day, knows a lot of new songs and has made new friends. T cries every time we drop him off and on and off throughout the day. He hasn’t even bonded with his teacher or his classmates. I’m hoping this changes as they have 4 weeks to go. I really don’t like having him be so sad and would pull him if we didn’t think it may just be the terrible twos taking effect for not getting his way. What would you do? 

Once he gets past the tears, however, he does throw out some Spanish words without being asked. He also gets excited when we read books in Spanish at home and when we sing our songs. That makes me happy. We will keep trying with the summer program this coming week and revaluate at the end of it.  

But I digress. As far as Spanish always being a part of their lives, the new study gives me great hope.  Also, with all of the attention being brought to our language and culture in the news today, it makes me proud to see how we have come together as a community no matter what part of the world we are come from. Spanish is our bond, family is our heart and pride is our power. All of these are great lessons for my boys in the long run. Let’s keep our love for languages alive! 

What languages do you speak with your kids?

I’d love to learn more about your love for languages!

Also, if you haven’t done so, please send a family pic. You do not have to include faces if you don’t want to…shadows, backs to the camera, hands held together, etc) for a fabulous future post. Thanks and have an amazing weekend. 

*The Guardian

Global Pick of the Day

As part of my Global Pick of the Day and the mark of my one year anniversary as a blogger last week, I picked one of the first posts I did. I had started doing research on all things bilingual and came across some awesome articles. They have given me some great ideas about how to help my children become bilingual. We still use these tips today as well as so many others I have found along the way through the Multicultural Kid Blogs. It’s fun to look back and see where we are now. It also makes me want to try to remember what the baby photo project I mentioned was. I should write things down more often, (words no blogger should say, ha)…

Enjoy!

Please Click here: Your Family can Help Boost Bilingualism

My Global Pick of the Day!!

It is my turn to share one of my first posts with you and the Multicultural Kid Blogs readers.  So I thought I would share with you one of my firsts post dealing with my greatest fear.  It’s not snakes, dark spaces or even heights. I’m pretty good with all of these. What is it then? Public Speaking. Can’t do it, even at my age. What’s a mama to do?

Public Speaking: Not in English or in Spanish, Please.

I hope you enjoy my take on it and I would love suggestions on how to help my little ones avoid this challenge.

Thank you!