Día de los Muertos Booklets

I couldn't resist one last printable for Day of the Dead. I used these with my kids because they were asking for a simple hands-on activity. So if you are looking for something to engage and educate your kids or students, consider this packet of Día de los Muertos booklets!

This packet features three different styles of books: a flip book, an accordion book, and a booklet. Just choose the one that best suits your needs.

All three are available...

• in black-and-white or full color, 
• with descriptive text or blank to allow students to write inside, 
• and in English or Spanish.

Younger students can simply color, cut and go. Older students can write in descriptions of the elements associated with the holiday. 

Some assembly may be required, but it is easy with just a few pieces of tape, some glue, or a stapler.

You can find this file in my TpT store or in my MommyMaestra shop.

New PreK Activity Pack for Día de los Muertos

My online store has been super busy with orders for my collection of Día de los Muertos printables. But I couldn't resist updating one of my first products that I listed YEARS ago!

My new Día de los Muertos Pre-K Activity pack has now been updated to include new graphics and new activities in both English and Spanish. Inside you'll find 19 pages with the following...

• Number recognition (1-10)
• Find the difference
• Bigger vs. smaller
• Montessori nomenclature cards (English & Spanish)
• Book List of Day of the Dead Picture Books (Bilingual)
• Maze
• Tracing sheet
• Shadow match
• Vocabulary
• Writing sheets

The image above gives you an idea of what some of the activity sheets look like. It's designed for children in PreK & kindergarten. I had tons of fun creating them and I hope your young student(s) enjoys them!

You can find it in both my TpT store and my online MommyMaestra shop.

Also, per request, I have bundled five of my activities for elementary-age children. The bundle includes my super popular Ofrenda Labels, as well as my bilingual...

• Triptych Coloring Pages
• Puzzle Cards
• Note Cards
• Mobile

All of these are quick and simple activities for small hands. Sold separately, these activities total $12.00, but you can save when you purchase the bundle for $10.

You can also find them in my TpT store and MommyMaestra shop.

And don't forget! I have lots of other Day of the Dead-themed products available, including several for older students, too!

TpT | MM Shop

TpT | MM Shop

Llegar a ser Pedro GIVEAWAY

Do you have a béisbol (baseball) fan in your home or classroom? A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to share with you the children's book Growing Up Pedro by Matt Tavares. I was pretty excited to do so because there aren't that many sports books that feature Afro-Latinos. (Actually, there aren't that many books that feature Afro-Latinos period.) And those books focus on only two sports figures: Roberto Clemente and Pele.

You know I love diversity and I especially enjoy reading about people I haven't heard about before or that are outside of the limelight. I'm not saying that Pedro Jaime Martínez isn't well known, but he wasn't someone that I personally was very familiar with. So it was a pleasure to read his story.

This is the story of baseball legend Pedro Jaime Martínez, the Dominican-American pitcher who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for five teams. Your child will learn what life was like for Pedro as a child in the Dominican Republic before he made it to the big leagues and moved to the United States. You'll read about the special bond he shared with his older brother Ramón, who preceded Pedro to the States as a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And you'll cheer for him when despite his small size, Pedro becomes one of the best pitchers in the history of baseball.

My only regret has been that this book was only available in English.

But I'm delighted to share that a Spanish version is now available! Llegar a ser Pedro does not disappoint. How fantastic that bilingual readers can now pick up a copy of this beautifully written and illustrated book and read it in Spanish. (Yes! It is a good translation!)

The Giveaway

And because Pedro Martinez’s birthday is today - October 25th - Candlewick Press is celebrating by giving away one autographed copy of Llegar a ser Pedro to one MommyMaestra reader! Thanks, Candlewick!!

To enter to win, simply use the Rafflecopter below.

¡Buena suerte!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for the purposes of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Reading in Spanish Program: Nacho Books

I OFTEN receive messages from homeschooling parents who are looking for a Spanish reading curriculum for their kids. If this sounds like you, read on!

I'm happy to remind you of another fantastic resource on our recommended Spanish Reading program list! You might remember me mentioning Nacho Lectura last year. Well, they recently sent me copies of some of their new books. And by new, I mean that they have now released a United States edition with reading passages dedicated to American symbols such as our flag, coat of arms, and even our national anthem lyrics in Spanish!

I can't stress enough how engaging these materials are. In fact, when I posted about it last year on the MommyMaestra Facebook page, many of you instantly recognized the book (with fondness!) from your own childhood. They are simple and colorful, and they make learning to read and spell fun for kids. I love how they focus on letter combinations, letter sounds, and syllables. And in the back of the book are short reading passages. Take a look...

I also love their Spanish dictionary! Not only does it give the definition of thousands of words in Spanish, but it also has sections dedicated to:

• the parts of speech (i.e., nouns, verbs, etc.)
• synonyms
• capital letters
• spelling
• the universe
• anatomy
• the senses
• animals
• plants
• inventions
• and musical instruments

And these books are just the tip of the iceburg...

These resources are a bilingual homeschooler's treasure trove! The dictionary alone is totally worth buying online, and the writing workbook is excellent for beginning writers.

To learn more, visit Cultural Bytes.

Disclosure: I received copies of these books for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Free Download: Spanish Numbers in the 50s & 60s

Time for our next monthly free download from our wonderful sponsor, Spanish for You! They are focusing on numbers for the rest of the year (you can find their earlier downloads here and here). Most Spanish learning programs teach students how to count through the number 20, but few focus on those higher numbers. 

This month's 8-page mini-lesson will help your young Spanish learner memorize their numbers in the 50s and 60s, as well as how to spell them. The file includes a page of directions, memory cards, and a spelling activity sheet. Worried that you aren't pronouncing them right? They've got you covered with the audio file to help you learn proper pronunciation. 

Click here to download this file

Remember! Spanish for You!'s program is geared for middle schoolers and is the perfect choice for homeschoolers and afterschoolers alike because their concepts are carefully divided up into manageable bundles that are available for immediate download from their website.

If this is your first time here, you can find other free samples from Spanish for You! here. There are some fantastic downloads of games and activities for you and your family to enjoy. If you enjoy this activity, be sure to visit the Spanish for You! website where you'll find tons of additional resources for you to help your young Spanish learner!

Verizon Innovative Learning Program

Yesterday, I shared an NBC article on the MommyMaestra Facebook page that talks about how the Latino high school dropout rate has hit a new low while the number of Hispanic students enrolling in college has reached a record high.

Despite this enrollment increase, however, Hispanic students still have a very low college completion rate. Latino males still earn less than 9% of Bachelor's among graduating college students.

And Latinos account for less than 10 percent of the STEM workforce. In today's technology-driven world, that's disappointing. And that's why it's imperative that children get a good education in STEM classes. Because that college degree and subsequent STEM career can make the difference in pulling a family out of poverty.

Did you know that by 2020, 77percent of all U.S. jobs will require the employee to have computer skills? And yet an alarming number of schools in low-income neighborhoods lack the funding or support for technology tools, such as computers or iPads. And who suffers as a result? Yep! Minority students.

So now, Verizon Innovative Learning, the education arm of Verizon Foundation, is focusing on helping Latino students break down barriers in the hopes that they will consider STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers.

They are doing so by expanding their STEM & entrepreneurship program for minority middle school boys in 16 cities including areas with high Hispanic population. The program gives students acess to intensive hands-on courses such as

• mobile app development, 
• 3D design, 
• drone creation and execution, 
• and development of virtual reality and augmented reality experiences. 

As participants in the Verizon Innovative Learning program, students are connected to college mentors and paired for continued programming during the school year. So far, over 2,000 students have participated in the Verizon Innovative Learning program and the results are awesome:

• 64% are more interested in attending college 
• 53% are more interested in STEM careers 
• 47% feel more confident in what they can do 

Currently there are 4.4 million open tech jobs, but millions of kids don’t even know they exist! 

That’s why Verizon Innovative Learning is giving free technology and tech education to kids in need. 

To learn more and see if there are any programs going on near you, visit the Verizon Innovative Learning website.

Other Posts That May Interest You

• Top Five Reasons Why Latino Children Need to Go to College
  
  
• Fabulous Resources for College-Bound Latino Families
  
  
• Book for Latino Parents on Raising College-Bound Children
  
  
• Hispanic Scholarship Fund Makes College a Reality for Latinos
  
  
• The Empowered Community College Student
  
  
• DSST Online Study Guides for High Schoolers
  
  
• CLEP Study Guides for High School Students

Environment Collection for Kids: Multilingual Book Series

Bilingual homeschoolers! Here's a new series you may love.

The Environment Collection for kids is a set of books that focus on introducing young children to the basic building blocks of our environment. With the simple text and illustrations, these books are perfectly geared for kids in preK - 4th grade. For example, in Air (La Tierra), children learn all about how we need air to breathe, how it makes up the atmosphere, what gases are found in it, and why it is important to keep it clean.

This post contains affiliate links.

So far, the titles include Water/El Agua, Air/El Aire, Earth/La Tierra, and Plants/Las Plantas (affiliate links). They aren't actually bilingual books; each book is written in the target language, so if you want English, you can get that version, or you can get Spanish. They've been translated into five languages: English, French, German, Hebrew and Spanish.

The books are written by David Palatnik in partnership with Dr. Israel Felzenszwalb, Ph.D., a biologist and professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The information is acurate and the illustrations are colorful and engaging for young minds.

If you are interested in learning more or want to incoporate this series into your (homeschool) science lessons, visit David's site here. As you can see, they would be a fantastic teaching tool for kids! I love the illustrations and the focused text that is delivered in brief descriptions easy for young minds to understand. Here's a peek at some of the other books...

Disclosure: I received copies of these books for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.