WIN TWO MINI JUDY CLOCKS plus A BILINGUAL BOARD BOOK from Gladys Rosa-Mendoza

I had filmed a cool mini lesson using these adorable mini sized Judy Clocks from Discount School Supply, and when we went to post it the thing just will NOT work  

So much for my mastery of technology!  Maybe we will reshoot it or something, but in the meantime, I want to run a quick and easy contest for all of you blog readers right now!  Ready?  Here is how easy it is to enter:  READ the suggested circle time activity below from our free resource area on the Boca Beth web site.  Then comment below giving us your definition of what an echo song is – in other words, what makes a song be able to be called an echo song.   Sunday night (May 2, 2010) we will gather all of the entries that are correct, and we will choose one random winner from the batch!

What Time Is It? / ¿Qué hora es? suggested circle time activity: This is an echo song. I ask the children if they remember what an echo is. I praise the correct answer person and ask them to be my echo in this fun song about telling time in Spanish and English. If the children are old enough to get the concept, they can act out the time of day while singing about it. We hold our arms out in the position of 8 o’clock, then straight above our heads for 12 o’clock, then pointing down towards the ground for 6:30.

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

Reading is the #1 predictor of a student’s success in school and in life!

Show me a child who loves to read, and you have shown me a child who loves to learn!

Enjoy this bilingual read-along with me, Beth Butler (aka Boca Beth) as we share a book written by Gladys Rosa-Mendoza.  This book is the exact same title as our song What Time Is It? / ¿Qué hora es?

Gladys and I do not hang out, heck, she probably doesn’t recall meeting me, but I love, love, love her board books for young children!  Enjoy! 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7nsd42k6o

Find the book at this link.  Find the CD at this link (it’s still FREE shipping and FREE bilingual coloring/activity book on our web site through April 30, 2010!

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

Children love learning with music! 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00zlQaWrXUs

The music provides a pathway for easier learning and long term retention!

Add in some movement for the kinesthetic learner, and you have success with early learning!

This week we are focusing on some Math skills combined with second language learning with our What Time Is It? / ¿Qué hora es? song off our More Boca Beth/Más Boca Beth bilingual music CD.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFLzObSuiCg

Hope you enjoyed that YouTube clip!  Stay tuned later this week for a read-along with Boca Beth, some Judy Clock fun and a cool give away for our blog readers only!

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

We have celebrated, we celebrate today, and we will continue to celebrate Earth Day / Earth Month all April!

Check out our FREE Shipping offer PLUS a FREE bilingual language learning book with every purchase on our fun web site.

This journey of starting a business, sharing it with millions around the world and maintaining balance in my personal life has often times proved challenging, rewarding, scary, energizing, humbling, and so much more.

Those of you who are moms get what I am saying…there is so much to life here on this Earth, and when I made the commitment to change over our entire product line to eco-friendly packaging it was one of those decisions I knew in my heart and my soul was the right thing to do.  It was my mind, my business-sense-mind, that had to play catch up!

This press release announced our intentions a couple of years back, and this very recent press release made clear that the conversion of all Boca Beth bilingual products for children are now in 100% recycled paper packages with 100% vegetable based inks. 

Why?  So that I will not be contributing to the massive landfill challenges that our future generations will inherit from us.  Let me tell you, it was not the most popular decision with our accountant, but it was with my conscience and with most of YOU and your children!

With love to our planet Earth and to all of you who help me stay in business with your encouraging words of support and your constant enthusiasm for what I do to bring English and Spanish together for little children.  I love you / Te amo…

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

P.S. (Here’s a cool Earth Day contribution from my friends at OnLineFreeSpanish.com – it’s amazing!)

I might not make a million friends today (or perhaps I will!), but I have to speak what’s on many people’s minds these days:

If you are a recording artist, and particularly a children’s recording artist, then you MUST make the investment and commitment to convert all of your CDs and DVDs to 100% eco-friendly packaging!

No longer can we, with good conscience, place our CDs into those hard, plastic jewel cases that have been the standard in the music industry for decades.  Filling up the landfills of future generations with those ugly, cracked and non-decomposing cases are contrary to what the majority of adults are saying they believe in:  Save the planet for future generations.

Watch this short YouTube video about my Boca Beth Program going green (way before it was cool to do so in 2008!).  We were the first children’s recording artist to make our packaging 100% recycled paper and 100% vegetable based inks.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYRNSh3QBMg

It cost us thousands of $$$$ to make the change, we never increased prices, and you know what?  It’s all about good KARMA and doing the right thing.  What do you think?  Does a company being green make a difference to you?  

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

P.S. (I know!  I know!  Those of you who will comment about digital downloads are even better for the planet than the recycled package we use at our bilingual company … that my friends is an entirely different blog post!)

Wanting to tie in Earth Day (officially celebrated this Thursday, April 22, 2010) and bilingual learning fun?

I share with you these coloring pages from Apples4TheTeacher and below are some words that go hand in hand with the coloring pages that you can use orally and visually with the children you are teaching.  (All sheets at this link are FREE!)

Earth Day = El día de la tierra        Earth = la tierra           Planet =  el planeta        

Water = el agua      Sky  = el cielo     Globe  = el globo

Plastic =  el plástico    Aluminum = el aluminio    Glass = el vidrio     Paper =  el papel    

I have know Diane of Foreign Language Fun for YEARS!  Check out her cool teaching tips, songs, chants for Earth Day Fun right here at this easy to navigate site …. thank you Diane!  (Some of the downloads, songs, chants do cost a little bit of money!)

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

P.S.  (Share with us your activities and ideas for Earth Day fun with young children ages 2 – 8!  We love learning from one another, don’t we?  Please take two minutes to comment below with one of your favorite Earth Day lessons, songs, activities, craft idea, etc)

Who knew that one little bilingual song off our physical fitness CD could bring so much learning to so many areas of a young child’s development?

These fun little finger puppets help bring our Five Little Monkeys / Cinco monitos song to life for classroom learning in Spanish and English.  Buy the board book and the puppets on Amazon.com at this link.

If they are sold out, try E-Bay which is where I purhcased our most recent TWO sets!

Here is a link to the bilingual version of this same story book - what fun you could have asking an older Spanish-speaking child to read the Spanish for you (if you need the assistance).

Have a blast educating the young children of our world the fun and easy way with this children’s classic song and our Boca Beth bilingual teaching tips!

Happy Educating   Sea feliz educando …

Boca Beth

I haven’t met a child yet in all of my 24+ years of teaching who doesn’t LOVE the Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed song!

Here is our bilingual version filmed during an educators’ workshop in Georgia:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aju2_KhS2Uw

And here is me, Boca Beth, introducing this children’s song – Five Little Monkeys / Cinco monitos to you and special little children via our YouTube fun clip below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s_7lVceHzQ

Happy Educating / Sea feliz educando - – -

Boca Beth

P.S. (Find the words to this song right here on our web site!  And the suggested circle time / classroom activity to bring it to life is found here!)

Still having fun with fruits in Spanish and English this week with Boca Beth?!?!?!

Hope so!

Here are a couple of snack ideas to enjoy while singing our Fruit Fun / Fruta divertida song together with young children!

Snack Time Fun with Fruits

Apple Taste Fun: Cut apples into wedges and have available in large bowls for dipping several flavors of Jell-O mix in its powdered form. Invite the children to dip an apple wedge into one of the Jell-O powders, covering all sides of the apple. When you let the apple sit for many seconds, it turns a bright, vibrant color. The children are then encouraged to eat the apple. It’s a messy activity but great fun!  Suggested Jell-O’s to use are orange, raspberry, lime and blueberry.  Yummy!

Make Me A Watermelon Please:

Buy two kinds of sherbet: a green and a pink (or red). Buy a bag of chocolate chips. Cover the inside of a medium sized bowl with aluminum foil. Place the green sherbet inside the bowl and form it to the bowl

around the perimeter. Mix the chocolate chips with the pink (red) sherbet and then scoop it inside the green. Freeze it. When ready to eat, turn it upside down on a plate, peel the foil off and slice. It looks just like a watermelon! The chocolate chips look just like the seeds of the watermelon! It is so cool!!!

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

P.S. (Entered our contest yet?  Hurry!   You have a chance of winning the CD our Boca Beth Fruit Fun song is on PLUS four fruit shaped Silly Bandz!!!  Go to this link and comment, comment, comment!!!)

Enjoy the suggested activities below to go along with our Boca Beth bilingual  Fruit Fun/Fruta divertida song (it’s found on our More Boca Beth music CD which is packaged in 100% eco friendly packaging!!!):

Circle time activities for this fun bilingual Fruit Song:

Using a plastic bowl with plastic fruits from my kitchen play center that match the fruits sung about in this song, I stand up with the children standing and they sing back to me the “I see a grape” “Veo una uva.” The ones who do really well singing back and not shouting back get to hold the fruit they sang about without grabbing for it.

The children have so much fun keeping the beat, echoing back, seeing and holding the actual fruits and trying to say a complete sentence and not just one word in their new language.  Notice I never say “The verb is ver and to say “I see” in Spanish you should say “Veo.” We do not conjugate verbs in the Boca Beth Program. The children will get it as they repeat, repeat, repeat acting like sponges with each new word, each new phrase.

Art Time Activities for Fruit Fun

Fruit Made From Styrofoam Balls:

Invest in some Styrofoam balls of various sizes for this fun

Summer Fruit Fun Project, and invite parents to help as needed.

The children can “produce” their own fruit by using the small

balls and paint them purple to become plums. Perhaps they can

make apples with the medium-sized balls and paint them red.

(Other thoughts can be gathered from the children as you

discuss the concept of round, circle and which fruits fall into

that category – based on the group’s age range!)

When the various ‘fruits’ are dry try placing green Popsicle

sticks which have been previously painted by the children

through the top. These sticks become the stems of the fruit as

needed. Get super creative and apply leaves by gluing various

shades of green fabric to the top of the fruits by the stems.

Strawberry Shampoo Painting:

Buy some inexpensive strawberry shampoo then mix it with

green watercolor paint. After a walk outside if you live near any

type of fruit garden, fruit trees, orchards, fields of strawberries

or something of the kind or after you read a book about fruits

(preferably a bilingual one – see later resources) or maybe after

clipping pictures of fruits from the Food Ads in the local paper

… encourage the children to paint with this shampoo paint on

red paper (since the green is mixed in).

Wait until it dries! Ay mama… it is a scratch and sniff heaven

full of strawberry scent!

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

P.S. (Remember to enter our Silly Bandz and CD contest!  Prior blog post is where you enter!)