Friday, April 4, 2008

Family Activities to Celebrate Día de Los Niños

The web is filled with wonderful ideas on how to celebrate Día. Remember that the holiday is the culmination of a year full of encouraging bookjoy in children. It is the fostering of love and understanding and acceptance of all cultures and languages. So I have decided to list some ideas for celebrating Día and the web sites from which they have come.

Storytelling is closely tied to this holiday, so why not hand out tablets and pens (or camcorders for older children) and have them interview abuelitas, tíos, neighbors, and friends. Or check with your local senior citizens' center and set up some time for your children (and you!) to sit and record the seniors’ childhood stories. Your children can write up these histories and present them to each of the senior participants in a completed book form. How lovely is this idea? I found it - along with many other activities - on Reforma's official web site. Reforma is an affiliate of the American Library Association. Officially, it is the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. If you'd like to view their web pages on Día de Los Niños/Día de Los Libros, click here.

Or, now that spring is coming, why not get the kids out of the house and plan a giant families-and-books picnic? Fill it with fun activities...maybe each family can bring one of its favorite books and have one area set aside for storytelling. Or get creative and have a bookmark making station where kids can create original artwork to mark their places in their current books. Or how about having a poetry reading? Ask the kids to write poems in the weeks before the picnic and have them read their masterpieces aloud on the actual day. And don't forget to have party favors for each child that attends. To cut the cost you can have each family bring one wrapped favor for each child that they bring to the picnic. At the end, each child can choose one that was brought by someone else. These ideas were based on some mentioned on Pat Mora's site (with a little bit of artistic license on my part!) If you don't already know, Ms. Mora is the founder of Día here in the U.S. and her site has tons of information on the holiday. Check it out here.

As for one of my ideas, why not have a book/movie comparison project? Pick out some books that have been made into movies and read them first. Then plan a movie night in which you watch the movie and then discuss the similarities or differences and which one was better? This could be a family affair or invite friends over and make it a party!

Many more ideas and review to come!

Happy reading, Amigos!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the comment, Monica! It's always great to hear form other family bed parents (I always feel like we're the minority). As a fellow Latina, I appreciate stores like yours that bring culture to our most precious babies.

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