BOCA BETH: One Song at a Time

Wow!  What a whirlwind of a week - seems like we had just returned from Arkansas, then we turn around and we are off to Kentucky!  And what a fantastic, fun in-service training session it was!  Mary, my sister, affectionately known as ‘BOCA Junior’ in these neck of the woods conducted two training sessions while I conducted three - all of which were titled Sing, Dance and Play Teaching English and Spanish Today!

And therein lies the key to this whole bilingual educational learning fun that I have banked my family’s home equity line of credit on!!!!!!!  The little children we hope to introduce Spanish to are still learning their native language of English (and vice-a-versa for the Latino child who is still learning his native Spanish while we introduce English to him), and most of the experts agree that placing the native language next to the new language is the best way to present the second language learning!

That is why every song I write and record is bilingual in its presentation.  For example:  domingo, domingo, Sunday, Sunday; lunes, lunes, Monday, Monday; martes, martes, Tuesday, Tuesday…..

True bilingual presentation in our DVDs, our coloring/activity books, our music CDs and FREE language cards available on our bright web site!  Parents and teachers love us, and I know one day Target will too!

So, thanks you Jefferson County Public Schools Early Head Start team for inviting us to share our passion for second language learning with the staff who reaches the young children of your County daily - the teachers in your Jump Start and Early Head Start classrooms!  God bless each and every one of you!

And for those of you wanting to continue the bilingual fun with your own children, grandchildren, friends and family…..let’s share one of the favorite songs from yesterday’s training with BOCA Junior - I Love My Family / Quiero mi familia (from our second bilingual music CD titled More Boca Beth / Más Boca Beth).

“I LOVE MY FAMILY”
(sung to “B-I-N-G-O”)

Suggested circle time activity fun - classroom fun:

Using visual aides of the family members from this song I choose different children to be each family member. (Again, you can find the entire family in educational stores as a visual aid and simply laminate the English on one side, the Spanish on the other side.  Remember to always present your Spanish words on one side of the visual aide with the English on the opposite side each and every time you use visual aids.  For instance, the children always know Boca Beth will have the English words on the left side of the picture/object and Spanish on the right side.) Then we sit on our designated area of the semi-circle, and the child holding the “mommy/mama” walks around the circle showing us their “mommy/mamá” during the chorus about “mommy/mama” then that child sits down on their spot. The “daddy/papá” walks around and so on.

Another cool idea that a teacher shared with us from the Virginia area was to have the children make their own family members using popsicle sticks and cut out magazine pictures of mommy, daddy, sister, brother, grandma and grandpa.  One the family members have been glued onto the individual popsicle sticks the class then uses the big rainbow colored parachute during circle time and everyone places their ‘family members’ in the middle of the parachute one at a time as the Boca Beth song about family plays.

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth