BOCA BETH: One Song at a Time

So, I am standing outside my booth at the Florida Homeschooling Convention at Rosen Shingle Creek (FPEA is the correct acronym!!!) and some children who are part of a lovely family I met a couple of years ago at the H.E.R.I Convention come up to me to visit.  One of the boys has a little play gun that lights up at one end and then he tells me the trigger also ‘works.’   What I did not know (but found out very quickly!) was that meant it ZAPPED me with an almost electric shock!  WOW!!!

I got so motivated to share more than just this free preschool lesson (but I am a Christian woman and won’t share now what I wanted to share back then after being ZAPPED and laughed at!!!).  Enjoy this bilingual lesson fun straight from my Boca Beth Educator’s Club and watch this free YouTube Lesson we posted from our Boca Beth Program simply by clicking here.

Making it fun & making it a challenge is what learning is all about, and teaching how to tell time is no different! Using our Boca Beth song makes telling time come to life with Spanish and English words, fun movements, cool visual aides, and if you need Boca Beth stickers to turn your $3.99 Target White Wall Clock into a contemporary teaching aide just call me (1.877.825.2622) or e-mail me (bocabeth@bocabeth.com) . I will send you stickers of BOCA for FREE!!!

What Time Is It? /¿ Qué hora es ?

(sung to tune of Are You Sleeping?)

(chorus)What time is it?¿ Qué hora es ?I need to know!¡ Tengo que saber !

It is eight o.clock.Son las ocho.Time for breakfast!¡ Hora de desayunar !

Repeat chorus

It is twelve o.clock.Son las doce.Time for lunch!¡ Hora de almorzar !

Repeat chorus

It is six thirty.Son las seis y media.Time for dinner!¡ Hora de cenar !

  Boca Beth introduces time in Spanish and English with an echo song!!!

Suggested Classroom Activities to use with this song:

What Time Is It? (Off My More Boca Beth CD - click here to see the CD) 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.  I use a white wall clock from Target that costs $3.99 as my BOCA clock after putting four BOCA stickers at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 positions!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.  These movements truly incorporate learning for the auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners. They all love it!  

My kids laugh at me often!  I so easily cry over things that seem so remote, so distant from my own life here in Tampa, Florida.  So last night was no different when I cried in joy as David Cook won the 7th Season of American Idol.  I had been rooting for him after Syesha was booted off, and felt that the other David was going to win based on certain circumstances.

But David Cook won, and I will be second in line (right behind my husband!!!) to buy his first CD!  I cried myself to sleep almost.

Then this morning I woke up early to fill my car up with gas for our teen son who is now driving himself to and from school and also basketball practice.  It has been such a wonderful sense of freedom for us both - I for not having to take him all over as his driver & he for being able to hop in the car and come right home, not having to wait for me to show up!

Well, as I drove in the early dawn hours this morning, my favorite radio station TheJoyFM, announced from very sad news……………….Steven Curtis Chapman’s 5-year-old daughter Maria had been killed last night in the family’s driveway. 

I was stunned.  I was moved.  I was saddened and cried like a baby, then sobbed for a fellow mother who now will no longer hold her daughter any more and for a father who will no longer stroke his daughter’s hair any longer.

Then the Today Show reported that it was the family’s teenage son who killed her with the family’s SUV.

I wept as I pumped gas for my own teen son - praying that his freedom to drive and independence to grow into a young man challenges him with nothing even remotely close to the challenges this young teen in the Chapman family now faces.

Dear God and Heavenly Father - Welcome little Maria with open arms and the unbridled laughter that most 5-year-olds know so well.  Give her family strength to pull together during this oh-so-difficult time.  And love them as you have loved all of your children.

In God’s Holy Name we pray.  Amen.

Beth Butler

So San Diego was a huge, grande, big ol’ success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I so love California!  In spite of the aborted landing Friday morning into the San Diego airport, we still had a wonderful time both site seeing and sharing our passion for The Boca Beth Program. 

Man!  People in California so get it.  They so feel the sense of urgency to prepare their young children for a very global future with community friends and members speaking Spanish right alongside English.  The preschool educators and family child care providers from SDCFCCA (San Diego County Family Child Care Association) loved what I had to sing and say about bilingual education fun for young children ages birth - five.

  We move!  We groove!  We learn 20 body parts in Spanish and English with my Movin’ & Groovin’ / Mueve y baila bilingual song off my third Boca Beth CD that is dedicated to physical fitness fun and learning a 2nd language.  Click here to hear samples from this cool children’s music CD!!!!!

Thanks Katy and Tracey and all of the Conference Committee and attendees of this year’s conference.  Want to have ME at YOUR next conference?  Call me toll free 877.825.2622 Monday - Friday 9 am - 5 pm EST to talk it over or e-mail me at bocabeth@bocabeth.com  I love sharing how fun and easy it can be for this important lifetime skill to be acquired by children ages birth - five!

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

I am not 22!  I am not 22!  I am not 22!

Just look at my new press pictures below……..you will see those fine lines of age and wisdom!

So why do I go out repeatedly to do my 30 or 40 minute sets of Boca Beth bilingual songs for children and act like one of them?!?!?!  My thighs are screaming, “What in the world were you thinkin’ girl?!”  While my shoulders are reprimanding me with stern painful shots!

Nonetheless, I made it through, and the entire kindergarten class of Lowry Elementary School in Tampa, Florida had a blast!  We sang in Spanish and English, and those children who speak mainly Spanish in their homes were so orgullosos & orgullosas / proud to claim their native language while the English-speaking children were full of pride showing off their new-found talents in a new language.

It’s a win/win for all of us - parents, teachers, children and the administrations.  Take a few Boca Beth bilingual CDs into one classroom, mix them up with an English-speaking or Spanish-speaking teacher/maestra, add in a bunch of children who love learning with music, and you have yourself a Spanish curriculum!  All for less than $50 and it’s a whole lot more fun than immersion.  (Plus experts agree this bilingual format really does work well and is more practical for daily routine use when school districts can’t afford to hire & train bilingual staff.)

We hear the reports lately about budget cuts within our public school system.  You know that the immersion programs and dual-language programs are going to be some of the first to be cut.

Boca Beth is the perfect solution!  Why can’t the decision makers see that?!?!  The teachers see it clearly.  That is why I do this concert once a year gratis for this team of teachers who continue to be some of my biggest Boca Beth cheerleaders!  One day all of this passion is going to pay off big time!

In the meantime I have my beautiful bouquet of yellow flowers / flores amarillas and my hand written notes from many of the children saying “Gracias” and drawing BOCA the puppet and ME!

Me encanta….I love it….Next is SanDiego, CA this Saturday to speak as the keynote and do two breakout sessions on how easily you can introduce Spanish right alongside English with our Boca Beth fun method!  Please, Beth, remember, you are not 22!  You are not 22!  You are not 22!  so…Pace Yourself!

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

What mom doesn’t love hearing her child sing?  What mom doesn’t love watching her child grow?  What mom doesn’t get all teary-eyed listening to her ‘baby’ recite words from a newly learned concept or song?

Enjoy your child this weekend singing/cantando (kahn-tahn-doh) in English and Spanish this song from my Boca Beth Program called I Love My Family/Quiero mi familia (key-air-oh mee fah-mee-lee-ah).  It’s off my second bilingual songs for children CD titled More Boca Beth / Mas Boca Beth found here at this link.

I Love My Family / Quiero mi familia
(sung to the tune of “B-I-N-G-O”)

Click here for the rest of the lyrics please from this Boca Beth song.  Scroll down to about the 9th song or so please. 

 And for some cute preschool activity fun or stay home with the children fun or homeschooling lesson time, check these ideas out and then go grab the free Spanish and English language cards off our Boca Beth web site for FREE today!

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.) 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 idea is to cut out pictures from a magazine showing the six family members (mommy, daddy, sister, brother, grandma, and grandpa).  Glue them onto card stock and laminate them if you have time so that each child has his or her own set of family members for this song.  If you have one of the activity parachutes in your home or classroom, take it out for this fun song, and have the children place their family member in the middle of the circle as that member is sung about.  Shake the parachute up and down letting the ‘mommies’ bounce around, then add the ‘daddies’ and so on so that by the end of the song every child has all six of their family members in the middle of the parachute.  No parachute?  That’s okay!!!  Use a round cloth tablecloth or a king size sheet cut into a circle shape.

Happy Educating!  Sea feliz educando……

Boca Beth

Many of us might run to a Mexican restaurant tonight to celebrate Cinco de Mayo!

Some of us might fix tacos and nacho cheese dip for the familia/family for dinner in celebration of Cinco de Mayo!

But how many of us really know the meaning behind this date, this day of celebration?  Here is a three sentence, 40 second read on the history of Cinco de Mayo:

The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The 5th Of May, commemorates the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with some limited recognition in other parts of Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually September 16.

Now that you know a bit about the day, here are some quick, fun, and easy-to-do activities with young children to keep Spanish coming to life in their daily routine!

• Play our Boca Beth version of the traditional Latin American song titled Chocolate (which is the same spelling either in English or in Spanish - simply pronounced Choh-koh-lah-tay in Spanish).  If you don’t own the Limited Edition Bilingual music CD that has this song on it, just e-mail me at bocabeth@msn.com and I will send you the MP3 FREE of charge! 
• Words for this fun song are right here:  Chocolate
  This song is a chant – no melody behind it! Fun and fast!Chocolate, Chocolate,
  Bate, Bate, chocolate
  Chocolate, Chocolate,
  Bate, Bate, chocolate
  Uno, dos, tres-CHO
  Uno, dos, tres-CO
  Uno, dos, tres-LA
  Uno, dos, tres-TE
  Chocolate, Chocolate,
  Bate, Bate, chocolate.
  Chocolate, Chocolate,
  Bate, Bate, chocolate

  One, two, three HOT
  One, two, three CHOCOLATE
  One, two, three HOT
  One, two, three CHOCOLATE
  Hot, hot, hot chocolate
  Whip it up, hot chocolate!
  Hot, hot, hot chocolate
  Whip it up, hot chocolate

  Break of sound effect and music.

  Uno, dos, tres-CHO
  Uno, dos, tres-CO
  Uno, dos, tres-LA
  Uno, dos, tres-TE
  Chocolate, Chocolate,
  Bate, Bate, chocolate.
  Chocolate, Chocolate,
  Bate, Bate, chocolate

  

  Some simple activities to do with this song are to either gather together enough plastic or stainless steel mixing bowls for all of the children to have their own along with a plastic mixing spoon or (if old enough) small wooden spoons.  As this song is sung have the children mix up their chocolate with their bowls and spoons!  If the props are not available, show the children how to hold their imaginary bowls and mix with their imaginary spoons while the song is enjoyed.

  Food Ideas for Cinco de Mayo

  Based on the age of children you are having lunch with today, here are some fun food ideas:

  • Salsa and chips

  • Big Fritos with sour cream, chili & cheese and/or

guacamole for dipping

• Make your own taco station complete with meats

(chicken or beef), tomatoes, lettuce, cheese,

taco sauce and shells

• Flan, dulce de leche ice cream, Tres Leches

cake (available in many flavors these days) or

galletas/cookies from a local Spanish grocery

store.

Craft ideas for Cinco de Mayo:

• Have the children make their own

Mexican ponchos out of large brown

grocery bags with paints, sequins, beads,

feathers, foam shapes, etc to decorate

• Maracas can easily be made with two

paper plates stapled together (adult

supervision required), popsicle stick as

the handle and rice, pasta or beans as

the noise filler – children decorate the

outside of the plates prior to assembly.

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth

p.s.  (Remember to e-mail me at bocabeth@msn.com for your free MP3 version of that fun song!)

Where have I been you might be asking yourself?  (Though I don’t kid myself thinking you all go through your days thinking, “Why hasn’t Boca Beth posted on her blog in a few days?  Where is she?”)  I know I am not that big of a deal in your life……………….not YET!

Anywhoooooo……………I was on a weekend full of energy and motivation and building friendships with a group of terrific business owners who all happen to be moms, hence the trademarked name Mompreneurs (sorry, I still don’t know how to make the little circle thingy with the ‘R’ in it!!!)  Here is a link to this dynamic web site featuring a community board like none other called Mompreneurs Online.  It rocks!

 And so do WE!!!!  What a dynamic group of women, ready to rock the world with their product or service.  That’s one of our group shots (I’m the third row up,  4th person in from the left or from the right - the blonde with a smile in the middle of the picture!) 

So thanks for understanding why I was gone.  No laundry, no cooking, no picking up after anyone other than myself!  I love my time away.  And now it’s great to be home.

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo which is literally translated the 5th of May!  I will share with you some cool stuff - history on it, lesson fun and more!  See you in the morning amigas, amigos, friends.

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

Boca Beth