Books about bilingualism for kids

Not all literacy learners are English language learners, of course, but some are. At Second Start in Oakland, our FFL program has a much higher percentage of English language learners and multilingual students than the program as a whole. Often, the children in these families grow up bilingual or multilingual, speaking the family language with the family but expected to speak English in the world outside the home.

The expectations of multilingualism on kids raises all kinds of issues: at school, in the home, with the family outside the home, in everyday life. Here, from the wonderful blog "Playing By the Book," is a list of children's books about multilingual children, multilingual families, children who have to learn English when their families move to America, and children who live in a non-English-speaking family in an English-speaking world.

This list is a compilation of suggestions from many people, not vetted by any single authority; you may have your own thoughts about some of these books, or think of others that should be on the list. Please comment!

Science and FFL

For those interested in science concepts: from the files of the Ooey Gooey Science Lady: http://www.ooeygooey.com/mary/resources/

Any of the great books by author Janice VanCleave will promise a fantastic science adventure.


Sandy Yellenberg, from the Santa Clara County Office of Education, will always steer you to great fun with science – 453-6692

- Deborah Estreicher, San Jose

Mixing In Math

Priya Mascarenhas (Santa Clara Reads) and I attended a workshop on utilizing math in library programs. Funded in part and supported by the National Science Foundation, the objective is to have children begin thinking about math concepts at a very early age, instead of fearing or despising math as a whole in their later educational years. The staff of "Mixing in Math" is very helpful and will find a way for you to incorporate math skills into programs you would never have thought possible. For example, before we went to a performance of "Cinderella," they advised that the families estimate foot sizes and then use rulers and actually make and compare measurements. The staff will e-mail you with suggestions for whatever program you have in mind. If you can take part in a workshop, Priya and I, wholly recommend that you do.

For Halloween, I followed the following advice with slight modifications:

Many Seeds - We read the book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin. One of the older kids first rolled his eyes, thinking it was going to be a baby book, but he ended up in the middle of the group, really drawn in by the book. It wasn't pumpkin season, so I used fruits (apples, peppers, mango, papaya, honeydew, lemon, kiwi). With the kiwi we scooped the center and estimated. We did a lot of estimating. They came up with ways to group the seeds, and multiplied by the number of groups. They first made groups of a certain number, like 50, and then they made groups that looked like they had that number of seeds. The counting wasn’t exact except for apples and mangoes. (They were surprised that the mango had only one.) I had two of each fruit and they estimated whether the larger one would have more than the smaller. We also estimated how many seeds per fruit. I’d made a chart so they put the info onto the chart. They made a bar graph with the number of seeds per fruit. Some of them had never had some of the fruits – one had never tried honeydew, and he didn’t even know what it looked like. He loved it. They loved the program and fruit is a great incentive. They estimated, divided, counted, analyzed. At the end we talked about what type of math they did. They said dividing, multiplying, etc. I mentioned graphing. The first & second graders didn’t know what a bar graph is. The older kids taught the younger kids how to do it. They showed them the line at the top and how to do the column.

A while back, we had kids estimate how much two different pumpkins weighed. Lots of pumpkin math! Kids lifted things in the room, including one kid who lifted his sister.

For additional info: http://mixinginmath.terc.edu

Social Workers in the Library

The San Jose Public Library has a cooperative venture with the National Association of Social Workers and San José State University’s School of Social Work – Social Workers in the Library. Through this venture, the Library presents "Social Worker in the Library" on the fourth Monday of every month from 6-8 p.m. Patrons can sign up for appointments for a free 20 minute consultation.

- Deborah Estreicher, San Jose

Parenting Coach

For a wonderful speaker/parenting coach for your FFL programs:

Susan Stone Belton has appeared several times at FFL events, conducted programs throughout the San Jose Public Library system and was even invited to conduct an SJPL, library wide inservice. She is excellent, warm and straightforward. Parents/caregivers have found her style very conducive to participation.

- Deborah Estreicher, San Jose

The Poet-Tree

Is April National Poetry Month because two famous poems mention it in the first line?* I don't know, but National Poetry Month is as good a theme as any for a Family Literacy Program ... and since I'm never one to pass up a pun, we created a "poet-tree," with every leaf a poem created by one of our students and/or their children:

Before we wrote the poems, we talked about different kinds of poetic language: rhyme (everybody contributed eagerly to this discussion); assonance (a hard concept!); meter and syllable count; and acrostic poems - I had written one on the board using my name, which seemed to delight the kids.

The parents, older siblings and I helped the little kids write their poems. They mostly wanted to write acrostic poems of their names. One older brother who loves both poetry and his little sister wrote an alphabet acrostic in her praise. The elementary age older brothers wrote lots of poems about King Kong playing ping pong. Some of the parents and older kids wrote very nice poems; the poetry-loving older brother wrote a real stunner.

For story time, there are about a zillion wonderful rhyming picture books out there; for no particular reason except that I like the rhythm and the illustrations, I chose Spike Lee's Please, Puppy, Please.

Design info: I got lots of great ideas on how to create a poet-tree from the pubyac yahoo group. I made our tree from a cardboard box that had held a flipchart pad: I opened the box completely and drew a tree on the inside. It can stand on its own when it's not pinned to the wall.

- Ann Daniels, Oakland FFL

*The April first lines are from The Canterbury Tales and The Waste Land - neither of which, as far as I can recall, mentions King Kong playing ping pong.

Holiday Book Event and Barnes & Noble

Once again the good people at Barnes & Noble at Oakland's Jack London Square are generously hosting us for a holiday book-buying extravaganza!

I invite all FFL students who have come to two or more programs over the past calendar year. We meet in the children's book section, where I read aloud several of the books on display. Promptly at the appointed hour I give everyone a shopping budget from a purchase order. Then everyone shops!

Barnes & Noble provides us a 20% discount, goodies from their cafe, a staff person to answer questions and help our families find books, a book truck to stack purchases while people are shopping, and a dedicated register for our families.

Over time, I've developed several rules. (1) No latecomers: Once I've done the math to divide up the purchase order among those present, there is no money left, and that's that. (2) No outsiders: although anyone is welcome to bring friends, family members, etc. to regular programs, this is just for students and the children I give them books for. (3) Math lesson: people are expected to keep track of their own purchases, although I'll help them before they check out to make sure that they are within their budget. (4) Watch your own children!

Sadly, Barnes & Noble is closing its Oakland store at the end of this year. But if you have a store near you, you might consider asking them to host an event like this. I'm thinking of trying Borders next year.