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Storytime Bilingüe featuring “This Bug Needs a Boat/Esta oruga necesita un barco”

Books are a way for readers of all ages to explore the world around ourselves, without even leaving our home. I love books that are educational in a fun way, so that when kids are reading them, they don't even know that they are learning. Kids are always interacting with their environment, and here's a story that supports early problem solving skills and scientific concepts.

It's another installment in our mini story time segments with just Mami & Teo, and this is one of our bilingual Spanish & English books from our friend Jane Cohen from the Early Childhood Alliance of Framingham.

In Bug Needs a Boat/Esta oruga necesita un barco, the narrator encounters a little bug trying to cross a small body of water. (And as we read, we accompanied by his own little toy caterpillar.) The story builds little learner's background knowledge of density as the narrator sees which items found in nature not only float, but are strong enough to be a caterpillar's boat. It's an early literacy STEAM book, which helps to instill scientific and mathematical thinking in growing minds.

Mateo was very engaged in our story, with the bright pictures and rhyming text. And I'm so happy with how Teo interacts with me as I we read the story, because I've been trying to record the cute way he says "agua" for quite some time! As a language specialist, I love watching his vocabulary grow and develop, and I know reading a book like this is the perfect way to teach him new words and reinforce the words he is practicing (like agua.) And even Mami learned a new word... bellota (acorn.)

So check out this week's story time and see what you learn!





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