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Mein liebstes Gutenacht – Fülbuch

‘My favourite bedtime book’

Gorgeous spiral board book for little ones. Each page shows the bedtime routine and is a great resource to prompt language stimulation and development with the colours, numbers and familiar situations.

Children will relate to the illustrations and will love to touch and feel the pages.

Perfect at bedtimes. Sweet dreams!

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In German only: www.letoboggan.com.au/product/mein-liebstes-gutenacht-fuhlbuch

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Storia Di Tre

This book is adapted from a play for children aged 2 to 8 years. You will find the story captivating and the illustrations very artistic. Through this book children will be exposed to art as if they were reading the program of the Art Gallery.
For years, Dario Moretti has designed activities, created art courses, workshops and exhibition aimed at children.

Italian only: www.letoboggan.com.au/product/storia-di-tre

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What do you do to teach your child about diversity?

As you know I am a mother of two beautiful trilingual toddlers. By definition we are a very diverse and international family. I have a Portuguese/French background and my husband is from Peru. Our children have three citizenships, i.e. Australian, Portuguese and Peruvian. Better than a spy!!

I grew up in a very cosmopolitan city Paris. My neighbours and school friends were from all over Europe, North Africa and Asia, no Australians though…. too far.

For me, hearing so many different languages and seeing people with different traits is normal. I remember I used to love the end of the Ramadan celebration “Eid”. I am not a religious person but I loved when my neighbour shared the ‘Gazelle ankles’ (in French it is called ‘Gazelle horns’) and other delicious sweets. They were a good opportunity to know about their customs, religion, food and art. Have you been lucky enough to attend a Moroccan wedding? The bride wore 7 dresses. I thought getting the one dress right was already enough of a headache!

I loved Christmas meals at home because we had a Portuguese dinner on Christmas’s Eve and a French lunch on Christmas day.

I listened to music from Africa, Portugal, France, US, UK, Latin America, Spain even from Germany.

Multiculturalism was all around.

I came over to Perth 10 years ago to study a Master and it was my third trip to Australia. I have backpacked across the country. My first impressions of Perth as a resident were very different than when I had visited the city as a tourist. I had a cultural shock, shops closing at 5pm, few cultural events offered. I used to go and see a play, an exhibition or explore a museum every week end. Then I realised that instead of longing for the Parisian life I should take the opportunity to discover Perth and its cultural and outdoor attractions.

The one thing I did not expect is to meet so many South Americans and practise my Spanish so much. Most of my Latino friends migrate about the same I did. They mostly work in the Resources Industry. My wedding was like a UN convention.

I love it! My children have Spanish speaking playdates, we get to eat food, hear stories, sing songs, discover customs from all over South America.

I hear a lot about ensuring diversity at work mostly because I used to work for a mining company. By diversity, they mean getting enough important jobs for women, no discrimination due to personal beliefs or non-beliefs, gender, sexual preferences, etc… I agree with all this but I think that there is not enough emphasis on the significance of starting this discussion from earlier on.

I do believe that educating children early on on such issues as diversity, multiculturalism, challenges such as sexism, racism, homophobia will benefit the society by producing citizens with a better understanding of the world they live in, more tolerance, respect and curiosity about other cultures.

In France, you will never see a Christmas play in a public school because it is a secular country. However, when I studied German, every year we made an Advent Calendar and read Christmas stories as a German tradition.

Schools could do a little better to increase the exposure of children to other cultures. After all, this is where children interact the most.

I always loved the idea of having a special week celebrating the “World citizens”. Let people come and talk to the kids about their culture, their art, their music, teach a few words. Like a ‘Show and Tell’ day! What about giving assignments where children can do projects research on a country and its culture. Get them to interact with members of the community they are studying.

What can you do at home to expose children to other cultures?

Well, there is food. It is always a great idea to introduce new dishes.

There are games, such as world map puzzles, memory cards.

Books are my personal favourite. I show my children books on ‘Children around the world’ and ‘The alphabet from around the world’. They are of course in French. Books with foreign myths, legends and traditions.

There are other resources such as DVDs and TV shows like ‘Dora the explorer’, ‘Mouk’.

Music is also a great resource, which children does not like to dance to the rhythms of the drums or sing ‘Frere Jacques’?

There are always Festivals organised throughout the year where you can listen to music, see dances and traditional outfits. It is good opportunity to meet new people and practise your language skills.

Expose children to a foreign language by enrolling them in language playgroups or workshops. Not only their brain will benefit but they will get used to hear different languages and learn about other cultures from an early age. Young children do not judge, they just take things as they are. If it is fun, it is fun no matter what language people speak.

The State Library of WA organises a free international story time and a new country is presented each month.

Craft activities are a great and fun way to introduce a new culture. Each week, we publish on our Facebook page a craft activity from around the world. So far we made an ‘Arpillera’ from Peru, an African Drum and mini Paris cut outs perfect for role playing.

We can only enrich ourselves by learning from others. Why wait? Let’s open a window to our world.

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A Zebra que não queria ir à escola.

Instead of going to school Zebra decides to wander about. Ho, ho! She meets the panther. Is she going to be eaten right away? The panther gives her a chance, if Zebra can correctly answer a question she can go. Zebra got the wrong answer, guess what happens now?!

Beautiful story to be read aloud and later by the child when she starts reading on her own.

This book is part of the collection ‘As histórias da Mãe Galinha’, perfect for the bedtime.

Boa noite!

In Portuguese only: www.letoboggan.com.au/product/a-zebra-que-nao-queria-ir-a-escola

 

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Un amor de botón

Who could have guessed that a lost button will lead to a love story? Follow Enriqueta and Gabriel’s adventures in this beautiful book.

Both stories are told in parallel on each side of the book until the characters get acquainted and the story merges.

Beautiful illustrations and original lay out of the story.

In Spanish only: www.letoboggan.com.au/product/un-amor-de-boton

 

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Workshops: Let’s explore the museum – Exploremos el museo

Our first ‘field trip’ was a success.

Today our little explorers were given the mission to find all the animals that were on a list I had given them. We played ‘eye spy’ and before we knew it was time to leave.

A visit at the museum is always a good activity with my children. They love running around and pointing at things asking questions or just showing off their knowledge. It is good fun!

This is how I came up with the ‘eye spy’ idea to get the children’s full attention for the whole session or most of it. Without realising it, they played this game for an hour in Spanish! It worked because they were interested, stimulated and more importantly they were free to move about.

I created cards with pictures I had previously taken of items I wanted them to find, then I wrote a short description, such as “butterflies have 4 wings”. Just a short fact which is easy to repeat and remember. All the information was in both languages Spanish and English.

I then laminated the cards so the parents could go back with their children and play again.

Through this activity we learned how to say several animal names, a fun fact about them, where they lived, what they ate and so on. We also touched on the dinosaurs and fossils.

I am not expecting them to remember everything, this is not the objective. I wanted them to have fun learning and I am sure they will take something out of today. To reinforce what they have learned, we will take advantage of this visit at the museum to review what we saw. Through activities we will learn more about animals, dinosaurs, etc… and all this in Spanish.

Enclosed some pictures of the cards and of the little explorers having a good time.

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Hasta pronto!

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How to prompt a conversation with your children?

I found the article “30 questions to ask your kid instead of how was your day?” quite pertinent.

It is a great way to prompt and encourage a conversation with little and older children but it is also a great tool to use when one wants to keep practising the minority language.

When I read the article I realised that I was already using same style questions and you probably are too, such “What did you eat at daycare today?”, “Who did you play the most with?”. This is how i found out that my 3 year old often ‘ate’  whale.

I use open questions to encourage longer replies and I try to encourage descriptions to expand and develop his vocabulary. I also relate some events to stories that he has read. Associations are great tools too.

The key is to promote communication, an exchange between 2 people. Therefore limit the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions.

To read the full article click on the below link.

http://parent.co/30-questions-to-ask-your-kid-instead-of-how-was-your-day/

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Why Reading matters?

Reading matters for a variety of reasons, such as increasing literacy, general culture and IQs. Children tend to be more focused  and generally do better in school and professionally.

However one significant benefit is missing. It is the value of spending that quality time with your children. Several studies demonstrated that children liked to be read to even when they can read themselves. We all live busy lives and with the increasing use of technology at home, it gets more difficult to find time to spend with your children.

Reading books together is always a great way to maintain or reinforce bonds between parents and children. You can take advantage of some stories children can relate to to speak about difficult moments in life, such as the loss of a loved one or the arrival of a sibling. Let the story prompt some questions, for example “how do you feel about a little sister arriving soon?” or “What would you do if you were in the character’s place?”.

Use books to get kids smarter but also to develop social and emotional skills, such as tolerance, empathy, etc…

And as usual happy reading!

 

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This info­graphic was cre­ated for Harper Collins Chil­drens with Brand­point.

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Children’s book sales are booming

Great news! Children a reading more. The 5-8 are the most avid readers. The data come from an analysis from the US market and it interestingly highlights that there is more demand for diversity.

Children are interested in multicultural books. Just like Le Toboggan!

Click on the below link to read the full article.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/68083-nielsen-summit-shows-the-data-behind-the-children-s-book-boom.html

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Caras Divertidas na selva

Who wants to have fun with pop up masks of the jungle animals?

Caras divertidas na selva is fun, colourful and is about little children manipulating books.

Let’s encourage their imagination! Who wants to be a beautiful parrot? A funny frog? A lazy lion? Or a friendly elephant?

You will also like Caras divertidas na quinta for pop up masks with farm animals.

Caras divertidas is listed in the Portuguese Government reading program for school children ‘LER Plano Nacional de Leitura’.

www.letoboggan.com.au/product/caras-divertidas-na-selva

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