Story time session for International Mother Language Day 2014

Do you know Eric Carle's book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'?

In the past three years we have been celebrating International Mother Language Day with a multilingual story time session. The 2014 motto is “Local languages for global citizenship: spotlight on science.”

This year we will meet again at the State Library of WA for an exciting book reading in many languages.The event is on 21 February 2014 from 10am for a 10:30 start in their children's area 'The Place', first floor, 26 Francis Street in Northbridge, Perth, Western Australia.

We love this colourful and simple book and if fits the 2014 theme perfectly. Through this book we learn, repeat and practice the colours and lower numbers in many languages and we also learn about the science behind the development of a butterfly.

This book served us well in the past years and will again be the feature of the event which also includes a creative activity for pre-schoolers. We plan to read the book in English, German, Spanish, Indonesian, French and Italian and we hope to add a few more community languages, including Mandarin, Arabic and Hebrew if we can organise native speakers to be part of the event.

As we only have the hard copy of the big book in English which we use to show the pages. Following each page the native speaker reads out the words in the native language, as the pages get turned by the reader or a helper.  This worked very well in the past years and helped us overcome difficulties in locating the actual hard copy book in the other languages. This year we hope to initiate simultaneous story time sessions on this book, all over Australia and even further.

The book was originally written in German.

Watch Eric Carle himself read the book in German "Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt."

The book has been translated into at least 49 languages. We found texts in various languages on the internet and here are some of the resources we used:

This is a lovely French version of 'La chenille qui fait des trous' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBpHkMgWld8

Here is the South American Spanish version 'Oruga Muy Hambrienta': 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcYgc2zklq8&feature=related

Another Spanish title is 'La pequeña oruga glotona': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlvsDn_5lU8. [Thank you to Irene for alerting us to this title. :)]

The Italian version 'Il piccolo bruco Maizacio' is available here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyijOtHscU

The Portuguese title is 'A lagartinha comilona'. The pages are available in a power point document here: http://www.slideshare.net/edanona/a-lagartinha-comilona-27450374:. You find the a reading here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqmvsDfGyI. 

Please leave links to any additional resources on public pages as a comment below and also let us know if you are hosting a similar event in any other library in Australia or elsewhere. We would welcome very much if your library, ethnic organisation, parent group or even families in your private home would join us and read Eric Carle's book on that day.

Please take photos and share them in your network and with us. We are on facebook too https://www.facebook.com/BilingualFamiliesPerth.

Many thanks
Irma from Bilingual Families Perth
bilingualfamilies@yahoo.com.au
www.bilingualfamilies.net
 

Helping children to make friends - Tips for parents of newly arrived migrants

I got a call this morning from the mother of a 10year old Chinese speaking girl who has only recently arrived in Australia. After a short period at her local primary school they have transferred the girl's schooling due to her lack of English skills into an ESL school, a few kilometres away from her home.

The mother is worried that her daughter did not make any friends yet. From her cultural upbringing the girl is not an outgoing person and she would not speak to anybody on her own account. The mother rang me with the aim to find out how to help her daughter make friends.

My first suggestion was to give her as much support as possible with the English learning. Once her English has improved she can move back into her local school and connect with children who live close around her.

I also suggested to enrol her daughter into a sports class after school where she would move and exercise and have an opportunity to meet new people. Benefits of physical activity are clearly demonstrated.

• The website of the Department of Sport and Recreation has a database of any sports clubs in WA.
• Kidspot.com.au lists several venues that offer children sport classes.
• Check out the website of the Government's Physical Activity Taskforce.
• Active After Schools Program, contact the WA program coordinator as follows: Administrative Officer, Australian Sports Commission, Active After-school Communities, 246 Vincent Street, Leederville WA 6007, PO Box 329, Leederville WA 6903, Tel: (08) 9492 9769, Email: kelly.dalgleish@ausport.gov.au

Kids in Perth is a free paper that shows events for children around the metropolitan area, sorted by date. It also has a few informative articles about raising children. The other free paper for parents in Perth is Perth's Child, although I am a bit worried about this magazine, as they suggest a cake and make-up as a perfect 12year old birthday pamper party.

Facebook nowadays connects most teenagers.

Social networking sites such as facebook would be a way to connect a high school child with 'friends". From my own teenagers I noticed that mainly their friends are people the know from school and the list grows around that group to include former school friends and people they know through sports programs. I allowed my children to publish a facebook profile under the condition that they include myself as one of their friends. This is working well as I can look at their profile and see what's going on without intruding too much into their privacy. I also noticed that they use facebook to communicate about school projects, due homework and for arranging visits.

Finally, Bilingual Families Perth offers to publish any friend request for children to practice English or the mother tongue in its website with the aim to connect people across cultures. Best is to get in touch via e-mail.

Having arrived in Perth as a new migrant with children poses lots of challenges and assisting your child in making friends is probably not a high point on the agenda for your family. Many of the proposed strategies need money, although the state government has vowed to help families with getting their children into physical activity if they do not have the funds. I understand that the financial support will be paid out directly to the sports club for children in need.

Please comment and share your suggestions for children of newly arrived migrants to make friends. I am looking forward to your posts.