Kids Music and Story Time UPDATE

With the weather getting colder and the park visits getting shorter, we thought we'd remind you about our Saturday morning kids activity.  It's FREE!

Join us Saturday morning at 11am for Spanish Music and Story Time for kids ages 1 and up.  Lango Chicago will present 2-3 short stories from around the world.  The stories will be read and presented in Spanish with a focus on pictures and animated delivery to help convey the meaning.  We will finish up with a sing-along to get kids engaged and using some of the Spanish vocabulary they just learned.

The Kids Story and Music Time will continue every 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month. 

We thought you'd like to know a little bit more about our music and story time leader Megan Marshall.  We asked her a few questions to get to know her a little better.  Here's what she had to say...

What is your connection to the Spanish language? I grew in a monolingual family within what was very much a bilingual community.  It used to infuriate us, but my mother was constantly pushing my sisters and I to speak Spanish with our neighbors, friends' parents etc.  All three of us are completely bilingual, at least in part thanks to her.  

Why do you like to teach young kids foreign languages?  Again, based on my experience as a child who wouldn't necessarily have been expected to become bilingual (I am sure my mother thought she would likely fail at making that happen for us) I did, largely due to early exposure.  It's amazing what kids pick up and most of it is not immediately noticeable.  Learning language is not about memorizing a bunch of vocabulary words; vocabulary is obviously a necessary component but the sounds and rhythm of language and even the being able to conceptualize the fact that there are different "codes" for communication is really important and most easily absorbed early in life. 

What do you hope is accomplished through the Kids Story and Music Time at Overflow? I think that classes and structured learning time are important components to language learning but I think that the richer and more integrated the language environment is the more likely children are to really absorb and connect with the language.  They need to have favorite songs, books, and people in Spanish.  It's a drop in the bucket but something I would like to see more of.  I want more low-key, easy ways to expose children to other languages.  It's something I wish for, for my daughter all the time. 

What's your favorite coffee drink?

egg nog latte

Tell us something interesting you'd like us to know about yourself.

In addition to speaking fluent Spanish, I am pretty proficient in Mandarin Chinese.   I lived in Southern China for a while almost 10 years ago and I still dream about the spicy food.