On Friday afternoon we held a special lunch at Bar Americain with six amazing women, all of whom own blogs with an emphasis on one of our favorite languages: Spanish. The time I spent with these bilingual bloggers was fantastic- the blogosphere is expanding as writers of varied cultures enter the scene to connect with waiting audiences.

Thank you Roxana, Ana, Melanie, Silvia, Rory and Carrie for making our Little Pim Language Lunch entertaining and informative!

We are thrilled to partner with Giggle, a chain of stores that offers the best in baby products and gifts. Giggle now carries Little Pim in all its locations.

The event kicked off with adults and children singing along to two favorite songs from the Little Pim Spanish Bop and French Bop CDs. With festive instruments and song sheets in French/English and Spanish/English, everyone could get in on the fun.

(click on song sheet to enlarge)

Afterward, young and old attendees loved seeing a clip of Little Pim and his new friends Lola the Elephant and Bob the Bobcat. I answered some of the most frequently asked questions about foreign language teaching. Many parents were already using Little Pim at home and wanted to know how they could keep the second language even more active in their lives. Other parents wanted to know the right age to begin, and whether they could raise bilingual kids if they don’t speak the language (yes!). Meanwhile, the bigger kids had fun coloring in the Little Pim coloring sheets.

The whole group!

Before leaving, everyone enjoyed a taste of France and Spain with
croissants and dulce de leche pastries. As Little Pim would say “mmm,
c’est bon!”

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upcoming events. We’d love to meet more of our Little Pim extended
family.

As you may know, Halle Berry is raising her daughter bilingual in French and English. She has given interviews saying it was very important to her that her daughter learn French, the language spoken by her father, Gabriel Aubry, who is from Montreal, Canada.

Babycenter.com recently reported on how little Nahla’s language learning is going.

“While out for dinner last night at Malibu’s Nobu restaurant with her mom and dad, 18-month-old Nahla was overheard speaking en français. A worker at the restaurant says, ‘The little girl was pointing at the colorful drinks in the cooler and speaking French, like ‘Papa!’ and ‘Regarde!’”

Sounds like Nahla’s French is vraiment très bien! Merci, Halle Berry, we are so glad Little Pim can help you bring French into Nahla’s life.

We were featured in the Mompreneur of the Month section of Mom Magazine!

Mom magazine is a quarterly magazine brought to you by the creative team behind Pregnancy.

Click the image below to enlarge.

Watch the clip below:

As the kids waited their turn, they sampled our soon-to-be-released Little Pim flash cards and made works of art from Little Pim Coloring pages.

When it was time, the children and their parents took their turn playing in our mock set, outfitted with beautiful toys and furniture by PLAN Toys, one of my favorite kid companies.

Jolene, the production supervisor, has an incredible knack for getting kids to relax in front of the camera. A few minutes with her and the little ones were playing with blocks, throwing tea parties, making faces to express a number of different emotions (one of our new DVDs is called “Happy, Sad, and Silly”) with adorable results.

So many cute and talented kids came out and we all had a great time. It will be tough to narrow it down for our shoot! Thanks to all the parents and kids who turned up.

Great "sad" face!

We’ve all seen how easily young children soak up information, and their brains are hard-wired to absorb up to three languages with ease.

The Jolie-Pitt children are all learning French and we’re proud to be a part of their language education. Last November, Angelina Jolie told US Weekly that she was using Little Pim to teach Shiloh French.

Whether you’re a celebrity parent or not, giving your child the gift of a second or third language is something you’ll never regret. And they will thank you for their rest of their lives!

BiculturalFamily.org is a wonderful resource for parents who’d like practical advice, how-to’s, and stories from other parents on living a multicultural and/or bilingual lifestyle.

The online magazine is rich with content spanning the research of bilingual education, essays from readers, and more.

Their Playgroup section lists many offline opportunities for friendship and connection within the bilingual community.

Browse the website, make friends, and don’t forget to have fun!

If you want to try “country night” at home, here are some web sites that can help you fill in the gaps. I suggest you plan three nights at once so you can stock up on ingredients, music and images. It’s also a really fun thing to do with other families. Your kids will get even more excited about country night if they see that other kids are also participating. And remember, kids will only sometimes do as you say, but they will *always* do as you do! By making this a regular event and spending time on it, they will learn from you how important it is to know about, respect and enjoy other cultures. If your kids are very young, you can still do this activity to broaden their palate and introduce them to the sounds and rhythms of other languages. You might find you have a pint-sized flamenco music enthusiast or sesame noodles-lover in your family… Bonne chance!

Links:

Make your own burrito

Order frozen dumplings

Make the perfect French crepe

To order a GeoPuzzle, Travel Mania game or other Geo Toys

If you have favorite foods from other countries you like to make for your
family, please tell us about them and we can add them to our blog, which is read by thousands of parents interested in their children having a multi-national experience from an early age. Email us at info@littlepim.com.