Celebrating Dia! With Friends

We celebrated El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day) at Oak Brook and Van Meter. To make the day extra special we invited the amazing Alyson Beecher, principal at San Rafael Elementary in Pasadena, California to join us in our celebration.

Dia is sponsored by ALA's (American Library Association) ALSC and celebrated on April 30th each year. As stated on the website,

"El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day), known as Día, is a celebration EVERY DAY of children, families, and reading that culminates every year on April 30. The celebration emphasizes the importance of advocating literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

El 30 de abril es una fecha muy significativa para los niños. Se celebra el día de los niños y de los libros. Esta celebración se conoce como El día de los niños/ El día de los libros, y celebra la alegría y las maravillas de la infancia y la importancia de los libros en nuestra vida."

We celebrated by reading Book Fiesta! by Pat Mora. The students took turns reading the Spanish and English parts of the book. It was so exciting listening to Alyson's sweet students at San Rafael read the book in Spanish. They practiced very hard and did a wonderful job reading the book. The students in Oak Brook read the pages from Book Fiesta together as San Rafael and Van Meter listened. Also, in Van Meter we had special readers when Antonio, Sylvia and Carmen Angel (whose father is from Cuba) read the book to everyone in Spanish.

It was so special to have everyone come together as a community celebrating reading and friendship for the day.