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Title: Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar?
By: Bonnie Lass and Philemon Sturges
Illustrated by: Ashley Wolff
I wanted to share about the book "Who took the cookies from the cookie jar?" by Bonnie Lass and Philemon Sturges.. and wonderfully illustrated by Ashley Wolff. My kids have fallen in love with this book and I thought I would share the language moment that took place around it.
First I must say that the book is based on the favorite children's song by the same name and that the sheet music (musical score?) is given on the first page of the book. The story is based on a skunk who is trying to find out who took the cookies and the different animals that could have taken the cookies but didn't.
Now we are a very strict OPOL family. I only speak Italian to our children (at home in public it doesn't matter) and my husband speaks English to them and we live in Southern California (currently surrounded by fires). I do not usually translate English books into Italian so when we bought this book I didn't really think I was going to have anything to do with it.
Well my husband started reading it to the kids and they loved it. They giggled and laughed and basically sang right along back to him. That night my husband and the kids baked cookies still singing the song and having a very nice father kids moment. The next night they asked for the book again and my husband was very happy to oblige as he was having as much fun as they were with this book and of course with them.
Well my oldest, Michael (5y9mo) realized that I wasn't really singing along. He was very sweet about it and started naming off the animals in Italian for me.. He then started singing the song in Italian, he made up or I guess I should say translated the song and made it work in Italian too. Well my younger two, (4y4mo, 2y8mo) thought that it was just sooooo funny and joined in.
Tonight when we pulled out the book they read it in English and sang and then did the same in Italian (their Italian version) and of course there were tons of cookies involved.
Activities Involved:
1. Singing Song
2. Baking Cookies
2. Both Majority Language and Minority Language
