Guide to Online Activities

"Miguel's Sketchpad" lets your child create his or her own comic using scenes, characters, and props created by Maya & Miguel's own aspiring artist, Miguel. Comics will feature characters and scenes from the Maya & Miguel television show. Your child will use creativity and reasoning skills to create scenes and captions to make a 4-panel comic. Visual clues cue vocabulary choices, and help your child tailor sentences to go with his or her comic. Comics can be created in English or Spanish. Then, your child can choose to share the comic with friends and family, print it, modify it, or make a new one!

Playing "Miguel's Sketchpad" supports these important learning objectives:

• to encourage English language acquisition
• to communicate and share a story in English or Spanish
• to use art and the written word to convey ideas
• to encourage creativity
• to experience listening, spoken language and picture-word association
• to promote cultural diversity

Extend your child's "Miguel's Sketchpad" learning experience by using these ideas:

• encourage your child to use spoken English, Spanish, or your own native language to share thoughts and ideas
• model language by speaking and reading to your child
• provide your child with opportunities to draw, express artistic interests and display artwork at home
• set a time (daily or weekly) to enjoy the comic section of your local newspaper together
• start a "funny" collection by cutting out and saving comic strip favorites in a journal