We're proud to share that both Birdsong toys, El Elefante Quiere and Cuéntale al Sol, are 2026 NAPPA Award winners. The National Parenting Product Awards have recognized the best products for families for more than 36 years. This year, two bilingual Spanish-English toys made for Latino families raising bilingual kids in the US are on that list.
The news arrives during Hispanic Heritage Month. That timing means a lot to us.
What is a NAPPA Award?
The National Parenting Product Awards (NAPPA) is one of the longest-running awards programs for family products in the United States. For more than 36 years, NAPPA's evaluators, together with parent and child testers, have tested baby gear, toys, books, music, apps and games year-round to find the products that help families connect and enjoy time together.
NAPPA's motto is Play. Learn. Connect. It's close to how we'd describe what we set out to build.
Meet the award-winning bilingual toys
El Elefante Quiere: Bilingual Musical & Verb Learning Tool
El Elefante Quiere is a pull-string musical plush that brings action words into play in English and Spanish. Pull the string and the melody plays. You sing the lyrics, so your baby hears the words in the voice they already know best. Verbs are the words that turn naming into sentences, and El Elefante Quiere makes them part of a song you sing together.
Cuéntale al Sol: Bilingual Musical & Counting Tool
Cuéntale al Sol turns counting into a song. Pull the string for the melody, then count along in English and Spanish with the numbered flaps. Counting is often the first "school" skill families practice at home, and Cuéntale al Sol makes it easy to bring abuela or abuelo into playtime, in person or over video chat.
Both toys are also Mom's Choice Awards® Gold recipients and patent-pending.
Why our toys are built around your voice
Birdsong toys don't talk. That's on purpose. Research on how babies learn language keeps pointing to the same thing: babies learn best from real people who respond to them.
- Live people teach better than recordings. In a well-known study, Patricia Kuhl and colleagues (2003) found that 9-month-old babies in the US learned to tell apart Mandarin speech sounds after play sessions with a live Mandarin speaker. Babies who got the same material from video or audio recordings did not.
- Speech directed to your child matters most. Adriana Weisleder and Anne Fernald (2013) studied Spanish-speaking families in the US and found that toddlers who heard more speech directed to them had larger vocabularies and processed language faster by age 2. Speech they only overheard didn't show the same link.
- Babies are ready for two languages from the start. Krista Byers-Heinlein and colleagues (2010) found that newborns whose mothers spoke two languages during pregnancy already recognized both languages and could tell them apart.
- Singing gives you repetition and rhythm without a lesson plan. The toy handles the melody. You bring the words, the warmth, and the back-and-forth your baby is built to learn from.
What this honor means for Latino families in the US
For many Latino families in the US, Spanish is how we talk to our abuelas, how we sing lullabies, and how we pass down who we are. Sociolinguists going back to Joshua Fishman have documented how quickly a heritage language can fade across generations when it isn't used at home. A lot of parents feel that pressure, whether they grew up speaking Spanish, are relearning it as adults, or are somewhere in between.
We built Birdsong to make it easier to keep Spanish in everyday play, with tools that treat bilingual Latino families as the main audience and not an afterthought. Creating those tools is an honor. Seeing them recognized alongside the best products for American families tells us our way of raising kids belongs in that conversation.
A note from our founder: "When I became a mom, I wanted my daughter to grow up with Spanish the way I did: at the kitchen table, in songs, in the middle of ordinary days. I couldn't find toys that let my own voice lead, so I made them. This award belongs to every family keeping Spanish alive at home, accent and all."
— Ashley Rivera, Founder, Birdsong Toys
Frequently asked questions
What is the NAPPA Award?
The National Parenting Product Awards (NAPPA) recognize the best family products each year, selected through year-round testing by evaluators and by parent and child testers. The program has run for more than 36 years.
Which Birdsong toys won a 2026 NAPPA Award?
Both of them: El Elefante Quiere (Bilingual Musical & Verb Learning Tool) and Cuéntale al Sol (Bilingual Musical & Counting Tool).
Do I need to be fluent in Spanish to use Birdsong toys?
No. The toys play the melody and you learn the lyrics as you go. Research on bilingual families shows that consistency and warmth matter more than a perfect accent.
Do Birdsong toys talk or play recorded words?
No. The pull string plays the melody only. Your voice carries the words, because babies learn language best from live, responsive caregivers.
Where can I buy award-winning bilingual baby toys?
Both toys are available at birdsongtoys.com, individually or together in the Bilingual Play Bundle.