¡Es primavera! is a Spanish ebook for parents and teachers to read with young language learners. The repetition helps children absorb the sound and structure of the language. The text exactly describes the photos and teaches common nouns associated with spring and the verb veo (I see). Scroll down for a parent/teacher guide and a translation. Just click for full screen and audio. The free PDF is available to download from issuu. Open publication – [...]
Since the time I wrote this post, Northumberland Grid for Learning has begun to charge users who are not in Northunberland for the materials. You can find the information on a subscription here: Northumberland Grid for Learning. I will leave these descriptions, but remove the links because they no longer take you to the materials. These seasonal activities are part of the Northumberland Grid for Learning from Northumberland, England. There are a variety of materials [...]
I recently listened to Sara Quintanar’s new CD, Más canciones en español. The whole album is a celebration of the sounds and cultural vibrancy of Spanish. Most of the songs are traditional, but they were carefully chosen to be accessible and appropriate for Spanish language learners. Sara teaches music in Spanish language classrooms and knows the kind of songs that work with kids. The children sing with her on this CD and they are wonderful! [...]
These bunnies are so cute! You can help your child learn Spanish by talking about this picture. The questions that follow, like all the Learn Spanish with Pictures activities, are ordered to help children master the vocabulary and gain confidence with the language. Start with Describe the photo (1) and be sure to point to the objects in the picture as you talk about them. Use gestures, facial expressions and actions to help your child [...]
I’m so happy to be a contributing writer for SpanglishBaby! If you aren’t familiar with the site, it is a wonderful resource for raising bilingual/bicultural children. My first article for them is about making and using story stones with children learning Spanish. You can find it here: Story Stones to Create and Inspire.
Charlotte Diamond has been singing wonderful songs for children for over 15 years in Spanish, French and English. Somos como las flores (We are like the flowers) is one of her best known Spanish songs, and it is perfect for spring. Somos como las flores has a very positive message about our relationship to the earth and lots of vocabulary about the natural world. These are some of the key words in the song: las [...]
I have recommended the Caballo alado clásico collection of Spanish stories with audio CDs to parents many times. Last week I used two of the stories in class again, and I was reminded of how much I like them for Spanish language learners. Each of these books has four Spanish stories. The stories include fairy tales like La bella durmiente (Sleeping Beauty) and Cenicienta (Cinderella) and also well-known stories like Caperucita Roja (Little Red Riding [...]
These printable Spanish certificates are an easy way to recognize a job well done. There are lots of backgrounds and designs to choose from. You can also choose from a wide selection of things to award a certificate for, including participation, good behavior, achievement in Spanish, attendance, student of the month, student of the week, improvement and just general recognition. The certificates are very easy to make. Just scroll through the backgrounds and designs and [...]
I did this project with a class last week to explore las texturas and the Spanish words to describe them. The printable Spanish labels (you can download my pdf below) give examples of things that are smooth, rough, hard, soft, spongy and sticky. The kids found objects with those textures and attached them to a board with the labels. We talked about other things with the different textures and how objects can often be described [...]
In this Spanish song and game, El teléfono, kids sing that the phone is ringing and pretend to answer and talk to each other. It is an activity that works with preschoolers and with older kids too. The children sit in a circle and sing the song. After two short verses, there is a pause in the music and one child calls out the name of another. The second child pretends to answer the phone. [...]
This online game has falling pictures of words that contain the syllables ca, co, cu, que and qui. Using the arrow keys, players center the picture so that it falls onto the syllable contained in the word. Kids learning Spanish recognize most of the vocabulary used in this game, so it is a good activity for language learners who are starting to read. Players match the sound they know with how the sound is spelled. [...]
“Y ahora, pon un círculo rojo alrededor del triángulo. Mira, ¡ya llegó tu comida.” (And now put a red circle around the triangle. Look your dinner is here!) I used to entertain my kids waiting in restaurants or before appointments with drawing games where we gave Spanish instructions to each other. All we needed was paper and pencils and the game passed the time quickly and fairly quietly. Below you will find a couple of [...]