About Spanish Playground
I hope that Spanish Playground will be a place you can find practical advise and useful material for teaching Spanish to children. Visitors to the site teach in many different situations, from homeschooling to elementary Spanish programs. Some are native speakers of Spanish and others are parents who have studied Spanish and want to expose their children to the language at home.
Regardless of the curriculum we use, our level of Spanish, or the age of the children we teach, we all need resources and ideas. Spanish Playground is a source of supplemental material, activities, songs, and games. You will find recommendations of music and books. There are also links to authentic language activities which are appropriate for, or can be adapted to, Spanish language learners. What material is useful to you will depend on your situation, but be sure to contact me if you are looking for something specific or have questions about any of the resources mentioned.
The materials on Spanish Playground include:
Picture book suggestions:
Listening to Spanish language picture books, children learn vocabulary and grammar structures in context. Ideally, they also hear correct pronunciation. For those learning Spanish with their children, books with audio CDs are a great resource.
Games:
When children play games in Spanish, they are using the language to have fun. Games, whether tag, rock-scissors-paper, or a card game, teach language through repetition and context.
Songs:
When children sing, they produce correct, natural Spanish. In choosing songs to use with my classes, I consider grammar, vocabulary, and also what is fun to sing. Songs with actions that reinforce meaning are particularly effective learning tools.
Online games and activities:
There are many activities online that are designed for native Spanish speaking children. These can be appropriate for Spanish language learners if they are chosen carefully and images clarify the meaning of the language. In addition, native speaker audio is a tremendous resource for non-native speakers working with children. These authentic language materials, if selected carefully and supported, can be very helpful to teachers and parents.
Posts with photographs:
Photographs are an important resource for parents and teachers working to provide context for language. The posts related to photographs are models of some of the types of activities that can be done with children using pictures. Entries labeled Learn Spanish with Pictures have a photograph, a description of the photo and a series of questions to help you talk about the picture with children.
Vocabulary – words and phrases and ways to use them:
These posts offer suggestions on selecting and using specific vocabulary. There are examples of how to incorporate phrases into a daily routine and activities that use the vocabulary. There are also many activities that use vocabulary in different categories.
I appreciate feedback. Feel free to contact me at playground . spanish @ gmail . com
About Me
I have been fortunate to have a career that lets me indulge my love of languages and share it with others. I taught university Spanish and ESL in Wisconsin for over twenty years. I have also taught English to immigrants and Spanish to children in elementary school, home daycares, preschools, homeschooling groups and private classes.
I taught my three children Spanish as they were growing up. They are now 26, 24, and 22. They all speak beautiful Spanish and it is an important part of their professional, academic and personal lives. My oldest daughter lives and works in Lima, Peru. My son is a medical student and also interprets at a medical specialty clinic. My youngest daughter will start law school in the fall of 2013. She uses her Spanish and French regularly in her work with human rights organizations.
What a great site! What a great accomplishment to have three children that speak Spanish. I hope to do this someday!
Te felicito! Gracias por compartir tanta informacion…muy util para las personas que quieren enseñar español a niños. Voy a pasar la voz
Saludos
Leticia Smith
genial! Todas las ideas son buenísimas. Butiá es un recurso fenomenal para canciones!! visitaré a menudo!
The following link provides a fun way to learn colors in a group. Pass the ball game with different color balls – using a catchy, rocky tune which is downloadable. Also download the Color Song – which is fun and can be done alone or in a group.
http://www.fun-french-and-spanish.com/colors-in-spanish.html
This is the best collection of Spanish resources that I have seen! Thank you so much! I now have many new resources for my Spanish immersion students. Thanks also for putting a wide variety of resources up.
Thank you for this delightful site. It is generous of you to provide so many ideas and activities.
I’m glad you find the site useful! I find I draw on tons of different materials, and I think the variety is as good for me as it is for the kids. Thanks for the comment!
I like that many of your ideas and resources can be easily adapted to use with children in any language! I’m adding you to my blogroll–and will be back often, especially since my son has just been granted admission to our local bilingual immersion school–my husband and I will have to work on our Spanish with him!
How great that your son will be going to a bilingual school! I wish more of those options were available to everyone. Have fun speaking more Spanish with him!
I keep revisiting your site for all of your great ideas. How inspiring! Thanks for your generosity. After 10 years of teaching, I need to reboot constantly.
I now am also teaching my children Spanish and am constantly looking for literature and music to use with them.
muchisimas gracias por todo lo que comparte con nosotros! eres una persona (maestra, mama) especial y estimo su trabajo. ma. t.
Thank you for the dedication you put into offering so many wonderful teaching resources for Spanish educators. I want to share my website which offers music in Spanish and lots of freebies that might be of interest for you and your followers.
http://www.vecinitos.org
Un gran saludo!!!
My co-worker and I are looking for fingerplays and songs on farm animals and ocean/water life (in spanish)that we can share with 24 of our summer school teachers. Would it be ok to share some of yours, such as los cinco patitos? We already have permission to do the English versions from other companies
We are writing the summer school curriculum for students going to kinder or first grade next year. Our program will last 17 days this summer. The kinder topic is on water/ocean and the first grade topic is on animals. We would share some of the fingerplays with the teachers teaching the program this summer.
Most of the fingerplays and songs are traditional and in the public domain. If you have questions about a specific version, feel free to contact me. Your summer program sounds like lots of fun!