Educapeques is an educational portal with lots of resources for teachers and parents. On the website, Editorial Educapeques of Spain offers games, printables, stories and poems for children. Many of the activities and materials can be used with Spanish language learners. You will want to explore Educapeques to find what best fits your situation, but I will mention a few materials that work well with kids learning Spanish. Printable Spanish Games for Kids This printable [...]
April is National Poetry Month in the United States. It is an excellent time to share poems in Spanish with children who are learning the language. Poetry does not have to be abstract or use figurative language, which can be hard in a second language. It can be clear, relate directly to kids’ experiences and use everyday words. In addition, carefully chosen poems let children experience the sound and rhythm of Spanish at the earliest [...]
April is National Poetry Month. Poems are a wonderful way for children to hear and speak Spanish and enjoy the rhythm and sounds of the language. Spanish language learners can read and listen to poems and with support they can also write their own. Here are a few ways to share poetry in Spanish with children during National Poetry Month. 17 Ideas for Sharing Spanish Poems with Kids 1. Watch videos of animated poems or [...]
Antonio Selfa Molina is a performer and composer from Spain. He is also a teacher. Last year, he recorded Spanish poems for children set to his music. These poems are by some of the great poets of Spanish literature, including Lope de Vega, Amado Nervo, and Nicolás Guillen. There are also poems by well-known contemporary writers like Pedro Villar and Floria Jiménez. Several of these Spanish poems for children can be used effectively with language [...]
¡Hola, Crayola! ¡Adios, carita de arroz! There are lots of Spanish rhymes like this, and kids like learning them because they are fun to say. They are some of the first spontaneous interactions in Spanish that I hear between students. Many of these Spanish rhymes are used to greet someone and are based on the word hola. Children say them with enthusiasm and affection. Other rhyming phrases are based on common expressions like bien dicho [...]
This is a Spanish Valentine game based on completing a two line rhyme with a silly word. I do it with picture cards, to be sure that students know what the rhymes means when they complete it. A link to the PDF of the cards is at the end of this post. There are three short rhymes to complete in different ways, but you can use just one or two. These are the rhymes: Porque [...]
¡Qué tan grande era todo cuando yo era chico! is a Spanish poem for children. It uses basic vocabulary that is appropriate for beginning Spanish language learners and is excellent exposure to the imperfect tense. This poem is about the sensation children have that the world around them is getting smaller as they grow. Many kids remember when they could not reach the counter or the faucet, for example. The poem is by the well-known [...]
Douglas Wright is a well-known author and illustrator from Argentina. Among his many talents, he writes poems for children in Spanish. I use his poetry with Spanish language learners because the language is accessible, the poems are from a child’s point of view and children identify with feelings and experiences. They also have rhythm and rhyme so that they are wonderful to listen to and fun to recite. Mi casa está viva has familiar vocabulary, [...]
Poems in Spanish are a wonderful way for children to experience and learn the language. These three websites all have resources for reading and writing poems in Spanish with children in elementary school. The first two are PDFs that you can download and print, and the third is a website with many activities to use individually or in a poetry workshop. 1. El Rincón del Maestro is a site from Spain with materials for various [...]
Tagxedo is an online tool for making word clouds in different shapes. It is a wonderful way to play with vocabulary related to a theme. There are animals, trees, flowers, and other common shapes. There are also shapes related to different holidays (a pumpkin, a bat and a witch, for example). You can experiment with design options like color, font, and text orientation, but all of the word clouds look good. This is the Tagxedo [...]
These two sets of printable Spanish cards have pictures of words that rhyme. There are thirty pairs, sixty words in all. The cards can be used in lots of different ways. I made them without text for a group of preschoolers and added text for a mixed age group. You can download and print both sets using the links below. Rhyming is an important pre-literacy skill and an ability that should be developed in children [...]
Aula Editores is a Chilean company that publishes a series of magazines for teachers: Aula Creativa, Aula Infantil and Aula Herramientas. The magazines are not available in print in the U.S., but the publisher does make many printable Spanish materials available to download. Aula Infantil The first magazine, Aula Infantil is for teachers and parents of preschoolers. The printable Spanish material supports the articles and the activities in the magazine, so it is labeled by [...]