The game I Spy is Veo, veo in Spanish, and it begins with a simple rhyme – a question-answer exchange. This game and its many variations are wonderful activities for children learning Spanish. In addition to the traditional game of guessing an object, there are card games, online activities and books based on I Spy in English. This information is about the original guessing game, but I will write a post later this week about [...]
Children can draw on information they already know to understand new Spanish vocabulary and structures. When teachers and parents talk about familiar subjects in Spanish, children associate concepts they understand with the new language. This way, children learn Spanish vocabulary in context and applied to content, rather than as lists of vocabulary words which are often memorized and then quickly forgotten. In the early grades, children learn the basic facts of the solar system. When [...]
Gifts are an opportunity to give a child who is learning Spanish a toy or game that encourages her to use the language in a new way. A new puzzle or toy can also be motivating and keep the process of learning Spanish exciting and fun. If possible, choose toys that can be used again and again in different ways. Repetition is important to language learning and it also makes the toy more cost-efficient than [...]
I love these P’kolino multi-solution puzzles for teaching body parts and colors in Spanish. There are many ways to do each puzzle, so children will play with them again and again. That means that these toys provide lots of opportunities to speak Spanish with your child, and lots of repetition of important vocabulary. Kids can easily learn body parts in Spanish with these puzzles: P’kolino Multi-Solution Shape Puzzle – Rhombot and P’kolino Multi-Solution Shape Puzzle [...]
Recently, I have had several parents ask for recommendations for toys to give as gifts to their children who are learning Spanish. I encouraged them to consider games or toys that are not obviously language learning activities. Many games and toys are not language specific. If you are getting a gift for your child, and are going to be involved in playing, often the best investment is to buy a toy or game that lends [...]
These activities are made by the Asociación de Educadores Infantiles to teach colors to native Spanish speakers. The activities have instructions to color parts of the pictures certain colors. Some children really enjoy following instructions to complete an activity, and doing these with a child, or a class, you can say the colors in Spanish over and over. This repetition, combined with the action of using the color, teaches children the words for the colors [...]
Highlights has many printable hidden picture activities on their website. Kids like looking for the hidden pictures, and these can be good Spanish language-learning activities. As you repeat the word and point to the small clue picture, your child sees the object, hears the word, and has the concept present as she searches for the object in the bigger scene. She associates the image and the language, and she understands and learns the Spanish word. [...]
This is a game that involves odd and even numbers, guessing, and counting in Spanish. It is called Pares o nones (evens or odds) or Par o impar. The phrase pares o nones is most often used in gambling. I teach número impar for odd number. To play, give each child about 12 small objects in a bag or cup. Beans work well, but you can use anything that a child can easily hold in [...]
Spanish rhymes, like eeny-meeny-miny-mo in English, are an easy way to add Spanish to your home or classroom. These are choosing rhymes, or counting-0ut rhymes, and are used to start games. They are fun for children to say, and teach them Spanish pronunciation and rhythm. There are many different rhymes like these and many variations of each one. De tin marín, is the most common of these Spanish rhymes in Latin America, and my children [...]
This simple game is called Encuentre el bebé (Find the Baby). Each screen presents a different scene, such as a living room, or the park. You and your child click where you think the baby might be hiding. The game asks in Spanish ¿Puedes adivinar dónde está el bebé? (Can you guess where the baby is?). You will see the question on the screen and hear the Spanish audio. Repeat the question ¿Dónde está el [...]
Veo, veo is I spy in Spanish. This online game is for designed to teach native Spanish speakers the letter sounds and is modeled on Veo, veo, a game that almost all Spanish-speaking children learn to play when they are small. For Spanish language learners, learning the letter sounds in Spanish is essential to good pronunciation and is also the first step in learning to read. In this game, you choose the word that has [...]
Tener (to have) is one of the most common verbs in Spanish. You can model the use of tengo (I have) and tienes (you have) with many activities and daily interactions. Card game: The game “war” in which two players turn over cards and the player with the higher card keeps both is an excellent way to use the verb tener. The context makes the meaning of the verb clear, and there is lots of [...]