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 [...]
Many of you are familiar with MisCositas.com and the wonderful collection of resources available on the website. In addition to thematic units, videos and other resources, the site offers a set of illustrated Spanish words and phrases that are commonly used in the classroom. These printable words and phrases can be colored and hung in the room or adapted to different activities. This set of Passwords Perfectos, as they are called on MisCositas.com, includes common [...]
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 [...]
These online activities are an excellent way for children to practice the colors, numbers, shapes and letters because all of the activities have excellent Spanish audio. Everything is pronounced clearly by native speakers. These online Spanish games are intuitive and fast to load and play. There are no ads and the screens are very clean with no distractions. You will find the link to the main Menu at the end of this post. The main [...]
I recently asked readers to share the title of a book they enjoyed reading with their children or classes. These are the books that were mentioned. Froggy se viste and Buenas noches, luna were favorites with a number of people. The books by Bill Martin and Eric Carle and the “Oso” Barefoot Books also came up several times. Most of the books are translations. I am sure this is largely due to what is available [...]
Chuchuá (or Chuchuwa) is a song that kids sing and dance to in all kinds of groups. I have seen it at camps, and kids also play the song at parties. It has been recorded on dozens of compilations of kids’ party songs. It is a very silly dance song, but children like it and it is a fun way to teach body parts, prepositions and other vocabulary. Piñon Fijo, a clown and children’s performer [...]
The Noyo Spanish Vocab app for iPad is a supplemental vocabulary builder for beginning Spanish learners. It is available from iTunes and you can read more about the application on the Noyo website. There is also a version with no English text for children in immersion programs. Noyo Spanish Vocab consists of detailed scenes grouped by themes: los viajes, la comida, los deportes, la ciudad, la casa, los animales, las estaciones, la escuela. In the [...]
There are lots of simple jokes that children learning Spanish can understand. I have written several posts with lists of jokes and suggestions for telling jokes to Spanish language learners. They have many of the most common Spanish jokes for kids and you can find there here: First Jokes for Children Learning Spanish More Jokes for Children Learning Spanish Spanish Jokes for Children Some jokes depend on the double meaning of a word. Others play [...]
Making Spanish Father’s Day cards to celebrate Día del Padre can be a good language activity when kids add their own message or use cards with text that they read. The language used on cards also has a cultural element because it shows how heart-felt emotion is expressed in Spanish. Dibujalia and Pintar y jugar have printable cards, diplomas and door hangers with significant amounts of Spanish. These are a few of the printable materials [...]
Summer’s coming and it is time to give away a few products to help kids learn Spanish in the months ahead. We’ll start with two DVDs. Spanish Playground will give one visitor La fiesta de Fritzi from Whistlefritz and Bilingual Baby from The Brainy Company. You can read more about the DVDs in these posts: Spanish DVD by Whistlefritz – La Fiesta de Fritzi Spanish DVD for Kids – Bilingual Baby DVD, Brainy Baby Book [...]
“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 [...]
This group of cyclists is in Guanajuato, Mexico. Talk about this photo to help your child learn Spanish. 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 [...]