CC Image courtesy of Jeremy Tarling

1. Describir la foto – Describe the photo
Hay dos personas en esta foto. Una mamá y su hija juegan en la nieve. Están en la acera. Hay nieve en la acera, en la calle y en los carros. La mamá tiene una bola de nieve en la mano. Se la va a tirar a su hija. La niña también tiene una bola de nieve en la mano. Las dos llevan abrigos y botas. El abrigo de la mamá es negro y sus botas son de muchos colores. El abrigo de la niña es rojo y sus botas también son rojas. La niña se está riendo. Ella se está divirtiendo.

[There are two people in this picture. A mom and her daughter are playing in the snow. They are on the sidewalk. There is snow on the sidewalk, on the street and on the cars. The mom has a snowball in her hand. She is going to throw it at her daughter. The little girl also has a snowball in her hand. Both of them are wearing coats and boots. The mom’s coat is black and her boots are many different colors. The little girl’s coat is red and her boots are red too. The little girl is laughing. She is having fun.]

2. Seleccionar la respuesta – Choose the answer
¿La mamá juega con su hijo o con su hija?
¿La mamá y su hija están en la acera o en la calle?
¿La mamá tiene una bola de nieve o dos bolas de nieve?
¿La niña tiene un abrigo negro o un abrigo rojo? ¿Sus botas son negras o rojas?

3. Señalar con el dedo – Pointing and counting
¿Cuántas personas hay en la foto?
¿Dónde está la mamá?
¿Dónde está la niña?
¿Dónde está la bola de nieve que tiene la mamá?
¿Dónde están las botas de la niña?
¿Dónde está la calle?
¿Cuántos carros hay en la foto?

4. Sí o no – Yes or No
¿Hay tres personas en la foto?
¿Hay nieve en la calle?
¿La mamá va a tirar la bola de nieve?
¿La niña tiene una bola de nieve?
¿Las botas de la mamá son rojas?
¿El abrigo de la mamá es negro?
¿La niña se está divirtiendo?

5. Decir un poco más – Say a little more (respuestas/answers)
¿Cuántas personas hay en la foto? (Hay dos. / There are two.)
¿Dónde están las personas? (Están en la acera. / They are on the sidewalk.)
¿Dónde están los carros? (Están en la calle. / They are in the street.)
¿Qué tiene la niña en la mano? (Tiene una bola de nieve. / She has a snowball.)
¿Quién va a tirar una bola de nieve? (La mamá va a tirar una bola de nieve. / The mom is going to throw a snowball.)
¿De qué color es el abrigo de la niña? (El abrigo de la niña es rojo. / The little girl’s coat is red.)
¿Quién se está riendo? (La niña se está riendo. / The little girl is laughing.)

6. ¿Y tú? –  What about you? (verb forms for answers)
¿Hay nieve donde vives? (Hay…)
¿Te gusta jugar en la nieve? (Me gusta… No me gusta…)
¿Tienes botas? ¿De qué color son? (Tengo… Son…)
¿Tienes un abrigo? ¿De qué color es? (Tengo… Es…)
¿Te diviertes jugando afuera? ¿Tiras bolas de nieve? ¿Corres? (Si, me divierto…No, no me divierto…Tiro…Corro…)
¿Con quién juegas? ¿Con tu mamá? ¿Con tu papá? ¿Con tus hermanos? ¿Con tus amigos? (Juego…)

7. Vocabulario – Vocabulary
hay – there are, there is
personas – people
la foto – photograph
una mamá – a mom
su hija – her daughter
juegan – are playing
la nieve – the snow
están – are
la acera – sidewalk
la calle – the street
los carros – the cars
tiene – has
una bola de nieve – a snowball
la mano – hand
Se la va a tirar a su hija. – She is going to throw it at her daughter.
la niña – the little girl
también – also
las dos – both of them
llevan – are wearing
botas – boots
abrigos – coats
negro – black
muchos – many
colores – colors
rojo – red
se está riendo – is laughing
Ella se está divirtiendo. – She is having fun.

You may also be interested in this activity – Kids learn Spanish with pictures – Happy Pigs

Let’s Learn to Speak Spanish: Conversational Workbook and CD is a set of worksheets and activities by Susana Murphy, published by the non-profit One World Foundation. Susana sent me a copy of this book because she realized it would be helpful to many Spanish Playground readers. These activities are an excellent supplement to an elementary Spanish program. The book is also a great choice for parents who want to reinforce a school program or introduce their child to Spanish at home. The exercises cover the most common introductory topics and the pages can be photocopied. It takes tons of material to give kids enough exposure to these basics. This workbook gives teachers and parents an easy way to reinforce what kids are learning.

Most of these Spanish activities are based on translation and there is a glossary in the back of the book. This format makes the book is a good choice for parents who do not have much knowledge of Spanish but want to introduce school-age children to Spanish at home. The workbook comes with an audio CD of native speakers from Costa Rica, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. With this support, parents and kids can hear the correct pronunciation and practice the sounds of Spanish. These are written activities, but I really like how consistently this book reminds kids to use the spoken language. They need lots encouragement to speak Spanish!

Let’s Learn to Speak Spanish includes activities on topics like the alphabet, greetings, numbers, the days of the week, the months of the year, and the weather. There are also worksheets for units like colors, food, animals, clothing, body parts and places. The grammar practice is basic and appropriate for many elementary programs and even middle school programs. In addition to the singular forms of regular -ar verbs in the present, the book has exercises on ir, tener, querer and gustar.

For each of the topics covered, there are several different Spanish activities. You will find word searches, scrambled words, and pictures to color. Kids will choose which word does not belong, match words to pictures, copy Spanish sentences and complete sentences by filling in the blank. The book includes flash cards of common phrases and vocabulary and also mini-books to practice the verbs quiero, voy and tengo. All of the worksheets provide sufficient practice, but are not so long that they become boring.  Also, I love the choice of vocabulary in this book. It is truly representative of a standard Spanish that will be understood worldwide.

Many of these topics include a section called ¿Sabes? on one of the worksheets. These sections are a wonderful collection of cultural and linguistic information. The explanations are short with clear examples and include all kinds of fun, useful and very accurate information.

There is no doubt that this book will save teachers time and provide students with an opportunity to practice the basics. I think that Let’s Learn to Speak Spanish is also a great model of the kinds of Spanish activities that teachers can make. For parents who want to introduce kids to Spanish at home or reinforce a school program, there are a variety of activities that will keep kids entertained while giving them some of the essential practice that it takes to learn Spanish.

Disclosure: The company sent me a copy of the book to write this article. All of the ideas and opinions are my own.

I am participating in http://latinaish.com/’s Spanish Friday. Join us! An English translation is included in parenthesis.

En la edición nov-dic de la revista Metal Floss, se publicó una lista de las 25 canciones más poderosas de los últimos 25 años. Es una lista de canciones que “han cambiado de forma fundamental el mundo en que vivimos.” Incluye Gran Vals, por el compositor español Francisco Tárrega, la melodía que Nokia tomó como ringtone y que ahora se escucha aproximadamente 1.8 mil millones de veces el día. También sale The drugs don’t work de Verve – según investigadores la canción más triste del mundo – y Panama de Van Halen, que pusieron a todo volumen hasta que Manuel Noriega se rindió.

[In the Nov-Dec edition, the magazine Metal Floss published a list of the 25 most powerful songs of the last 25 years. It is a list of songs that “have fundamentally altered the world we live in.” It includes Gran Vals, by the Spanish composer Franisco Tárrega, the melody that Nokia took as a ringtone and that is now heard approximately 1.8 billion times a day. It also includes The Drugs Don’t Work by Verve, according to scientific research the saddest song in the world, and Panama by Van Halen, the song they blasted at Manuel Noriega until he surrendered.]

La canción que escogieron como #1, la canción más poderosa de los últimos 25 años, es una canción que los de la revista identifican como la que “hace temblar a los malos” porque la ponían en Guantanamo para hacer hablar a los presuntos terroristas.

[The song they chose as #1, the most powerful song of the last 25 years, is a song that the magazine identifies as one that “makes bad guys tremble” because they played it at Guantanamo to make the alleged terrorists talk.]

¡Qué sorpresa darme cuenta de que es una canción que aprendieron mis hijos de chiquitos en español – la canción del dinosaurio Barney! La verdad, estoy segura que la canción es tan eficaz en español como en inglés, porque recuerdo que me volvía loca. Por si acaso no la conozcan, aquí les pongo la versión en español de la canción más poderosa de los últimos 25 años.

[What a surprise to realize that it is a song that my children learned in Spanish when they were little - the Barney the Dinosaur song! Actually, I’m sure that the song is as effective in Spanish as it is in English, because I remember that it drove me crazy. Just in case you do not know it, here is the Spanish version of the most powerful song of the last 25 years.]

The Brainy Company makes a variety of products for introducing children to Spanish. Last week they sent me the Bilingual Baby DVD, the Brainy Baby Spanish/English:Simple Words and Phrases Book and the Brainy Baby Spanish/English:Simple Words and Phrases Flashcards. These items are available individually or as the Brainy Baby Spanish & English Bundle Collection.

Bilingual Baby DVD
The Bilingual Baby DVD is a wonderful collection of images to support a voice-over narration of basic Spanish words and phrases. There is no story, but this DVD is surprisingly engaging and entertaining. The live-action video of people and animals has wonderful colors and the pacing is just right. It holds a child’s attention and yet it is never too busy or overwhelming.

The DVD is intended for children ages 1-5 and introduces basic words and phrases. For example, the video teaches niño, niña, manzana, cama, libro, comer, dormir and leer. Children hear individual words pronounced and then combined into sentences. The video shows fun images of exactly what they are hearing. The DVD also introduces the numbers one through ten, the question ¿Cuántos hay? (How many are there?), colors and the question ¿De qué color es? (What color is..?). The structure of the video provides for lots of repetition of language with a great variety of images.

The native-speaker narration on this DVD is excellent. One woman does all of the voice-over and she has a warm, expressive voice. The inflection is just what you would use talking to children.

The video shows the Spanish text on the screen, but I do not think children get anything out of seeing the words. I understand that parents may want to know how the words are spelled, but children in this age group who are being introduced to Spanish as a second language are not learning to read in Spanish. They are learning by watching and listening.

At the beginning, the DVD explains that the English words are only on the screen for a moment in order not to distract the kids. The Spanish text could also be distracting for some children at first, but they will quickly ignore it. The pictures are too engaging for them to pay much attention to text in any language.

The DVD is about 40 minutes long. Children certainly do not have to sit through the entire DVD at one time. There is lots of repetition and recycling of language, so you can stop and start at any point. This is a video that children will continue to learn from as they watch it again and again.

Brainy Baby Spanish & English Simple Words and Phrases Book
This is a sturdy board book intended for children ages 1-5. The book is big, a great size for kids, and it has really wonderful photographs. The pictures illustrate common Spanish words and phrases including greetings, body parts, colors and numbers. The vocabulary in the book corresponds to a large extent to the vocabulary in the Bilingual Baby DVD.

To make the most of this book, move the language beyond the pages. With the parts of the body this is easy. After you point to the pictures in the book and say the words, point to your own eyes and nose, or your child’s, and say the Spanish words. With the numbers, count fingers and toes in Spanish. The verbs in the book are in the infinitive (comer – to eat, dormir – to sleep). An easy way to move beyond the book is to say Vamos a comer (Let’s eat) or Vamos a dormir (Let’s sleep) and then act out the action together.

This is a short book with relatively few Spanish words, so I was disappointed to find several misprints in the Spanish. For example, after introducing the words perro (dog) and gato (cat), the book asks “Do you have a dog or a cat?” The Spanish in the book is ¿Tiene un perro o un gato? The verb should be tienes. Tiene can mean “do you have,” but it is not the verb form used with children in most of the Spanish-speaking world. Later in the book the less formal form is used in the phrase te quiero, so tiene without the s is probably a misprint. If you get this book, read the question ¿Tienes un perro o un gato? Also, the word for the number ten, diez, is misspelled. The book spells it with an “s” instead of a “z.”

This is a book that you will read aloud to your child, so the errors will not affect its usefulness. It is just disappointing that more care is not taken in proofreading Spanish language materials for children.

Brainy Baby Spanish & English Simple Words and Phrases Flashcards
I do not use flashcards with children of any age who are learning Spanish. but I think these cards can be useful as activity cards. As activity cards, they serve as a reference or a label as you play with your child using Spanish words.

These cards are big and sturdy, meant to be handled by little fingers. You can use them to do lots of different activities with your child. Here are a few simple ideas:

1. Match objects to the cards. Play with three or four words at a time. Assemble objects shown in the cards and match them up. Say the words on the cards as you put the card with the object.
2. Move around the house placing the cards next to objects. La puerta, el reloj, los zapatos, un huevo (the door, the clock, the shoes, an egg) – label objects where they are and then collect the cards again. Say the Spanish words as you play.
3. Put three or four color cards out on the floor. Collect things of that color around the card. Repeat the Spanish color word as you collect and point to the objects.
4. Put three or four number cards out. Bring objects to make the picture on the card (2 cookies, 3 blocks) or the same number of different objects.
5. Take the cards in the car.  Choose one color to look for. When you find three things, choose another card.
6. The color cards are hand prints. Make your own hand prints in the different colors. Say the color words as you make the pictures.

Again, I was disappointed to find several misprints and vocabulary errors.
- The number diez is misspelled, as it is in the book. It is spelled with an s on the card.
- The number dos is also misspelled. The card shows the pronunciation guide (dohs) as the Spanish spelling.
- The words for basketball and baseball on the cards are not the words for the balls. The cards show a basketball and a baseball. They are labeled with the words baloncesto and béisbol. These words can only be used to refer to the sports. On the other side of the card there is a related word, anaranjado (orange) for basketball and círculo (circle) for baseball. Given these descriptive words, and the fact that all the cards refer to objects, it is unlikely that the cards were intended to refer to the sports and not the balls in the picture. The most common words are balón and pelota.

As with the book, these cards can be useful in spite of the errors. It is just too bad that the same attention to detail that went into the Bilingual Baby DVD was not given to the book and flashcards.

Talking to The Brainy Company
I always send companies a draft of a review before I publish it. When I sent The Brainy Company the draft of this post, I wrote a very nice email (really!) saying that I hoped the representative would forward the review to someone who could see that the errors were corrected if they ever updated the products. I pointed out that the review was positive and said that I thought they would want to know about the mistakes. This situation comes up fairly often, and companies usually appreciate the feedback and free proofread. Last week someone offered me a job.

The representative at The Brainy Company told me that they had consulted with several professionals when they made the products, that there are differences in dialect and usage and that they were never going to make 100% of people happy.

Needless to say, I do not agree. I think that you can make 100% of people happy by spelling diez with a z, and dos without an h.

Getting beyond the misprints, obviously there are differences in dialect and usage, but as professionals we have an obligation to teach a standard, useful vocabulary. I believe that companies selling educational products to teach children Spanish have the same obligation. I am the first to recognize that although I have never heard or seen baloncesto used to refer to the ball, and cannot find it used that way anywhere, someone somewhere may say it. Does it follow that the word be used on cards for children beginning to learn Spanish as a second language? I am not usually one to turn to the Real Academia Española for backup, but if they do not think baloncesto refers to the ball, I would vote for a more standard word choice.

Do you have thoughts on the quality of Spanish language products for kids? How can parents who do not speak much Spanish make good choices when buying language products for their kids? Would you buy a children’s book in English with misprints? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Do you have children starting Spanish in school? If you are looking for games and activities to supplement what they are doing in class, The Everything Kids’ First Spanish Puzzle and Activity Book has lots of fun ways to practice basic Spanish.

Kids who like word games and activity books will love this book. It is packed with mazes, codes, word searches, hidden pictures and other puzzles that reinforce basic Spanish vocabulary and concepts. There are brief explanations, but the book does not teach the material in depth. It provides an entertaining way to review and expand on what a child has seen in class. If the information is new, the activities serve as a brief introduction to the vocabulary. The book has the answers to all the puzzles in the back.

Most of the activities are based on translation, so there is a mix of English and Spanish. For several of the activities, kids do a puzzle in English to discover a Spanish word or phrase. Because of the English, the book is not a good choice for children in immersion programs. However, for kids using books that include English translations, lots of the activities match material taught in beginning classes.

I like the variety of short, quick activities like mazes, codes, dot-to-dots, word searches, crosswords, tongue twisters. Also, the pages are big enough to write on easily and there is enough space in the blanks to make the activities fun to do. The book is for ages nine and up, and it could certainly be used with middle school students. Because the Spanish makes these games and activities more challenging, it appeals to a wider age range.

This is a book of written activities, but I like the way it encourages children to speak Spanish. There are pronunciation keys for all the Spanish words and the instructions tell kids to say the words out loud, or to try to say a phrase three or five times fast. There are never too many words on a page, so saying the words is fun, not overwhelming.

The Everything Kids’ First Spanish Puzzle and Activity Book has too many activities to go into much detail, but I want to mention a few of the ones that I particularly liked. One is called Sad Man, Glad Man, where kids draw expressions in labeled circles before following the happy faces like a maze. Drawing the faces is fun! The models for the faces are easy, and kids will quickly learn the Spanish words feliz, enfadado, triste, cansado and miedo.

There is an activity with con (with) and sin (without) where kids match simple descriptions to pictures. This is an effective way of teaching these two important words. I also like the group game in the book that teaches how to tell time in Spanish. There are several written activities on telling time too, so kids can get more practice.

If you are considering getting this book for your child, you should be aware that there are a few misprints. These matter because they cause agreement errors and several of the activities teach agreement. Here are the ones I noticed:

p. 28, the book has pan tostada, but it should be pan tostado (pan is masculine).
p. 65, the word quarto should be spelled cuarto.
p. 78, tengo mucho hambre should be tengo mucha hambre (hambre is feminine).
p. 92, the written accent and pronunciation key are wrong for the word alergias. There is no written accent on the word (the book has one on the i). The stress falls on the e in the next-to-the-last syllable.The ia combine in one syllable (a dipthong).
p. 118, the book has una papá for father. It should be un papá.

The book is still useful, even with the mistakes; you can just correct them. Kids will have a great time doing the puzzles and they will spend more time thinking about Spanish as they do. I would just use the errors as an opportunity to talk to kids about how it is important to be careful with spelling and agreement and about how everyone makes mistakes, even busy copy editors.

Disclosure: The company sent me a copy of the book to write this article. All of the ideas and opinions are my own.

 Learn Spanish Today 

Spanish in a Basket was such a treat to get in the mail! It is a lovely wicker picnic basket filled with bright, beautiful toys to help introduce children to Spanish. When I opened the basket, I found colorful wooden fruits and vegetables, hand-knit finger puppets, soft animal friends, and a bright table-setting. There were also 4 CDs and a DVD with 20 audio Spanish lessons for kids ages 3 to 8.

Beth Manners, creator of Spanish in a Basket, understands that children learn language through movement, interaction with the world around them and repetition. Spanish in a Basket applies these concepts in an original product designed to engage children with Spanish from an early age.

The idea is that children listen to the audio CD (or DVD) and follow instructions by using the objects in the basket, doing lots of actions, and repeating the Spanish they hear. The program creates a context by introducing two characters, Bobby and María, that are used in the different lessons. The way children use the objects and other actions reinforce the meaning of the Spanish they are learning.

You can read specific descriptions of these Spanish lessons for kids and listen to lots of sound samples at Beth Manner’s Fun French and Spanish. You can order Spanish in a Basket there too, along with Beth Manner’s award-winning CDs for teaching kids Spanish.

The sound quality of the CDs in Spanish in a Basket is excellent and that is important because children can repeat accurately. The native-speaker pronunciation is clear and there is enough repetition that children will absorb the sounds of Spanish. The catchy songs use the vocabulary and structures and incorporate movement. There are also simple stories using the vocabulary, letting children listen first, and then repeat.

For parents who want to teach their children Spanish, Spanish in a Basket is an excellent introduction to teaching language. By participating with their children, parents will get an idea of how to create a context, build in repetition and associate language with actions.

Playing with your child also adds an important visual dimension to the lessons. The audio goes by quickly, and if a young child is not focused, she may not completely follow what she is supposed to do or say. There is lots of repetition, but with you playing along, she will stay more engaged and she can see the actions and objects that match the words. This is particularly important when the program is introducing several new vocabulary words. It can be hard to hold onto the meaning and sound of a new word. With an adult providing a visual clue, children will understand and absorb the Spanish they hear.

The other advantage to participating with your child is that you can control the pacing. If your child loves a game or a song, you can back up and play or sing again. If she is distracted for a moment, you can pause the CD. If the lesson is challenging, you can start again. The lessons are of a very reasonable length, between 7 and 15 minutes, but to make the most of the material you will want to be engaged with your child.

These Spanish lessons for kids are intended to be used over and over. The more exposure the better! Ideally, you will play with your child a few times. Once she is confident with the lesson she will have a great time going back and doing it independently.

There is lots of Spanish learning material in this basket. It would be an excellent choice for a preschool. In fact, there is also a program for schools, which is even more complete than these lessons. This program would also be great for friends who want to start a Spanish play group, or a family that wants to do something new and fun together. Spanish in a Basket is a fun and effective way to introduce a child to Spanish. With friends, it is even more fun!

Disclosure: The company sent me Spanish in a Basket to write this article. All the ideas and opinions are my own.

9letras is the blog of Alberto Abarca Fillat of Huesca, Spain. Alberto shares educational material for teaching Spanish and the website has an impressive number of printable activities for young Spanish language learners.

All of the material is created by the author, and lots of the activities have pictures to help Spanish learners interpret the language. Many of these activities with pictures are designed for beginning readers. They also work well with children who do not read yet, if you do them together, talking through the activities. These printable resources are Word documents, so that you can modify them to suit your needs.

There are so many activities on 9letras that you have to take some time to explore. I will just point out a few activities I find useful.

The page Español L.E. (Español como lengua extranjera) is a good place to start. The first section of the page has Tarjetas, or picture cards, for vocabulary in many different of categories. All the cards have images with Spanish words, and many are accompanied by at least one activity. There are vocabulary picture cards for these categories:

COSAS DE CASA / Household objects
ANIMALES / Animals
COCINA / Kitchen ( 2 sets of cards and activities)
COSAS DE CLASE / Classroom objects
COMIDAS / Food
VERBOS / Verbs ( 2 sets of cards and activities)
VESTIDOS / Clothes
OFICIOS/ Jobs
LA CALLE / The street
FRUTAS / Fruit
CUANDO / When
CUERPO / Body (3 sets of cards and activities)

Following the cards, there are several sections of vocabulary resources.
The first, Vocabulario nivel 1, has many categories. In all the documents, the vocabulary is presented with images, labeled and followed by activities using the pictures and words. There are often several activities with a set of vocabulary, such as matching the words to a picture, labeling a picture and completing the word.

In that section, I have used Contrarios, which presents prepositions as opposite pairs. There is a set of cards with an image and a phrase describing the image. It is followed by a set of cards with the same picture and phrase, but with the key word missing. Once children are familiar with the vocabulary, the second set is great for all kinds of games.

The activities in Numbers- 10 can be used with very young Spanish learners and give lots of counting practice. Cosas de la casa 2 has pictures of the vocabulary, a matching activity and an activity where kids complete the word by putting in the missing letter or syllable.

On the page Español L.E. there are many other materials, including practice with three levels of vocabulary, verbs, and reading comprehension. Take some time to open the files and see what might be helpful to you.

Another useful page on 9letras is Infantil. There are dozens of activities with basic vocabulary and most include images.

For example, the documents titled Frases INF6 – Frases INF20 are good for beginning readers. All of these documents include four different activities supported by pictures. Kids copy a short phrase associated with an image, match the phrase to the picture, complete the phrase with the missing word, and finally put the words in order. These exercises use all capital letters. There are also activities for individual letters and many power point presentations to practice reading skills.

On the page Vocabulario, Alberto Abarca Fillat has included the complete set of vocabulary that he uses to teach beginning Spanish learners. I know that a lot of us spend time choosing the words we are going to focus on and I always find it interesting and helpful to see what someone else has decided. To see the list, click on the link Vocabulario Básico.

On the same page you will find power point presentations with the vocabulary game Encadena where you make a chain by associating words. There are also lots of power points to teach vocabulary.

As I said, there is so much on 9letras that you will have to explore to find what is helpful to you. I am sure you will find material that you can adapt and use in your Spanish classes for kids or at home with your little Spanish learners.

 Learn Spanish Today 

There are endless ways that the beautiful illustrations on this site can be used as a teaching tool. For the moment, I will make a few suggestions about how you can use Storybird with Spanish language learners without even creating an account. Of course, you will want to create an account, because it is free and fabulous! With an account you will be able to make stories, save them and take full advantage of all the features of Storybird.

The art on Storybird lends itself to all kinds of Spanish language activities, many that are simpler than telling a story with a series of pictures. Each of the pictures can be considered individually in terms of creating activities. Also, because you can use the themes (tags) to see a selection of art related to one subject, you can easily find pictures that have elements in common.

The easiest way to see the wide selection of art available is to click on Art under the Read/Explore heading at the foot of the page. To choose art related to a theme, click Tags under the same heading. (The tags are also called themes on this site.) You can also click Create to see a selection of pictures and from there click See more art.

These are just a few suggestions of how to use the art on Storybird to speak Spanish with children. Look at the art and use your imagination. You will think of many more!

1)  Choose pictures related to a subject and describe what you see in the pictures.
- To talk about the weather, try the tag winter or rain.
- To find pictures to describe people, try tags like girls or dad.
- To talk about family, try tags like this one for daughter.
- Find pictures to talk about color by using the tags, like blue.

2) Talk about one character to focus on actions (to practice verbs) or emotions.
- From a selection of art, choose a character that interests you. Click the artist’s name and then See all art. There will often be several illustrations with the same character. Give the character a name and ask ¿Qué hace? about the different pictures.
- To talk about emotions, give a character a name and ask ¿Cómo se siente? about different pictures.

3) Play guessing games from a selection of pictures.
- Use a theme (tag) to see pictures with a common subject. One person chooses a picture to describe and the other person identifies which picture it is.
- From a selection of art, one person describes an object in one of the pictures and the other tries to find it. You can get a random selection of art by clicking Create and then See more art.
- Play 20 questions choosing an object or person in a selection of pictures. You can get a random selection of art by clicking Create and then See more art.

4) Create information for a character in a picture.
- Answer questions like ¿Dónde está?, ¿Cómo se llama?, ¿Cuántos años tiene?, ¿Qué hace?.
- Tell what the characters in a picture are saying. This is good for understanding point of view and practicing verbs in the first and second person.
- Tell what a character in a picture is thinking.

I have a suggestion about using the tags, or themes, on Storybird. The website shows a selection of tags and you can reload them to see others. If you are looking for something specific, it is easier to put the word you are looking for into the url. For example, this is the url for the tag animal: http://storybird.com/tags/animal/artwork/
If you would like to see the art tagged dog, just change the word animal to dog in the url at the top of your page: http://storybird.com/tags/dog/artwork/

Teaching language to children in any setting,  we often depend on pictures to help communicate ideas and establish context. At times, the pictures are just functional. When the pictures are also beautiful and engaging, teaching and learning have another dimension. Being able to incorporate the art on Storybird into our work with children learning Spanish is a wonderful opportunity.

Let’s Eat! / ¡A comer! is a picture book in Spanish and English by Pat Mora. This story fits into any number of my classes. It has family vocabulary, food vocabulary, simple structures, a strong cultural component, and detailed pictures that can be used for all kinds of conversation about home and family.

The story line of Let’s Eat! / ¡A comer! is straightforward. A family comes to the table, and there is plenty of delicious food. A child points out how fortunate they are, and her father, observing his family, agrees. The illustrations are bright and clear and support the text. There is lots of extra detail in the pictures, something that I look for in books I use with Spanish language learners. The cat on the fence, the flowers in the yard, the dishes in the sink, and the bright green chairs are all things I can talk about with kids learning Spanish.

In terms of language, Let’s Eat! / ¡A comer! repeats a few common verbs to tell the story. Forms of venir, ver and mirar appear several times and in structures that can easily be used with children. For example, we read Papá y Abuelita vienen a la mesa. Mis hermanitos, Tina y Danny, vienen también. Then I can ask, ¿Quién viene a la mesa en tu casa? and talk about who comes to the table using the same verb form, viene. We read, Vemos un montón de tortillas calientitas. Vemos una ensalada de lechuga. Then I can ask, En tu casa, ¿qué comida ves en la mesa?  And talk about the food on the table using the verb ver. Because the story deals with the everyday event of mealtime, it is easy to personalize.

This is a dual language book, but it uses vocabulary that many beginning Spanish learners know, like family words, food words, tener hambre, and mirar. Because the illustrations support the text, lots of Spanish learners will not need to hear the story in English. This a picture book that children can hear over and over, both for the language and for the message that it is our families that make us rich.

This is a great song for kids who are learning to roll the rr. Because they are singing and moving more air through their mouths, the rr in arriba is easier to pronounce correctly.

If you are working with rhyme, the even lines of the song end in rhyming words: gallito-tempranito, escuela-muela, soldados-levantado (or helado-levantado). Like most traditional songs there are several versions of the lyrics, but the rhyme is consistent in all of them. I have included the complete lyrics below.

You can listen to this Spanish song for children here.

This is another version, where both Juan’s mother and father try to get him out of bed, which makes the song a little longer, with more repetition. In this version they sing Oh, no instead of Ay, no.

Both of these versions are available as mp3 downloads from Amazon.

  Arriba, Juan

  Arriba, Juan

These are the most traditional lyrics, and the ones that you will hear in videos. There is also a version that changes the line about the soldiers. I put the alternate lyrics in parenthesis. A word-for-word translation follows the lyrics. There is no attempt to conserve the rhyme or rhythm; it is for parents learning Spanish with their children.

¡Arriba, Juan! ¡Arriba, Juan!,
Ya cantó el gallito.
¡Ay no! Mamá, ¡Ay no! Mamá,
Es muy tempranito.
¡Arriba, Juan! ¡Arriba, Juan!,
Vamos a la escuela.
¡Ay no! Mamá, ¡Ay no! Mamá,
Me duele la muela.
¡Arriba, Juan! ¡Arriba, Juan!,
Pasan los soldados. (te compré un helado.)
¡Ay sí! Mamá, ¡Ay sí! Mamá,
Ya estoy levantado.

Get up Juan! Get up Juan!
The rooster already crowed.
Oh no, Mama! Oh no, Mama!
It is very early.
Get up Juan! Get up Juan!
Let’s go to school.
Oh no, Mama! Oh no, Mama!
My tooth hurts.
Get up Juan! Get up Juan!
The soldiers are passing. (I bought you an ice cream)
Oh yes Mama! Oh yes Mama!
I’m already up.