I write about lots of traditional playground games, hand-clapping games and jump rope rhymes that children play in Spanish. Recently Summer Nanny featured one of my articles in list of 20 blogs with playground games. A few of the games mentioned in the list lend themselves particularly well to language learning and I wanted to share five of them here. Check out Summer Nanny for more outside activities – everything from classic games to ways [...]
1, 2, 3 Momia Es is a playground game kids play in South America. In Mexico, the same game is called 1, 2, 3 Calabaza. In Spain, it is 1,2,3 Escondite Inglés and in English it is Red Light, Green Light. Elizabeth Carmona of Chile has written a very fun song called 1, 2, 3 Momia Es that incorporates parts of this familiar game. In the traditional game, one player faces a wall or a [...]
Talk about this photograph of teenagers playing soccer in the rain to speak Spanish with your child. 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 child [...]
My children played this game in Spanish all the time with their friends in Mexico. They call it Basta, but it has lots of names: Tutti frutti, ¡Mercadito!, Stop, Lápiz quieto, Animales con E, Alto el fuego, Ensalada rusa. It is a category game in Spanish – the original, non-commercial version of Scattergories. To play this traditional children’s game in Spanish, everyone makes a game board with categories. Common categories include nombre, cosa, animal, fruta [...]
The title of this Spanish song and game, A pares y nones, is Evens and Odds (numbers) in English. This is a traditional game and it is played a lot with groups of kids in Mexico. Everyone joins hands in a circle and walks singing the song. Then, the leader (teacher) calls out a number and everyone hurries to form a group of that many people. I have also seen the game played using other [...]
I love this card for Día del Padre! Several of my private students are going to be giving this tarjeta to Dad this Father’s Day. The printable card has a pirinola that you can cut out to play Toma todo with Dad. A pirinola is a top with instructions on each side. Toma todo is a traditional game that my kids played all the time in Mexico. In some countries the top is called a [...]
Mar y tierra is a traditional playground game. It is very simple and it can be played inside if you have enough space and do not mind the jumping. Traditionally, kids jump between two spaces designated mar and tierra. Since it is almost Easter, you can make the kids conejitos and designate the two spaces bosque or campo and jardín. To play, kids line up beside a line on the ground, so that they can [...]
The traditional Spanish game, Debajo del puente (Under the Bridge), has several versions. It is a hand-clapping game and is also used as a jump-rope rhyme. The hand-clapping game ends with the kids freezing in place and trying not to laugh or move. As the words indicate, the first one who moves gets a pinch. Kids love this game, but be sure they know that the pinch should not be hard! Rhymes like this are [...]
It is fall, and in Wisconsin we have calabazas, or pumpkins, everywhere! 1,2,3 Calabaza is a traditional game children play in Mexico. It is a good game for even the youngest children learning Spanish. I do not know if it is played in other Latin American countries or not, but in Spain it is called 1,2,3 Escondite inglés. If you know the game Red Light Green Light, this is basically played the same way. Children [...]
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 [...]
I am always on the look out for pictures to use to teach Spanish to children. Ideally, the pictures are scenes of common situations with several people. They need to have enough detail to provide a context for what we say and to help kids practice common Spanish vocabulary and different structures. It is great if they can be printed, copied and colored. I use pictures like these for lots of activities, from games to [...]
What a fun way to review basic vocabulary in Spanish! This video is by a speech and language therapist in Spain. Children see a scene and then hear the sound of something in the picture. They identify what makes that noise. After a moment, a picture of the object and the Spanish word come on the screen. I love how clear these sounds are and the combination of the scene and the sound create a [...]