I am so impressed by how fun and useful Douglas Wright’s poems are with Spanish language learners. I love authentic language that really works with my students! Douglas Wright is a well-known children’s author and illustrator from Argentina. As a humorist, artist and author, his work consistently includes literature suitable for many levels. I also [...]
I have a great time playing toma todo, or pirinola, with children learning Spanish. The phrases are simple and practical, and kids love spinning the top. My kids grew up playing at home and in Mexico, where the six-sided top is a pirinola. In some countries it is a perinola. We get wooden tops in [...]
This online activity was designed for native Spanish speakers, but works well with Spanish language learners too. The concept is simple – the player is given a set of pictures. In the space below the pictures, she writes the first letter of each image in order to build words and discover a phrase. If the [...]
These are my favorite bilingual picture books to read to kids. Margaret speaks English and Margarita speaks Spanish and reading aloud the story works! The story line depends on both characters and both languages. It is an ingenious idea and the author, Lynn Reese, managed the concept beautifully to create these two lovely books. The [...]
The deadline for this contest has been extended until May 15th! Encourage schools to enter! My Bilingual School Library Contest is the idea of Ana Flores and Roxana Soto at SpanglishBaby. This is a fabulous contest! Please keep reading and then spread the word. This contest will award a school library $500 worth of bilingual [...]
These printable cards in Spanish are from Interpeques. The questions are about the natural world and the answers include images that help clarify the vocabulary. There are two sets of naturaleza question-answer cards and they can be used for a variety of games. They can be glued back to back so that the question and [...]
Hand clapping games are a good way to engage children actively with the Spanish language. Por aquí pasó un caballo is a traditional hand clapping game that begins with a simple rhyme and ends with counting to 16. Estaba la Catalina is a song and hand clapping game that tells the story of a woman [...]
Hand clapping games are great Spanish language activities for children. These two games are each based on just one word, so they are simple to learn. One is Chocolate and the other is Mariposa (butterfly). They are both excellent for practicing correct Spanish pronunciation. The games break the word into syllables and put it together [...]
My kids played lots of different hand clapping games in Spanish and English. There are many juegos de manos (also called juegos de palmas, or juegos de palmadas) in Spanish, and they have fun songs and actions. Also, in Spanish it is common to play these games in groups, not just in pairs. It takes [...]
This is a very short, fun Spanish-language video from Discovery Kids about keeping water clean. It’s perfect for El día de la tierra, Earth Day. The audio is at a natural rate for native Spanish speakers, so it is great exposure for Spanish language learners. They will not understand every word, but that is fine. [...]
Earth Day, El día de la Tierra, is April 22, and children will be hearing and thinking about how to care for the planet. When you do activities related to El día de la Tierra in Spanish, their awareness of the topic in English will help them understand and learn the same concepts in Spanish. [...]
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