I am participating in Latinaish’s Spanish Friday, so this post is in Spanish. An English translation is included in italics. This week’s Spanish Friday post is written by a my daughter Kate. She lives in Lima, Peru, but is home visiting for a few weeks. She shares some thoughts about her life in Peru. Thanks, Kate! Los estadounidenses son ampliamente conocidos, tanto nacionalmente como en el extranjero, por su gran amor a las mascotas [...]
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.
Debajo de un botón (Under A Button) is a traditional Spanish song for children. Children love this song because it is tells a little story, and it is short and fun. It has great rhythm, as it repeats the last syllable of the last word of each line. It is one of the most common children’s songs in Spanish. Although there are a couple of different versions of Debajo de un botón, there is less [...]
With these free printable pictures, kids find the differences and practice common Spanish words. These Spanish activities, Encuentra las diferencias, are from Minihogar Kids, the children’s section of El Minihogar. The puzzles are designed for native-speakers, so the solutions are in Spanish. Kids can use the words as they look for differences and then see the written Spanish words when they check their answers. There are three Hello Kitty scenes and two scenes with the [...]
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 [...]
Don’t these pigs looks happy? Talk about this great photograph to help your kids 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 pigs as you talk about them. Use gestures, facial expressions and actions to help your child understand what the words [...]
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 [...]
I was excited to see Juanita Ulloa’s name in my inbox recently. She wrote suggesting that Spanish Playground readers might be interested in her songs for children learning Spanish. Juanita Ulloa is one of the nation’s leading bilingual performers and songwriters. You can read more about her wonderful music on the Juanita Ulloa website. Juanita’s latest CD of music for children, ¡Canta mi son!, has won a National Association of Parenting Products Gold award and [...]
Los pajaritos is one of my favorite Spanish songs for children. It combines common animals, the places they live and the way they move into a pretty song that is perfect for kids learning Spanish. Children can move like the animals or use their hands to show how the animals move. You can also add different animals to make the song as long as you like. This is a traditional song, so there are several [...]
A find-it jar (or scavenger hunt in a bottle) is a great toy for kids who are learning Spanish. I have played with these in stores and love them. Searching for the tiny boat, discovering the dinosaur – it is captivating! Find-it jars can be a good language learning activity, so I was happy to discover that making your own is not complicated at all. A find-it jar is a plastic or glass jar [...]
Todos los patitos is a children’s song in Spanish that tells the story of a family of ducks that goes swimming. As with all traditional songs, there are many variations. In some versions, the verb for to swim is nadar and in others it is bañar. Both are common equivalents for to swim. In the traditional lyrics the mother duck gets angry and tries to spank one of the ducklings, but that has been changed [...]
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 [...]