I use this Spanish song for kids with preschoolers and beginning language learners. I suggested it on Spanish Playground about a year and a half ago, but I wanted to share a couple of variations and a great video from a preschool in Spain. La luna y el sol teaches basic concepts about the sun and the moon: the moon is small and the sun is bigger; the moon comes out at night and the [...]
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 [...]
It is easy to talk about the calendar and the weather in Spanish with these colorful materials. They are provided by the Asociación mundial de educadores infantiles and they are all PDFs that you can download and print. There are signs with the Spanish months and the days of the week. There are numbers for the date, both day and year. There are also colorful signs for the seasons in Spanish. My favorite part of [...]
Se hace de noche is a traditional rhyme in Spanish that tells the story of a vampire, or a witch in some versions. It does not really have anything to do with Halloween originally, but it fits in well with other Halloween vocabulary. The story starts out sounding spooky and the suspense builds. Then there is a silly, harmless ending that makes children laugh. It is really a Spanish joke, and kids love it. This [...]
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 [...]
My students really like clapping patterns with Spanish words. I keep it simple by using a combination of beats on the table and clapping. We all do the rhythm and say the words in unison. For example, the most simple rhythm we do is to these words: Sí, sí No, no No sé. I use this simple pattern: 1. Sí, sí – Two beats on the table – palms down, both hands at the same [...]
Storybird is such an amazing resource that it is hard to know where to begin to write about it. It is a collaborative storytelling site, designed to let children, or anyone, write art-inspired stories. The tremendous variety and excellent quality of the art make Storybird a wonderful tool for teaching and learning Spanish or any language. There are endless ways that the beautiful illustrations on this site can be used as a teaching tool. For [...]
Children learning Spanish will identify with Juan, the little boy in this song who protests that it is too early to get up for school. Arriba, Juan is a traditional song in the form of a conversation between Juan and his mother. It is fun to have different people or groups sing the two voices. This is a great song for kids who are learning to roll the rr. Because they are singing and moving [...]
Where did the summer go? Lots of us are going to have new Spanish learners in just a few weeks, and some of you have already started classes. Whether you are a teacher with new students or a parent who is teaching Spanish at home, simple songs are one of the easiest ways for children to produce the language. Songs provide lots of repetition and the rhythm helps kids pronounce words correctly. Songs to familiar [...]
This is a song with pictures, perfect for the very littlest children learning Spanish. Luna has the words luna (moon), sol (sun), caracol (snail), girasol (sunflower), ruiseñor (nightingale) and corazón (heart). The idea of labeling common objects to a familiar tune is one that you can easily adapt and use with your own pictures. The tune here is a variation of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. In general, words used in context are best for language [...]
Children can draw on information they already know to understand new Spanish vocabulary and structures. When teachers and parents talk about familiar subjects in Spanish, children associate concepts they understand with the new language. This way, children learn Spanish vocabulary in context and applied to content, rather than as lists of vocabulary words which are often memorized and then quickly forgotten. In the early grades, children learn the basic facts of the solar system. When [...]
The website Presencias de Música is a wonderful resource for anyone teaching Spanish to children. The site is maintained by a group of volunteers, under the direction and supervision of Prof. Pablo Bensaya of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The purpose of the site is to provide resources for music education to teachers in countries, or classes, where the first language is Spanish. However, the material that they have made available is also a resource to those [...]