This online Spanish game with native-speaker audio is a good way for children to practice vocabulary and listening comprehension while they are sorting, grouping and matching. Listening to native-speaker Spanish is also important for pronunciation. The set of activities is called Un poquito de orden and there are three temas (topics), each with several activities. Click on the link below to reach the online Spanish game. The site sometimes takes a little while to load. [...]
Este dedito compró un huevito (this little finger, or toe, bought an egg) is a Spanish rhyme that you say as you play with a child’s fingers or toes. It is a traditional rhyme and one of the most common games to play with little children. It is perfect for preschoolers and older kids too because it has lots of rhythm and great verbs. Older kids can do it as a finger play. This rhyme [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Recognizing patterns is an important pre-math and pre-reading skill for children. Talking about patterns is also a valuable language activity for kids learning Spanish. The word for patterns is secuencias in Spanish. Secuencias are an easy and fun way to practice vocabulary. There is a lot of repetition and even if the patterns are easy, kids have fun with them. There is also enough language involved that children work with common verbs like seguir (to [...]
El juego de Beenny (Beenny’s game) teaches children correct Spanish pronunciation, to read and write the sounds of Spanish, and lots of vocabulary. The game is from OnlineFreeSpanish and it is very entertaining! To play, kids guide a bee through a maze. Each time there is a frog blocking the path, the player writes a word by putting the letters in order. There is a picture of the word and a speaker to click to [...]
Children can learn lots of Spanish while they are focused on another task. These printable charts are designed to help kids establish healthy eating habits, but they are an excellent way to teach the days of the week in Spanish. They are also great for using Spanish food words. These printables are from Nourish Interactive, a site dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle. Each day, children color stars or a box to show that they [...]
The Diccionario Multimedia is from the Portal de Educación – Junta de Castillo y León. It has common Spanish vocabulary for kids arranged by categories and represented by pictures. When children click on a picture, they hear the word pronounced in Spanish. There are also two games where they can practice the words that they have learned. Using the Diccionario Multimedia is good pronunciation practice, because children listen and repeat as they learn new Spanish [...]
This is a quick, simple activity to review food vocabulary with children learning Spanish. Tengo hambre y quiero comer is based on the memory game kids play in Spanish called Me voy de viaje, but uses pictures to provide a visual reminder of the meaning of the words. I play it with groups of 4-8 students and up to 20 food words, but it also be done with two or three children. Of course, it [...]
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 [...]