As kids study Spanish language and culture, they usually are introduced to the geography of Latin America and Spain and learn the names of those countries in Spanish. Often, however, they do not learn the Spanish names of countries in the rest of the world until much later. Most names of countries in Spanish have English cognates, so they are easy for children to learn. There are lots of good map quizzes online where kids [...]
There are lots of versions of The Itsy Bitsy Spider in Spanish. The lyrics are fairly close to the English, although in some versions the spider is spinning her web or climbing a wall when the rain comes. La araña pequeñita, La itzi bitzi araña, Winsy, winsy araña and Wichi, wichi araña are just a few of the names this song or finger play has in Spanish. I include the lyrics to three common versions [...]
This traditional Spanish game, El juego de la oca, is a board game similar to Snakes and Ladders. Players roll dice and move in a spiral to reach the center of the board. If they land on la oca (the goose), they move ahead to the next oca and roll again, saying De oca a oca y tiro porque me toca. If they land on the bridge, they move to the next bridge and roll [...]
In this online Spanish game for kids, children hear a phrase in Spanish and are given the words to that phrase out of order. They drag and drop the words to make the Spanish sentence that they heard. If the child makes a mistake, the word will not go into place and the sentence is repeated. There are images of each sentence behind the words, so even if all of the Spanish vocabulary is not [...]