Educapeques is an educational portal with lots of resources for teachers and parents. On the website, Editorial Educapeques of Spain offers games, printables, stories and poems for children. Many of the activities and materials can be used with Spanish language learners. You will want to explore Educapeques to find what best fits your situation, but I will mention a few materials that work well with kids learning Spanish. Printable Spanish Games for Kids This printable [...]
April is National Poetry Month in the United States. It is an excellent time to share poems in Spanish with children who are learning the language. Poetry does not have to be abstract or use figurative language, which can be hard in a second language. It can be clear, relate directly to kids’ experiences and use everyday words. In addition, carefully chosen poems let children experience the sound and rhythm of Spanish at the earliest [...]
April is National Poetry Month. Poems are a wonderful way for children to hear and speak Spanish and enjoy the rhythm and sounds of the language. Spanish language learners can read and listen to poems and with support they can also write their own. Here are a few ways to share poetry in Spanish with children during National Poetry Month. 17 Ideas for Sharing Spanish Poems with Kids 1. Watch videos of animated poems or [...]
Antonio Selfa Molina is a performer and composer from Spain. He is also a teacher. Last year, he recorded Spanish poems for children set to his music. These poems are by some of the great poets of Spanish literature, including Lope de Vega, Amado Nervo, and Nicolás Guillen. There are also poems by well-known contemporary writers like Pedro Villar and Floria Jiménez. Several of these Spanish poems for children can be used effectively with language [...]
¡Qué tan grande era todo cuando yo era chico! is a Spanish poem for children. It uses basic vocabulary that is appropriate for beginning Spanish language learners and is excellent exposure to the imperfect tense. This poem is about the sensation children have that the world around them is getting smaller as they grow. Many kids remember when they could not reach the counter or the faucet, for example. The poem is by the well-known [...]
Douglas Wright is a well-known author and illustrator from Argentina. Among his many talents, he writes poems for children in Spanish. I use his poetry with Spanish language learners because the language is accessible, the poems are from a child’s point of view and children identify with feelings and experiences. They also have rhythm and rhyme so that they are wonderful to listen to and fun to recite. Mi casa está viva has familiar vocabulary, [...]
Poems in Spanish are a wonderful way for children to experience and learn the language. These three websites all have resources for reading and writing poems in Spanish with children in elementary school. The first two are PDFs that you can download and print, and the third is a website with many activities to use individually or in a poetry workshop. 1. El Rincón del Maestro is a site from Spain with materials for various [...]
Poems for children in Spanish teach language and culture through rhythm, rhyme and images. Simple structures and familiar vocabulary make these three poems easy to use with language learners. The online magazine, Cuatrogatos, is dedicated to children’s literature in Spanish. It is based in Miami and is an excellent resource for poetry to use with kids. The archives have material going back to 2000. Both Edgar Allan García of Ecuador and Sergio Andricaín of Cuba [...]
I wrote this rhyme to read with children learning Spanish. Kids help tell the story by providing phrases based on the pictures in the text. The story is really a simple Spanish poem for kids and the rhythm and rhyme help children predict the words. I wrote the counting rhyme Un paseo por el parque to use with my preschool students. Each of the pictures represents a number and an object – un árbol, dos [...]
This Spanish poem for children is titled Una casa con un sol. It uses familiar, conversational language to describe the way sunlight enters and brightens a house. It is a summer poem with basic vocabulary that Spanish language learners understand. Una casa con un sol is by the well-known Argentine author and illustrator Douglas Wright. His books are hard to get in the United States, but he generously shares his work on his blog El [...]
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 [...]
Reading El jardín de Douglas recently, I was happy to find two new poems that I think are especially well suited to using with Spanish language learners. I will share one today and the other one in the next few days. Douglas Wright is well-known poet, author and illustrator from Argentina. Finding his books in this country is not easy, but he generously shares his work on his blog El jardín de Douglas and also [...]