If your family speaks English or another language at home, it can be a challenge to set aside time for Spanish activities. Whether you are teaching your child Spanish or supporting a school program, hearing and speaking the language consistently is important, but at times fitting it into the day seems next to impossible. One way to speak Spanish with your child every day is to have Spanish bedtime routines.
If you are teaching kids Spanish at home or at school, be sure to check out our Teach Kids Spanish: Resources and Strategies page. You’ll find lots of helpful, inspiring information.
Spanish language learning and bedtime both benefit from consistency. The security of routine helps children relax at the end of the day.
A Spanish bedtime routine also provides repetition. Spanish can be just a small part of bedtime and still give children important exposure to the language. You can always incorporate more Spanish bedtime play or change the routine as your child grows.
21 Ideas for Spanish Bedtime Routines
Before Bedtime
1. Take a short bedtime walk and talk about what you see.
2. As you pick up toys, name them in Spanish, count them, or describe them. Este camión es rojo.
3. As you pick up toys, sing A guardar, a guardar. There are lots of videos of the song on YouTube.
In The Bathroom
4. As kids get ready for a bath, sing a bath song like Al agua pato. There are many videos of the song on YouTube and a post about it here: Spanish Song for Kids – Al agua pato
5. Have a special set of bathtub stickers or toys that are just for speaking Spanish.
6. If your child is young enough that you brush her teeth, play a game where she touches parts of your face as you brush and you say the words in Spanish.
In The Bedroom
7. Talk to your child as she chooses what clothes she will wear the next day. This is a good way to talk about clothes, colors and the weather.
8. When you read to your child, include at least one story in Spanish.
9. Tell your child that you love all of her and review body vocabulary at the same time: Me gusta tu cabeza. Me encanta tu nariz. Me gustan tus dedos.
Talk About The Day
10. Recount the events of the day. You can do this talking (Primero nos despertamos y después…) or singing. I sang the day to my youngest daughter to the tune of Good Night Ladies. The chorus was Buenas noches (name), Buenas noches (name) Buenas noches (name). Qué día bonito fue. Then, I would use the verses to list what we had done during the day.
11. Name things for which you are grateful. If your family has religious beliefs, say a simple prayer. For example, these are two common children’s prayers:
– Cuatro esquinitas tiene mi cama, cuatro angelitos que me la guardan.
– Jesusito de mi vida, tú eres niño como yo, por eso te quiero tanto y te doy mi corazón, tómalo, tómalo, tuyo es, mío no.
You can find more Spanish Prayers for Kids at Mealtime and Bedtime here.
12. Keep a sketchbook or drawing pad beside the bed. Draw things that happened during the day and talk about the picture in Spanish.
13. Make a Spanish journal. List important words from the day or write a couple of sentences. Recording the date in Spanish is a good review of days, months and numbers.
Pictures and Play
14. Hang posters with detailed pictures somewhere where you can talk about them before bed. We had a fun map of a favorite city in Mexico and a world map on a wall next to the bathroom for years.
15. Choose a stuffed toy or puppet to only speak Spanish and include it in the bedtime routine. You can repeat words or sentences in Spanish for the toy or have it chime in with Spanish as your child gets ready for bed.
16. Turn your hands into puppets that speak Spanish. Make your fingers walk and talk. We used to make our hands into a spider (with just 5 legs) that would climb up and sleep on their heads.
17. Draw on your child’s back with your finger. Trace simple shapes, letters and numbers. Describe what you are drawing in Spanish: Ahora voy a dibujar una casa or Ésta es la letra B.
18. Play Veo veo in bed. There is a description of the game here: Veo, veo – I Spy in Spanish Teaches Kids Language
Include Music
19. Choose a bedtime song and sing the song to stuffed toys. Put them to bed with phrases like que sueñes con los angelitos, the equivalent of sweet dreams.
20. Listen to a quiet Spanish song together.
21. Let your child fall asleep to music in Spanish.
Siobhan Moffitt
Aug 1, 2013
I discovered a few great Spanish language story Podcasts on iTunes and sometimes we listen to one before bed while eating our bedtime snack. The boys love them!
Jenny
Aug 1, 2013
What a great idea! I’ll have to check out iTunes. Thanks!
Elle
Aug 1, 2013
A great idea that I did not at the time realize how well it would go over, is a prayer doll that recites the prayer in Spanish. Amazon has a few. I lucked up on one at my neighborhood CVS about 2 years ago, and I cannot find this exact one anywhere else! (This store never has Spanish anything, so i was shocked and snatched it up.). The doll’s recording is so fast, that I thought, she’d never get it, but surprisingly quickly, she did, and never forgets to say her nightly prayer accompanying her little Latina muneca, word for word.