Posters in Spanish are one of the easiest ways to add Spanish text to a child’s world. Posters are easy to change and move, so that children continue to notice them. You can make your own posters in Spanish at home, make them online or buy them. Read more about creating a text-rich environment for children learning Spanish here.
There are plenty of advantages to making your own Spanish language posters. Most important, you can choose text and pictures that are meaningful to your child and family. Choose a quote, a line from a favorite song or poem, or a dicho that speaks to you.
Also, making your own poster in Spanish is usually less expensive, although if you are printing it at home, it depends on the size of the poster and your printer. PosteRazor is an open source software program that lets you print a full size poster and include as much text as you like.
There are sites for creating posters on-line, like AutoMotivator. International characters work well on AutoMotivaor with my Mac. You can use your photos, photos from the web, or one of theirs and add the text you like. You have the option to save the poster or order it.
I made these posters in about 2 minutes. By far the hardest part is deciding what text you want to use. The last poster has lines from Rubén Darío’s poem A Margarita. We have this poem as a picture book and read it to my daughter Margaret all the time when she was small.
You can also buy posters in Spanish if you live in an area where they are available. Of course, you can shop online too, but I have had a hard time finding a good online source of posters with authentic language that are not obviously designed for classrooms. In English, you can find posters with poems, quotes or collections of quotes, funny sayings or collections of sayings, reproductions of comics, and other kinds of texts. The choices to purchase online in Spanish are slimmer. There are Spanish language movie posters available, but they usually do not have much language. Here are a few options that I have found. Please let me know if you know of others.
Amazon also has several collections of motivational posters in Spanish. The disadvantage to these, in addition to being a very limited style and a whole set, is that the quotes are all translations.
Companies like Anisa, that make educational products in Spanish, have authentic language posters for classrooms. They are a little didactic, but there are lots of them and they have a ton of authentic language. Click Carteles on the sidebar. Here is an example:
There is also a great collection of vintage Spanish Civil War posters available from Amazon and other sellers. Yes, they are wartime posters, so some of the content is too dark for little children. They are very interesting in terms of history, language and art though, so I thought I would mention them. There are dozens! My son is 23 and decidedly anti-war, but also fanatical about taking care of his teeth. I got him this poster last Christmas.
I will say more about posters in Spanish in a couple of days in my post for Spanish Friday. If this is a topic that interests you, be sure to check back.
