Spanish Sequencing Cards: The Itsy Bitsy Spider

The Itsy Bitsy Spider is a wonderful fingerplay to do with language learners. You can do lots of fun related activities to add more language.

In Spanish, the rhyme is known as La araña pequeñita, La itzi bitzi araña, Winsy, winsy araña or Wichi, wichi araña. With these printable Spanish sequencing cards you can get more language learning out of the rhyme. The link to the printable is at the end of the post.

Find more traditional nursery rhymes on our poetry resource page Spanish Poems for Kids.

Like most traditional rhymes, the words to this finger play vary a bit depending on region. You can read about several different versions here: The Itsy Bitsy Spider in Spanish.

Of course, singing the song with the actions is the very best place to start. The Spanish sequencing cards are great for follow-up. These are the words my children learned and it is the version I still teach:

La arana pequeñita subió, subió, subió.
Vino la lluvia y se la llevó.
Salió el sol y todo lo secó.
Y la araña pequeñita subió, subió, subió.

Of course, you want kids to say the rhyme many times and to engage with the language in different ways. One of my favorite activities for this is Spanish sequencing cards. Kids can color the cards, use them in order to sing the song, order them as they sing, and make them into a mini book. For the Spanish sequencing cards, print them on card stock. I have included versions with and without text.

This is one possible order for activities that include the Spanish sequencing cards. I spread these over several days. We always sing the rhyme with the actions before doing other activities.

1. Learn the song and the finger play.
2. Do the finger play. Talk about the cards in order. (See vocabulary below.)
3. Do the finger play. Kids color the cards. Reinforce vocabulary (below) by talking about the cards as they color.
4. Order the cards as a group or individually as you sing the song.
5. Make the cards into a mini-book. Kids can make a cool spider cover.
6. Read spider books. Do additional spider crafts.

The Spanish sequencing cards let me teach language that is not in the rhyme. What you include will depend on your kids, but this is some of the additional vocabulary that you can easily incorporate using the sequence cards:
¿Dónde está?
la casa
la ventana
la nube
Está lloviendo.
Hace sol.
seco/a
mojado/a
fuerte
valiente

As you order the cards, you can also use primero, segundo, tercero, cuarto, entonces, después.

Printable Spanish Sequencing Cards

La araña pequeñita – Sequence Cards with Text
La araña pequeñita – Sequence Cards without Text

Here is a video of the Itsy Bitsy Spider in Spanish from the San Bernadino County Library.