Culture, Crafts, and Language Learning

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It's been SEVERAL months since I posted. Life has been much busier than I ever imagined. This past summer I did Spanish camps and loved teaching more kids the language and introducing them to the cultures where Spanish is spoken. At some point, I hope to do some posts on those adventures and share my teaching ideas.

This fall I decided to offer a new type of class... ¡Explora Español!, a six-week class that gives kids a taste of Spanish through culture and crafts. I have really enjoyed this class more than I would have imagined. With each week, I teach a bit of Spanish and then connect it to a cultural component which leads into a craft. Let's take a look at one of the classes I did to see how it all works together...

One week I taught the kids body parts. Since I tend to use Mr. Potato Head in my regular classes when teaching body parts I figured I would do the same in my exploratory class also. Then it hit me. Potatoes are originally from South America. There was a tie-in. So after teaching body parts, we talked about the potato and where it came from. I mentioned the many varieties out there...many more than my students had ever seen. We then reviewed the body parts using Mr. Potato Head. I then gave each student a potato and we got to work. This craft was done mostly in Spanish. We started with the "ojos" and did the complete face. The sombrero and zapatos were next. We finished by placing cut pipe cleaners on the sides for brazos. 

The paper parts I cut out ahead of time to save time. {Also, it is a good idea to wash and dry the potatoes ahead of time so the glue will stick.} You can find several templates online like here. Make sure to resize them so they will fit on the potatoes you are using.  We would review the name of the body part in Spanish and then students would put glue {We used this one, and it works well.} on the piece. Because the potatoes are round it helped to hold the pieces in place for a few seconds. I had the students count to twenty in Spanish before taking their fingers off one of the pieces. With the shoes, it was helpful to use these glue dots instead of the liquid glue. Aren't they so cute?

Here are some other ideas for connecting language, culture, and crafts into your lessons {You can click on the link for each craft to get ideas}:

Names of animals-- Talk about the importance of llamas in South America-- Paint a llama 

Clothing vocabulary-- Talk about Guatemala and worry dolls-- Make a worry doll

House Vocabulary-- Talk about the neighborhood of La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina-- Make "La Boca Houses"

Weather Vocabulary-- Talk about the Atacama Desert in Chile-- Make a Chilean rainstick

Fruit and Veggie vocabulary-- Talk about Chile and Peru and arpilleras-- Make an arpillera

Telling time-- Talk about the artist Salvador Dalí-- Make melting clocks

Do you have any other connections for teaching language, culture and then adding a craft? I would love to hear them!!

Easter Island {Cultural Craft for Spanish Students}

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I am gearing up for another summer of Spanish camps and so looking forward to it. My camps are composed of language practice, cultural crafts, games, geography, and stories. It is a great introduction for kids in the language. You can find all my posts about summer camp if you click here.

Last year we made personal piñatas, molas, Chilean rainsticks, and a few other cultural crafts. For the kids that will be returning this year, I needed to have some new material to teach them and some new crafts. One of the days we will focus on body parts and the country of Chile so I thought it would be a great opportunity to make Moai, the famous Easter Island statues. 

I wanted an easy, quick way for students to make the statues without us taking too much time. I happened to find this ice cube mold and thought it would be perfect! (You can find it here.) Next I wanted a no-mess, easy clean-up clay that would air dry. This air dry clay is perfect, and I bought several packages in gray to make the heads with. To add to the educational value of the craft we are going to model the actual island (which is triangular) and  add a little bit of the ocean around it. I am thinking that I will make the clay for the island and the water to save on money. You can find a recipe here.

Along with making the islands, we will be spending sometime learning/reviewing body parts. I have made some extra statues in order to play a game that I saw online a few months back. Here's how it is done: You create two lines of students and have them face each other so that each kid has a partner. They need to be seated on the floor/ground. Place between each set of kids a Moai statue. Then begin to call out body parts in Spanish. Whatever body part is called the students have to place their hands on that part of themselves. So for example, if I say "cabeza" they will put their hands on their head. Call out several body parts. Then at some point say "Vayan" (or even "estatua") which means the pairs have to grab the little statue that is between them. Whoever grabs it first between the two kids wins and gets to stay in the game. Have the remaining that are still playing pair up with a new partner and do another round. Continue until you have only one student remaining. You can modify this game to make it a little less competitive for younger kids who sometimes struggle with winning and losing. Don't have anyone exit the game. Let everyone continue playing no matter who got the statue first.

I am also planning on doing a scavenger hunt with the statues by hiding them in an outdoor area and having the students search for them. I will probably do directions in the target language for older kids.

Here are some other resources to use in conjunction with this craft...

For my summer camps I limit the number of students so that kids get to practice in the language. So I will probably be buying several sets of these excavation kits for kids to work on in pairs. They get to dig up some Moai! (You can find them here.)

Also, have you been to Mundo de Pepita? It is an awesome blog with tons of resources and ideas for teaching Spanish to children. She also has a Teachers pay Teachers store which you can find HERE. She recently came out with a bulletin board set for the country of Chile! I will be using it during my camps as I like to have visual representations of the different countries we study. The set includes Moai, guanacos, the Chilean flag, some of the flora of the country, and a few other items.

Finally, here is a game to use, especially if you are breaking your students into groups to do center work. They can call out the numbers in Spanish as they play. The game is called Sneaky Statues and can be ordered HERE.

If you have any other ideas to go along with the Moai I would love to hear them!!

Word Pictures for Vocabulary Review

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Want a simple activity that incorporates creativity with vocabulary learning? How about trying word pictures with your students? Pictures are drawn entirely with words. For each part of the picture, students write the word for that part over and over again to form the shape of the item. For example, if you are drawing a dress then you would write the word "dress" to create the shape of the dress.

The best way to start these pictures is with a pencil. Have your students lightly outline their drawing. Then using fine tip pens (I used these.), have your students write the word over the pencil lines. They should pick words that correspond to each part of the picture. There is a little bit of poetic license, for the face in the picture I could use cara (face), cabeza (head), or chica (girl). When they are done they can erase the pencil lines. Let your students be creative!

They will also need to decide how much they will break down the picture with vocabulary words. I had the option on the picture below to write the words "trunk" and "leaves" for the tree, but just opted to write "tree" in Spanish instead.

This simple activity is a great way to reinforce the vocabulary your students are learning. You can do pictures for all different kinds of sets of words: weather, body parts, clothing, parts of a house, furniture, cities, foods, etc. Have fun being creative!!

How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth {Book Activities for Spanish Learners}

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There are just some children's books I read that are so endearing that I immediately have to share them with my students. Como Lavar a un Mamut Lanudo is one of those books, because don't we all need to know how to wash our woolly mammoths?! This precious book takes you step-by-step through the process. Fill a bathtub. Add bubbles. Add a mammoth. You get the picture. So here are a few activities you can do with your young Spanish students after reading this book...

Younger students can count the steps (There are ten of them.) mentioned in the adventure of mammoth washing. You can also have them count in Spanish the useful items (that can clean your mammoth) on the back cover. Another idea would be to count how many times the "pato" shows up in the story or count the leaves in the illustration of the messy mammoth at the beginning of the story. Here is a coloring page to go along with the book in which your students can count the bubbles.

With the story you can do a  review of body parts and the learning of a few new ones your students may not know like tusks, hooves, and wool. Teach and review the words and then call them out to see if they can find the parts one one of the pictures of the mammoth.

There are a ton of actions words in the story...have your students get out a piece of paper (after you have read the book to them) and call out one of the steps in cleaning a mammoth. Can they draw the steps that you call out? Along the same lines, can you call out two or three of the steps in Spanish and have your students tell you if they are in the correct order or not. The steps could also be written out on cards to see if your students who are reading Spanish can put them in order.

This book lends itself well to doing some bubble painting! Here are some simple instructions for this cool art activity. After the painting are done and dried, you can talk in Spanish about the bubbles represented in the art and work on noun/adjective agreement...

Burbujas moradas, burbuja grande, burbuja chiquita, burbujas verdes, etc.

Have fun learning all about giving woolly mammoths baths!

Froggy Se Viste

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Froggy Se Viste is one of the best books to use in a clothing unit in Spanish. I have used this book repeatedly over the years to introduce and review clothing vocabulary. Let's take a quick look at learning activities you can do with this story...

Although Froggy Se Viste is set during the winter, you can use the book to discuss the four seasons and different weather situations. This cute, printable "Dress-A-Frog" set would be useful as it contains clothes for each season and weather cards. You can have students pick a weather card. In Spanish, you can discuss what the weather is and the potential season. Then you can have the student dress the frog accordingly. After "Froggy" is dressed you can then have students tell you what he is wearing in Spanish. There is also this free set of Froggy with his mom.

Another possibility for this book is to go over body parts. For example, call out an article of clothing that Froggy wears and have your students tell you what body part that piece of clothing is used on. To extend this activity, you can use Mr. Potato Head. See this post on how I use this toy to teach/review body parts and clothes in Spanish. See below for different sets of Mr. Potato Head that have clothing for winter and summer. If you work with Mr. Potato Head you can incorporate reflexive verbs into the activity. You can talk about Froggy using the verbs: vestirse, quitarse, ponerse, mirarse. You can also use those verbs to ask your students questions about what they put on in the morning or in the winter, etc.

With this book, you can add in some science by studying the life cycle of frogs. There are two units on Teachers Pay Teachers that I have used to teach the life cycle and parts of a frog.

Unit 1

Unit 2

Have fun with Froggy!

De la Cabeza a Los Pies

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Animals and movement. What could be better for young children? I adore many of Eric Carle's books and have used them over the years in teaching Spanish. De la Cabeza a los Pies offers a wonderful opportunity to get kids moving and learning.

As far as vocabulary goes there are animal names to learn and body parts. Each page of the book features an animal like a penguin, seal or camel doing a certain action. The text is simple and somewhat repetitive to help kids absorb the language better. Here is a look at some learning activities you can do with this book:

Play Simon says in Spanish. Since there are a plethora of actions in the book you can use them to play this simple childhood game. Here is a list of possibilities...

Girar la cabeza, doblar el cuello, alzar los hombros, saludar con los brazos, aplaudir con las manos, golpearse el pecho, arquear la espalda, menear las caderas, doblar las rodillas, dar patadas, pisar muy fuerte, mover el dedo del pie

Another option with these actions is to call out the animal in Spanish and see if your students can do the action the animal did in the book. This requires a bit of memory so it might be a better activity after you have read the book a couple times to them. Along the same lines, you can call out a body part and see if they can point to it on themselves. 

Another activity I like to do along with this book is to use songs related to body parts. Diez Deditos is filled with wonderful songs and rhymes in Spanish for kids. It contains two to three songs that would be a great go-along for De la Cabeza a los Pies. Here is the song book for the CD which is incredibly helpful because not only do you get the words, but there are suggested actions for the songs.

Check comprehension by saying a sentence outloud about one of the animals...for example, "El mono saluda con los brazos." or "El cocodrilo gira la cabeza." If the statement is correct, then the students say, “Claro que sí” (a repeated line from the book). If the statement isn't correct, they say, "Claro que no".

If you are looking for graphics to go along with the book to make cards with, here is a link from Teach Beside Me. These are in English, but you could cut that part out or leave it. If you make cards, you can then have students select a card and say what the animal and action is in Spanish and then have them act it out.

Here are more book activities in Spanish {click here}.

Using Stickers in Language Learning

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Kids love stickers! One of the ways I add variety to my teaching is to occasionally pull out my collection of stickers and use them in listening activities with my students. The basic idea is for each child to have the same set of stickers to use on a piece of paper with a picture or various pictures on it. I describe the sticker in the target language and where to put it on the page. I then see if my students can follow directions.

For the pages we use I love these books, Basic Vocabulary Builder and Practical Vocabulary Builder. They are blackline master with thematic pictures on each page. Here are some examples...

I have also used other types of pages like when we learn how to tell time in Spanish I use a sheet filled with pictures of clocks. I instruct my students to put a certain sticker on the time I tell them. A final idea on pages? You can use any scene with lots of items and actions in it. The more there is on the page the more the students have to listen carefully to your instructions and hunt for the correct picture to put their stickers on.

Here are sheets of stickers I have found useful. The goal is to use sheets that have enough items that are different from each other that you can describe to your students exactly which sticker to use.

Monsters Shape Stickers  are great because you can review colors, body parts, and even a few animal words (For example, one of the monsters has the nose of an elephant. Another looks like a snake.)

Penguin Stickers- Great for reviewing winter clothing like hats, scarves, skis, etc. See this post for another activity with these stickers.

Emoticons Stickers-Use these to review emotion vocabulary.

Snowmen Stickers -Once again for winter clothing.

Robot Stickers- Also great for reviewing body parts

Pirate Stickers- Lots of vocabulary here!

Kid Stickers-These are awesome for reviewing how to describe people.

Alphabet Stickers-I use these after teaching the alphabet.

Here are some more teaching ideas for the language classroom.

Listening and Drawing Activities {Free Printables}

I recently came across some wonderful drawing activities on Spanish Playground {By the way, if you are not familiar with this site and you teach Spanish to kids you REALLY need to check it out! It is an awesome resource!}. The site has a drawing activity with stick figures and one with houses. Instead of having my students read the descriptions to themselves, I read them out loud to see if they understood and then they did the drawings. I even branched out with these and incorporated different topics...

For the houses you can do the following topics:

house description {door, windows, color}
weather
seasons
items inside and outside of the house {Great for reviewing "adentro" and "afuera"}
items above and below in the house {Great for reviewing "arriba" and "abajo"}
time {Have the students draw a clock above the house and fill in the time}


For the stick figures you can do the following topics:

clothing/colors
emotions
weather
seasons
action words {For example, you can say "La chica escribe." and have them draw a pencil and paper near the girl.}

After I modeled several examples and they drew I then made the students do their own descriptions out loud. If you have a group of kids you can pick one child to describe a house or person and have the others students draw it. If you are just working with one student or your own child, have him or her describe and YOU do the drawing. Because I had modeled how to describe a house or person several times before handing over the reins to them, my students were very creative in their descriptions! They even incorporated more vocabulary than I did!

My students so enjoyed these activities that I decided to branch out a bit and make a few more. The first template can be used with places in a city or rooms in the house. The little circle up in the corner can be for the time of day or used as a face to draw the emotion of the person in that place.

The second template is a table setting. With this page you can describe what is on the plate and also use prepositions to have your students draw the silverware, cups, bowls, etc. Below you will find the printables for both of these pages along with some descriptions already typed up for you to get you started. For those of you that teach other languages feel free to use the templates and create your own descriptions in the target language you are teaching.

Here are the free printables!

Template for Places Drawings
Instructions for Places Drawings
Template for Food Drawings
Instructions for Food Drawings

Se Venden Gorras

This post is part of a series, 31 Days of Spanish Books for Kids. Please click HERE for the complete list of posts. {Each of these posts contain affiliate links. Thanks for supporting this blog!}

Years ago I would read Caps for Sale to my young boys. These days they are teens and have outgrown picture books, but Caps For Sale is still a part of my life in the form of  Se Venden Gorras. I have read this numerous times to my Spanish students because not only is the story timeless but it offers an introduction to different teaching themes. 

While Se Venden Gorras is slightly longer than some of the other picture books I recommend it can still be read to beginners. It is great for reviewing colors as the differences in the hats are described in the story. There are also several body parts that are mentioned so this book could be used during a unit on introducing the parts (hand, finger, head, back, feet). It is also a great book to use while introducing prepositions (left, right, up, down) and for more advanced students that have a bit of background in the language "transition words" are used within the text like 

Primero

Luego

Después

A continuación

Por último

There are also a plethora of activities that can be done with the book. Here are a few that can be converted into Spanish...

Stack the Caps - To review the colors and patterns on the hats.  Also, it would work well with the transition words.

A Spanish Printable - To use with the book. You will need to scroll down to find it.

Or you could do something like this as a class.

And finally, you can do Simon says in Spanish with the actions in the book!

Teaching Prepositions

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Teaching prepositions can be some of the easiest and hardest teaching experiences. Hard because for some reason the prepositions are not easily memorized. Easy because there is a plethora of fun activities that you can do to teach them. 

Let's start out with some great books that have a lot of prepositional words in them:

Vamos Froggy-My students LOVE Froggy books. In this one Froggy has misplaced several items and has to find them before heading out on a bike ride with his dad.  The main prepositions used are debajo, dentro, and en.

Se Venden Gorras-A great classic, Caps for Sale, that uses prepositions.

Where Is the Green Sheep? / Donde esta la oveja verde?-Lots of prepositions in this one. For younger elementary and preschool.

Lupe Lupita, ¿dónde estás?-Another book with lots of prepositions. It comes in "big book" form or as a board book.

So what are some activities you can do to teach the prepositions?

I normally introduce my students to them through the use of Blobby Robby and a plastic cup. I put him in relation to the cup and then tell them the preposition that is being displayed. For example, I put him close to the cup and say "cerca de" or I put him under the cup and say "debajo de". All my students know that when they see Blobby Robby we are going to review prepositions.

Another activity I do with house and body parts vocabulary is to get a blank outline of a house (see the above picture) and these Monsters Stickers . I then give the students instructions like "Tomen el monstruo con dos cabezas y ponganlo debajo de la cama." The students then have to take the correct monster and place him in the house correctly. Even the high school students I work with LOVE this activity!

Another item that I will be getting very soon for my younger students is the Positional Words Resource Box. This looks like so much fun! While the set is made to work with students that speak English there is no reason why it can't be used with another language. You as the teacher can give instructions on how to position the objects or you can do the extra work of creating cards in the target language like the set has.

Another activity that I do from time to time is to take some TOOB toys and give instructions to my students on where to place them in the room. Depending on which TOOB you use you can review the words for those items also. You can also hide the animals beforehand and then give instructions in Spanish for the students to find them.

So what cool ideas do you use for teaching prepositions? I would love to hear them!

Ladybug Unit {in Spanish}

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This summer I am doing a ladybug unit with one of my students.  I thought I would share the resources that I have come up with for doing a ladybug unit in Spanish.

Here are some books in Spanish to read during the unit:

La Mariquita Lara

¡Montones de mariquitas!

Diez Pequenas Mariquitas

La Mariquita Malhumorada  (longer text)

Como crece una mariquita
Super Catarina Y Los Super Insectos

I bought this Teachers Pay Teachers unit in Spanish as the foundation of what I am teaching.  You can see some of the graphics for it in the above photo.

I also created a felt ladybug out of two large circles (one black and one red) and one small black circle.  We can use this ladybug and some black beans to do number activities with the "manchas" or spots on the back of the ladybug. Some ideas are to call out a number in Spanish and have the student put that many manchas (black beans) on the ladybug.  You could also do addition and subtraction with beans on the two wings.

Here is a site with some great ideas.  It is in English, but you can convert a lot of them to another language. Ladybug ideas