Silly Sentences in Spanish

{Affiliate links used.}

I love using flashcards to help kids review vocabulary, but let's face it, review with flashcards is rather boring. So when I can, I use flashcards as a basis for creating crazy sentences. Most of my flashcards are stored in categories. For example, all modes of transportation are together or all items in a house are in another pile. {NOTE: I make flashcards with the pictures from these books: Basic Vocabulary Builder and Practical Vocabulary Builder.}

I pick about three categories of vocabulary cards and lay the piles face down. For example, I could use professions, places in a city, and modes of transportation. A student picks up the top card of each pile and then says a sentence based on the three pictures. For example...

El mecánico va al cine en la moto.

The next student then turns over the next set of cards to create a new sentence. Many of the sentences will be "crazy"...like "The doctors go to the supermarket in a helicopter."

There are tons of card combinations you can use to create sentences. Here are just a few ideas with the cards you would use and an example sentence:

• Subject pronouns~Verb~Place  {Yo bailo en el banco.}
• Family Members~Food~Colors {La hermana come las fresas verdes.}
• Household Items~Rooms in a House {La cama está en la sala.}
• Clothing~Colors~Seasons  {Uso la camisa blanca en el verano.}
• Animals~Preposition~Items in a House {El mono está a la derecha de la mesa.}

Don't want to make your own cards? Here are cards that would go well with this activity...


Photo Cards {Already separated into 16 categories}

Photo action cards











Noun Cards {Things Around the Home}

¡Caramba! Game

{Affiliate links used.}

I am closing out the school year with my Spanish lessons and wanted a way to review the vocabulary we have been working on. I came across on Pinterest a post about Kaboom! It was created for elementary classrooms, but I thought it would be perfect for language learners also! So here is how you go about it:

First of all you will need...

Jumbo Craft Sticks
Sharpie Markers
Cups (Not see through)

Since I work with a lot of different levels of students I had several categories of vocabulary I wanted to use like house items, the alphabet, clothes, opposites, etc. I decided to color-code the sticks  on one end. This helps with two things. Kids will know how to put them in the cup with the colored part sticking out. This allows me to  select which sets of vocabulary to use with certain sets of students. For example, I know that the orange sticks are emotions and the pink sticks are foods. {See the final set of pictures for the list I made for myself.}

After you color the tips, you write one word towards the other end of the stick. I tend to use about 15 sticks for a vocabulary-themed set. Three of those sticks will have the word "Caramba" written on them. The rest will have vocabulary words you want kids to review.

To play the game you put one set (or maybe two or three if you have more advanced students) in a cup with the colored tips up. Students take turns pulling a stick out of the cup and giving the translation of the word. They keep the stick if they can say what it means in English. Otherwise, they put it back in the cup if they don't know. If they pull a "Caramba" stick they have to put back ALL their sticks! I time the game for about three minutes. The student with the most sticks at the end wins!

This is a fun way to review vocabulary which at times can be tedious!

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

Oso en Bicicleta

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!}

I love the Oso books from Barefoot Books, and Oso En Bicicleta is no exception. It is a great book to use to introduce modes of transportation and geographical areas (like prairie, island, etc.).  There is rhyming throughout the book as each page Oso takes a new mode of transportation to a different place. As a word of warning there is two typos in my copy of the book ("quiero" is spelled "queiro" and "cohete" is spelled "cochete"), but I never felt that this would negate using the book with my students (many of them aren't reading yet). These typos may have been corrected since I bought the book so I am not sure if they exist in newer copies. The illustrations only add to the story and give a mom or teacher the opportunity to talk about the scenes in the target language. The book could even be used to introduce your students to animals as there are a plethora of them displayed in the pictures. 

Here is a list of the transportation and places that the book uses...

la bicicleta

el mercado

la balsa

el bosque

la carreta

la pradera

la locomotora

la playa

el barco

la isla

el globo

el cielo

el carruaje

el castillo

el cohete

Oso is not to be missed!

Oso Books for Vocabulary Building

{Affiliate links used.}

The Oso books by "Barefoot en Espanol" are awesome for vocabulary building!  These simple books work well with younger kids to introduce them to a variety of topics like days of the week, places, profession,etc. Here is a list of the books available and the topics they cover.


Bear in Sunshine/Oso Bajo El Sol  (Weather, Seasons, Favorite Activities)
Oso en la Ciudad (Places, Days of the Week)
Oso En Bicicleta (Places, Transportation)
Oso En Un Cuadrado (Shapes, Colors, Counting)
Oso en el Trabajo (Professions, Places)
Bear at Home/Oso En Casa (Rooms and Items in a House)
Bear's Busy Family/ La familia ocupada de Oso (Family, The Five Senses)

Many of the books at the end have a picture review of the vocabulary and/or a list of key words.  Like for example in Oso en Casa there is a floor plan of the house.

Or a review of shapes and colors in Oso en el Cuadrado...

Great little books for language learning!