A Simple Weather Craft for Language Learners

I have been teaching a six-session class called ¡Explora Español! this year. It combines language learning with simple crafts. Thus far, I had not found an easy idea to do with weather that I really like until I came across this photo.

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My goal is to first teach the vocabulary and then do the craft completely in the target language by giving step-by-step instructions.

Here are the items you need:

• Decorative Clear Gems that are round on the top and flat on the bottom for the rain. I bought mine at Michael's, but these ones are probably similar just a bit bigger.
• These mini gold muffin liners for the sun.
• Cotton balls
• Gray Pipe Cleaners for the wind.
• Mini foam snowflakes
• Blue Cardstock
• White Marker (if you are doing the project on darker paper). Since I work with small groups and young children, many times I will write out the words ahead of time on their papers. Obviously, older kids can do their own writing.

Have fun creating and using the language!

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!!

Hide-N-Seek Vocabulary Game (for Second Language Learning)

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I struggle sometimes on how to get my youngest students to use the language especially when they are in the first few months of exposure to Spanish. The first problem is that with lower elementary-age students their attention span is very short, and when you add the fact that they have limited vocabulary at the beginning it can be challenging to find activities to get them talking in the target language. This week though I came across an activity that really worked! Not only does this activity require that they speak in Spanish, but it incorporates repetition of the vocabulary in a way that keeps them motivated. Here's how it works...

I create picture cards with the vocabulary on them we are working on. The ones you see here are for the weather, but the cards could be any group of vocabulary as long as you can use pictures: clothing, rooms in a house, places in a city, foods, etc. I laminate the cards (VERY IMPORTANT) so that I can use the dot stickers on the back of them. If the cards aren't laminated then you won't be able to get the sticker off as easily.  I lay out the cards face up on the table. If you have a large group of students you can make bigger cards and hang them up. Then I ask my students in the target language to turn around (away from the cards) and close their eyes (young ones are expert "peekers" so I have them do both actions). I then take a colored dot (See these here as they are easy to remove.) and stick it to the back of one of the cards. Then all my students can turn around and open their eyes. They take turns asking in the target language about a card to see if the dot is behind it.

So for example, if we are working on weather words they would ask, "¿Está nublado?" or "¿Hace viento?". I then reveal the underneath of the card to show them whether the dot is there or not. After I have hidden the dot a few times, I let some of my students do the hiding. If you have a large group, you may not be able to let everyone hide each time you play the game. So you may want to keep track of who has hidden the dot so that next time other students can do it. My students absolutely LOVE hiding the sticker and being in charge of answering the questions and revealing the backside of the cards. Another variation I do (normally at the end of the activity) is for me to "hide" the dot one more time. However, this last time around, I don't actually hide the dot on one of the cards. I put it some place else out of sight. This forces the students to ask about ALL the cards and review all the vocabulary. When the last card is revealed there may be some surprised looks! 😊

While I have used this with great success with elementary-age kids, it can be used as a quick review for older students (like in high school). I love how it requires students to use the language and how they get to hear the words/phrases over and over again. The other added benefit? If a child has the task of hiding the dot, he or she then also has to practice finding which card the other student is asking about. There's plenty of repetition and review without it being boring!

Spanish Camp for Kids {Day 2}

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This summer I am hosting some summer mini-camps to teach kids Spanish. Today we will take a look at what I plan to do for day two. {Here is day one if you missed it.} For the second day of camp, we will focus on teaching numbers (1-10) and weather vocabulary. Here's a look at our activities:

We will start out by me teaching the vocabulary. Normally, I find that many young kids already know the numbers 1-10 so I always modify my lesson to fit the ability levels in the group. After we work with the vocabulary we will do a round of "Zapatito Blanco, Zapatito Azul". {Here's a video on how it works.} In the past, I have used just the first two lines of the rhyme and had the students call out their actual age, or you can use the whole rhyme as is.

Zapatito blanco, zapatito azul. 
Dime, ¿cuántos años tienes tú? 
¡Cinco! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5*
Y sales tú con la letra doble-u.


On to a more active game...I have filled several little baggies with random items. Some bags have two items, some five, some ten. You get the idea. The baggies will be placed around the lawn. I will call out a number in Spanish, and my students will run to find a baggie with that number of items in it. It's helpful to have a few bags that have the same number of items. If you do that, then a few students will get a bag for each number. Students aren't allowed to open the bags...they simply need to count the items to see if the bag is what they want. The student with the most bags at the end wins.

We will play "Cerdos" with the numbers and colors today. You can read all about this game HERE.

Our craft for the day will be rainsticks since we focused on weather earlier. Here are the complete instructions on how to make them. Before we dive in, I will show them where Chile is and talk about the desert there.

We will also do Weather Bingo and play this number and color game, if time allows.

And finally, here is a list of books we will be reading...




Un Dia de Lluvia
Los Animales No Se Visten- This book is incredibly funny!
Oso Bajo el Sol
Un Alce, Veinte Ratones- This will be a great review of numbers and will extend our counting a bit. There are also tons of animals in the book which will lead into tomorrow's theme!

To see all the posts on my Spanish Camp plans, click here, to read them as they become available. There will be five days total.

Seasons Activities in Spanish {Free Printable}

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Seasons are hard words to remember in another language. Over the twenty years I have been teaching I find that even though it is only four vocabulary words they can be forgotten quickly. So I was really pleased to come across a book in Spanish that beautifully illustrates the changing of the seasons...

Las 4 Estaciones Desde el Gran Arbol shows the progression of the seasons with a tree in the forest. The animals around it come and go as the year passes. The weather changes. The plants grow and become dormant or die. And during the whole time there is an owl in the tree watching the events around him. The book has cut outs that allows you to see the animals in the tree. There are several activities that you can do as you read the book and then afterwards. Let's take a look...

For my students that can write I have them re-create the four seasons with pictures and words in Spanish. (You can download this page here.)  They can draw in the way a tree would look for each season and then label the squares with the correct word. I also have them add color and weather words related to each season in the appropriate square. Another set of vocabulary that could be added are the months in the appropriate season, but be careful with this! What if you are in the southern hemisphere? This would be a great time to discuss how summer happens in December, January, and February in South America (like in Argentina and Chile).

During the reading of the book you can point out all the animals that are throughout the story. One of the reasons that I love this book is because there are so many animals and they reoccur several times on the different pages. For younger kids, I call out the name of an animal and they can count them. For older kids this is a great time to play Spot It! (the animal version) to review the names of animals. (See here how I use Spot It! as a teaching tool AND game at the same time.)

For more advanced students that know their prepositions, you can do a drawing activity with them. Students start out with a blank piece of paper and you describe a scene with a tree in Spanish that they have to draw. Here's a sample description that could be drawn:

Hay un árbol grande con un sol brillante en el cielo. En el árbol hay dos búhos y tres ardillas. Debajo del árbol, hay una familia de zorros. Un zorro persigue una mariposa. El árbol tiene manzanas en las ramas y un nido lleno de huevos.

Finally, here are some resources that are great for working with the seasons...

Y De Pronto Es Primavera-A sweet story about waiting for spring to come.

Froggy Se Viste- Frogs are not supposed to go out in the snow and play! A story filled with winter words (especially clothing).

Un Recorrido Por Las Estaciones- Scenes from all the seasons with an emphasis on each month.

A simple puzzle for younger kids.  Actually, this concept for be great for kids if you make flashcards. Can they put the objects in the right season?

Finally, I use this vocabulary sorting activity with older students. It's a great way to familiarize them with more words that they need to put into one of the four seasons.

¡Caramba! Game

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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!

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.

Teaching Seasons in Spanish

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There are only four, but at times they are really hard to remember. The seasons can be a challenge to learn especially for younger kids. Here are a few teaching ideas for the seasons...

When I teach the seasons and if the students are old enough {junior high and up} I try to give them tips on how to memorize the names. Here are the ideas I use...

El otoño - It sounds similar to the word "autumn".

El invierno - This word actually comes from the word "to hibernate". I also teach my students that it is the "inverse" (opposite of summer). "Invierno" kind of sounds a little like "inverse" so sometimes that helps students remember.

La primavera - Spring comes from two words "prima" (We have words in English like "prime" and "premiere" which refer to "one" or "first") and "vera" (This is similar to the word "green", verde). So basically this word means "first green" which totally fits for spring!

El verano - Summer starts out with "ver" similar to "verde" the season that is all green.

One of the activities we do after I have introduced the seasons and months is to categorize the months into the four seasons. I do this with cards...I have four different pictures of trees to represent the seasons and twelve cards with the months on them. We do it for the northern hemisphere and then talk about the southern hemisphere since there are many Spanish-speaking countries in which the seasons are flipped like Argentina and Chile. Another version of this activity is for my students to categorize clothing and/or weather into the appropriate season.

For older students I have them do this page which lets them work with other vocabulary related to each season.

If you are exploring the seasons with younger kids then children's books are the way to go. Un recorrido por las estaciones covers all the seasons and months. It also has some cool information on the days of the week in the back.

Also, I have several posts on books for each season of the year...

Fall books

Winter books

Spring books 

Just recently I came across a cute book about waiting for spring called Y de pronto la primavera . Well worth the read to young kids!

Summer books

So how do you teach the seasons? I would love to hear your ideas!

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

Mi Calendario {Teaching Dates, Seasons, and Weather with a Free Printable}

Over my years of teaching Spanish to young kids, I have found that the calendar, seasons, and the weather can be a challenge for them to cement in their brains. It takes a lot of review, and the best way is to talk about it each day for awhile until the concept of the passing of time becomes familiar to them. I recently purchased this calendar at half price and have been using it with my students. I am seriously wondering if I bought the last one available {I know I did from the company I ordered it from}. I wanted to have a smaller take-home version for my parents to be able to use with their kids at home.

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So I created this calendar that reviews yesterday, today, tomorrow, the date, season and weather for the day. You can download it and print it using the link below. {On the screen the page looks off, but print it out and it will be fine.} I then laminated these pages using this laminator {If you are looking for a laminator to use at home this is it! Inexpensive and works really well!!}. By laminating them I can give one copy to each parent and they can have their kids use a dry erase marker to pick the date, days, etc. It can be used over and over again. {Note: Some colored dry erase markers are harder to remove. The black seems the easiest. Also, rubbing alcohol helps the cleaning process.}

So here is the file...There is also a second page with questions in Spanish that parents can use as they review the calendar each day.

Mi Calendario

Here are some more items to use with kids to teach weather and seasons...




Weather and Clothes Puzzle-With this puzzle you can go over clothes, weather, colors, and seasons.




Pink "Mi Calendario"-Similar to the one above that is no longer available.


Laminated Weather Chart in Spanish