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!

Story Cubes {Fluency in Second Language Writing}

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Yesterday I had a post about using Rory's Action Story Cubes  to practice with verbs in your language classroom. {See the post here.} Today I am going to show you a simple way to get your students writing creatively with these cubes. 

First of all, you will need this printable, Story Cube Writing. It is for Spanish students, but you could make a different one in you teach another language. Basically, I give a space for students to list the pictures they rolled on the dice. They are separated into categories: nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then there is space for them to write a story.

Then you will need at least two sets of these cubes. One of the sets needs to be the Action One and then you can pick any of the others which contain mostly nouns and some adjectives.

There are several sets of Rory's Story Cubes, here's a list of all of them that you can choose from...

Rory's Story Cubes-The original set
Rory's Story Cubes Actions-The "verb" set
Rory's Story Cubes - Voyages- These are awesome! Pictures of a camera, cave, circus tent, mountains, and so much more!
Rory's Story Cubes Mix- Enchanted, Prehistoria, Clues-Pictures related to fairy tales, dinosaurs, and crime investigation.
Rory's Story Cubes - Original, Actions, Voyages, Prehistoria, Enchanted, Clues (Set of 6)- This includes all the sets!

Give your students the dice and have them roll all of them at once {the two sets}. Have them list on the printable in the target language at least five nouns and five verbs. Since there are not many adjectives tell them if they get one or two that will be fine. Their job then is to come up with a story using all the words they listed. NOTE: If you are doing this with a large group of students, break them down into groups. Have someone in the group roll all the dice once and then each student in the group writes down the words they want on their own paper from that one roll of the dice. This negates each student having to roll which takes time.

You should be able to read some pretty creative stories! I know I have!

Join me at 31 Days of Teaching Tips for Language Learning.

31 Days of Teaching Tips Coming Soon!

It has been quiet here as I have been frantically working to finish a series coming in January to the blog, 31 Days of Teaching Tips for Language Learning. Here is the link (which won't go live until January 1, 2016). I thought in the meantime I would share the above graphic to give you an idea of some of the topics I will be covering when it comes to teaching another language. Whether you are a language teacher in the school system or a homeschool mom trying to impart another language to your kids, it is my hope that you will find something useful during the series that can help you in your teaching. I hope to see you in January!!

Ten Ways to Use Picture Dictionaries in a Language Classroom

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Picture dictionaries are a great jumping off point for conversations in the target language you are teaching.  I love using the types of dictionaries that have "scenes" that you can use to talk about many different topics.  The dictionaries I have listed here are {at the time of this posting} out of print {at least the Spanish versions are...other languages are available}, but they are readily available on the used market through Amazon and other sites.

Picture dictionaries with scenes can be used in a variety of ways.  Here is a list of ideas:

{NOTE: All of these activities are done in the target language...on both the teacher and student side.}

1. Ask where certain items are in the target language and the student points them out.

2. Counting items on the page.

3. Show them a scene and they have to describe it in the target language.

4.  Practice prepositions by describing where things are located.  I normally do this by giving the student(s) two items in Spanish.  They then have to tell me how the first item is positioned in regards to the second item.  For example:  El gato esta encima de la mesa.

5. Call out an item and the students give you an adjective for it.

6. Have the students describe the actions going on in the scene.

7. Discuss the emotions of the people in the scene.

8. For pages with lots of food pictures on them call out a color and the students tell you the foods that are that color.

9. Also, for food pages, call out an adjective like sweet or salty and have students list foods that fit that description.

10. Call out a letter of the alphabet and see if students can list any items on the page that start with that letter.

Let's Learn Spanish-Picture Dictionary-I love this dictionary particularly for its opposite page {see above}.  With this page I ask questions like, "Where is the fast mouse?"  "the tall mouse?", etc.

First Thousand Words in Spanish-This dictionary is the one I have used the longest in my teaching.  Scenes in the middle with vocabulary around the sides.

Everyday Words in Spanish-Most of my younger students love this book with claymation type characters. Once again there are scenes with vocabulary on the sides.

You can probably find another million ways to use these books.  I would love to hear your ideas!

Dice in Language Learning

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I love making language learning into a game if possible. Even if the activity we are doing isn't really a game, dice give a hands-on experience to what we are practicing in the language.  There are several types of dice that I use when teaching.

Dice Within Dice are great for practicing sentence constructions, verb conjugations, and adjective/noun agreement.  On my whiteboard I will normally make two lists.

COLOR
1. Uds.
2. yo
3. Carla y yo
4. ella
5. tu
6. Ud.

BLANCO
1. decir la verdad
2. hacer la tarea
3. pedir la comida
4. encontrar un gato en la calle
5. salir con amigos
6. perder los libros

Students takes turns rolling their "Die within a Die" and creating a sentence.  For example, if a student rolled a "2" for the colored die and a "4" for the white die, the sentence she would need to come up with would be "Yo encuentro un gato en la calle."

One way to mix this activity up a bit is for the teacher to participate.  I roll the dice and then say the sentence, but I don't always do it correctly.  It is the students' job to figure out if the sentence is "correcto" or "incorrecto".

This method could be done with lots of types of sentences.  Here are some ideas:

-Subjects and adjectives {Ella es flaca.}  Great for practicing noun/adjective agreement.

-Subjects and items we know.  {Ella sabe bailar.   or  Yo conozco a la profesora.}  This is great for practicing the difference between saber and conocer.

-Subjects and adjectives-some that take ser and other estar.  {Nosotros estamos aburridos.   or  Uds. son altos.}

-Even more complex sentences can be done if you give the students three dice (or one die within a die and a single separate die).  For example...
Subjects-objects-recipients of the objects {Yo le doy la bici a Ricardo.}  Or use double object pronouns...{Yo se la doy.}

-Also with three dice:  Subject-preposition-place  {Yo estoy a la derecha de la silla.}

-With four dice or two dice within dice...
subject-verb that takes subjunctive-subject-second verb  {Yo quiero que Carlos haga la cama.}

Number Dice are great for practicing saying the numbers out of order.  It is great when a student can learn to count in Spanish or another language, but the true test is when they can see the number and tell you what it is.  Sure, students for awhile might have to "count up" to tell you the number, but the more they practice the easier it gets.  I use one to four of these dice and have them roll them all at once. Then they have to line them up and tell me what number they have. Great for older students needing to practice higher numbers.

Another option is to have a group of number dice on the table and then call out a number that the student then has to create with the dice.


Math Operation Dice along with regular dice can be used to do math problems in the target language.

Este Alce es Mio {Teaching Mio, Tuyo, Suyo, Nuestro}

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 Using children's books is a great way to teach another language. {See my extensive list of children's books for teaching Spanish}  Recently, I came across Este alce es mío, a sweet story of a little boy who has a pet moose named Marcel.  The plot combines humor, drama, and emotion to capture a child's attention. But I also love the book because I can teach the concept of mio, tuyo, suyo, and nuestro with it.  Before reading the book I pass out plastic animals to my students.  We go over the names of the animals.  Here are some ideas for animals to use...

Squishy Farm Critters

Zoo Animal Squeeze Stress Balls

I then go over the words mio, tuyo, suyo, and nuestro by talking about who has which animals.  I start by talking about which animal is mine.  Then the students have to say which one is theirs. From there, we talk about which one is yours, his, and hers.  Finally, we talk about how the animals are ours.  For example,

"El elefante es mio."
"La vaca es tuya."
"El pato es suyo."
"Los animales son nuestros."

This is also a good time to review noun/adjective agreement.  Finally, we read the book.  In the book are a series of rules that the little boy gives to his moose.  The rules are numbered.  When we get to the numbers I have one of the students read the number so that we are reviewing that vocabulary also.

I plan to get more of Oliver Jeffers' books in Spanish in the near future and will share how I use them to teach Spanish.