Spanish Books for Spring {for Kids}

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I love spring and the promise of warmer weather and growing green things out in the garden! When you live in Alaska spring holds a special place in your heart! So here is a collection of spring books to read to your kids/students in Spanish.  You can do all kinds of exploring with these books. Gardens, butterflies, and rain await you!

La Oruga Muy Hambrienta- A classic great for teaching the days of the week and food vocabulary.

El pollito que no quería salir del huevo- A cute book about a chick that doesn't want to hatch from his egg.

La Semilla de Zanahoria -Another simple classic about waiting for a carrot to pop up from the ground.

Como crece una semilla- A "Let's Read and Find Out" science book about how seeds grow.

Adivina Cuanto Te Quiero-A baby bunny wants to know how much he is loved.

Froggy al Bate- My Spanish students love Froggy books! Here is his adventure at bat.

¡Montones de mariquitas!- A counting book that teaches kids how to count by fives. You can use the story to practice counting by ones and fives.

Atrapados-We love Oliver Jeffers' books in Spanish around here! This is a comical story about a boy that gets his kite caught in a tree. What happens next is unbelievable!

Habia una vez una gota de lluvia and Habia una vez una semilla are two books I am going to be ordering soon to use during the spring months.

To see more spring activities for Spanish students check out these posts:

Insect unit
Ladybug unit
La Oruga Muy Hambrienta activities

Here is a plant unit that goes great with spring and/or summer!

Looking for other seasonal books?

Winter Books
Summer Books
Fall Books

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

La Oruga Muy Hambrienta (Free Printable)

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!}

Learning concepts of time (months, days of the week, time) can be challenging for younger students.  I recently did a simple activity with some of my students using La oruga muy hambrienta. Many parents and teachers are familiar with this great story from Eric Carle. What I love about this book is that you can teach the days of the week with it. There aren't a lot of books out there in Spanish that deal with them.

Here is what I do with the book:

I read through the book once with my students.  Then I gave them a chart with the days of the week on it.  La Oruga Muy Hambrienta works well for the days of the week because the book starts with Monday (instead of Sunday), which is considered the first day in the week in Spanish.  I then gave the students little pieces of clip art of the different foods that the caterpillar ate in the book.  As I re-read the book to them they glued the different foods onto the correct days that the caterpillar ate them. Throughout the activity, the numbers, the names of the foods and the days of the week can be reviewed.  As you can see from the picture, Saturday gets a bit ridiculous!  I didn't have room for all the foods, but then again maybe that drives home the point...that that very hungry caterpillar overate!

Here's the file to do the activity...

Very Hungry Catepillar Exercise

Oso Books for Vocabulary Building

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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!

Days of the Week Game

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When it comes to young children and teaching them concepts of time it can be difficult.  Not because kids aren't smart, but because they live out of the concept of time early on (A wonderful place to be!).  So I always find it a challenge to teach kids the days of the week, the months and the clock. This past week I came up with a new game to get kids started on memorizing the days.

I used file folders, candy stickers, Library Pockets, and Monster bulletin board accents.  In each file folder I attached seven pockets with one day of the week written on each one.  The days were then placed in order in the folder. On the monster accents I wrote a day of the week on each one.  I made this game so that three students could play...so I made three set of monsters, each with a day of the week on them (lunes through domingo).  I then made a few extra monsters with candy in their bellies. These are wild cards.

To play each student gets a file folder.  We place all the monsters face down on the table.  The object of the game is to fill each of your pockets with the correct day of the week.  But here's the catch...you have to fill the pockets in order! So if you don't pick up "lunes" on your first try you have to put the card back.  As you play have the kids say the days they have filled and then the one they are looking for before picking up a card.  This helps with rote memorization.  If they pick up a candy monster he can just go in their next pocket.

Lots of fun!  This concept can be used for other themes...like numbers, ordinal numbers, months, etc....basically, any concept that has an "order" to it.

Teaching the Days of the Week

 {This post contains affiliate links.  Thanks for supporting this blog.}

Learning concepts of time (months, days of the week, time) can be challenging for younger students.  I recently did a simple activity with some of my students using La oruga muy hambrienta.

I read through the book once with my students.  Then I gave them a chart with the days of the week on it.  La Oruga Muy Hambrienta works well for the days of the week because the book starts with Monday (instead of Sunday), which is considered the first day in the week in Spanish.  I then gave the students little pieces of clip art of the different foods that the caterpillar ate in the book.  As I re-read the book to them they glued the different foods onto the correct days that the caterpillar ate them. Throughout the activity numbers, the names of the foods and the days of the week can be reviewed.  As you can see from the picture, Saturday gets a bit ridiculous!  I didn't have room for all the foods, but then again maybe that drives home the point...that that very hungry caterpillar overate!

So how do you teach the days of the week?  In a couple of days I will have another post for a Days of the Week game.