Ocean Unit Study in Spanish

{Affiliate Links Used.}

This coming spring I will be teaching an ocean unit to some of my Spanish students {ages 4-12}. Here's a look at the materials I have prepared and the resources I will be using...

I LOVE reading children's books to my younger kids. Here are some options:

Cómo atrapar una estrella - A boy tries to catch a star, but in the end finds that a starfish is his friend.

Perdido y encontrado  - A boy tries to help a penguin find his home.

Una Isla Bajo el Sol - This is a sweet story of a boy visiting an island. The language is simple and repetitive. As of this posting it is out of print and is expensive. You might want to see if the local library has it. The price may change if they print it again.

Un Día Una Señora Se Tragó Una Caracola - Modeled after "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", this book has a fun ending!

Océanos: Mundos submarinos - For older kids with more language experience. This is more of a science book about the oceans.

Estela, la estrella del mar - I have been loving the Estela books in Spanish lately! Estela has such cute conversations with her little brother, Samuel. This one is all about the sea.

Si quieres ver una ballena - If you want to see a whale there are certain things you must do. I have paired this book with a drawing and listening activity that you can read about here.

Another item that I picked up for this unit is a game,Spot it! Splash Card Game . My students love Spot It! games because they are fun and competitive. I love them because when you use them in another language vocabulary learning happens fast!  Here is how I use Spot it! in my lessons.

To teach the different sea life animals (see the vocabulary list below) I will be using these cards from Teachers pay Teachers. If you make two sets of cards you can play memory and Go Fish with them.

Sea life Cards

For my younger students I will be using two games from Mrs. Home Economist...the Build-a-Crab game (a good way to review body parts in Spanish) and the Ocean Animal Race. You can find both of them here. Also, for students that are just starting to write I am going to use Peces Plurales to have them practice how to make words plural in Spanish.

For older kids you can have them create "Sea Life Riddles" in Spanish. Have them write a description of an animal that lives in the ocean in Spanish. See if your other students can guess which animal the description is about. I also have my more advanced student either write or describe an ocean scene like this one.

Here are some other activities that can be done in Spanish...

Ocean I Spy- A great way to review animal names

Pearls in a Seashell- Counting review for younger kids

Flota y Hunde - Do an experiment on items that float and sink

Ocean Zones- Great activity for slightly older kids. Here's more information on ocean zones in Spanish.

And finally, here is an activity to review the names of the oceans in Spanish along with the continents so that you can teach a bit of geography.

And my list of vocabulary for the students and parents...

Los Océanos Vocabulary

I am looking forward to all these fun activities and learning possibilities with my students soon! If you have any more ideas that I could incorporate please don't hesitate to share.

El Monstruo de Los Monstruos

{Affiliate links used.}

I love a great children's book. Using literature is one of the ways I teach Spanish to my students. Last night I came home late to find a package...a book that would be great to use in the month of October and that teaches the value of gratitude and kindness. On so many levels this book delivers. The illustrations are cute. The story is fun and comical. The underlying message has great value.

El Monstruo de los Monstruos starts out with three little monsters who are constantly fighting about who is the biggest and most evil among them. They finally decide to create a monster that will trump them all. The only problem? This new and improved monster doesn't know how to act like one! He says "Thank you" and is kind to others. He finds joy and pleasure in the simple things of life. He eventually becomes a role model for his creators, the three little monsters, when they finally decide that maybe being a monster isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

One of the wonderful aspects of this book is the vocabulary that you can point out and teach your kids. There are a ton of nature words (sea, breeze, grasses, lightning,  etc.) as well as place names (town, bakery, beach). There are a plethora of words related to feelings like grumbling, hugging, smiling, being thankful. {See this post with an activity and free printable that would go well in the month of October and teaching emotions}. There is even some onomatopoeia!

This is definitely a book not to be missed!

Need some more ideas for the month of October? Check out these posts...

Teaching Seasons in Spanish
Bats in the Library
Spanish books for Fall
Chumba La Cachumba
Pumpkin Unit in Spanish
Shape Monsters

Color Theory in Spanish

{Affiliate links used.}

I love doing hands-on activities with my students when I can. We speak in Spanish as we go through whatever task we are doing. I recently had one of the moms of some of my students loan me a book that goes really well with reviewing colors and even getting into color theory a bit. Como Nacio El Arco Iris by Alma Flor Ada is a fable about how the rainbow came to be. In the story Azul, Rojo, and Amarillo get together to paint the world (which is only black, white, and gray). In the process they begin to mix their colors to get new ones. What I like about this story is that it is more involved and can be used with older kids. In the past I have used Pinta ratones when doing color mixing activities, but really that book is for the younger crowd.

I use this free printable from Mama Jenn to do our color mixing. We start out with the simple color wheel that has only the primary and secondary colors and then move onto the more advanced one. Here is some vocabulary you can use with your students as you do the activity...

First check out this color wheel in Spanish that gives all the color names even the tertiary ones. Here is another color wheel with vocabulary that is slightly different.

Mezclar – to mix

Primario – primary

Secundario – secondary

Terciario – tertiary

Las gotas – water drops (part of the color mixing activity)

Colores fríos – cool colors

Colores cálidos – warm colors

My students loved doing the color mixing after reading the book! 

And finally, here is another one of my posts on color activities for younger students in case you work more with early elementary kids. 

Teaching Seasons in Spanish

{Affiliate Links used.}

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

Si Quieres Ver Una Ballena {Book and Learning Activities}

{Affiliate links used.}

This fall I am working on getting an ocean unit study ready in Spanish for my students. While searching for ocean-themed books I came across Si quieres ver una ballena , a sweet book about a boy who gives advice on how to see a whale. Throughout the book he gives tips like...

"You need an ocean to find a whale."
"Don't look at tiny things as a whale is big."
"Keep your eyes on the sea."

I was reviewing prepositions with some of my students and thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to use the items in the book to recreate part of the story by drawing them. Before we read the story, I reviewed prepositions with my students. {Here are some ideas...I use "Blobby Robby" and a cup to demonstrate the prepositions while teaching the vocabulary.} Then we read the book. Finally, I had them get out pencil and paper and described a picture to them in Spanish based on the book. We did one sentence at a time...I would pause and let them draw that sentence before moving onto the next one. I tried to use vocabulary from the book plus prepositions. Here are the sentences if you would like to use them...

Hay una ventana.

Hay un océano que pueden ver por la ventana.

Debajo del agua, hay una ballena.

Arriba en el cielo, hay un sol.

Cerca del sol, hay una nube.

Encima del agua, hay un bote.

Hay un perro dentro del bote.

A la izquierda del bote, hay una silla encima del agua.

Encima de la silla, hay una rosa.

Hay un pájaro lejos de la nube.

Finally, at the end I showed them this video filmed off the coast of Argentina. This is not to be missed! A whale actually lifts up a couple of kayakers out of the water!!  The added benefit is that the video is completely in Spanish. Before watching it we discussed words that they would be able to pick up on because the Spanish is very fast. By pointing out some of the words they would hear they were able to recognize them as they watched the video.




Enjoy this sweet book with your students!

Ocean-Themed Books for Kids in Spanish

{Affiliate links used.}

This fall I will be pulling together a unit study in Spanish on oceans. Part of my prep work is finding children's books to go along with the unit. Here is a look at some of the books I will be using when we study oceans...

Océanos: Mundos Submarinos- This is from a series {Ciencia Asombroso} of books that have to do with science. I love the colorful illustrations in them and the simple language. I can use these books with intermediate to advanced students. There is just enough information in them for it not to be overwhelming.

Una Isla Bajo el Sol -As of this posting, this book is out of print, but if you can get your hands on it for a reasonable price it is worth it. In this story a boy is heading towards an island and plays "I Spy" during the trip. This book has beautiful illustrations and vocabulary that is repeated and added to on each page.

Un Día Una Señora Se Tragó Una Caracola-Another out-of-print book, but so worth it. This book is mimicked from "There was was a lady who swallowed a fly" except she swallows a shell, a crab, a sea gull, some sand... You get the picture. In the end, something fun happens with all that she has ingested!

Si quieres ver una ballena- A sweet book about a boy who gives advice on how to see a whale.


Estela, la estrella del mar-I LOVED this book! Estela takes her little brother to the ocean and educates him on the wonders of the sea. So cute! There are several other Estela books in Spanish that I may get because this one was cute, funny, and filled with great vocabulary for my students.


Hello Ocean/Hola Mar-The ocean experienced with all five senses.


Perdido y Encontrado -A trip across the oceans to find a home for a lost penguin. This is one of Oliver Jeffers' books in Spanish. He has several others that your kids might enjoy. {Oliver Jeffers' Spanish books}

Later this fall, I will post about the ocean unit I have set up...

If you have any other suggestions for ocean-themed books in Spanish, please leave me a comment.