For many families, the coming months are filled with gatherings, family and muchísimo español. Playing question games together provides an opportunity to tell family stories, talk about our values and laugh together. Of course, you know your friends and family, but this simple question game will help you all get to know each other aun mejor.

This printable board game is a fun Spanish language activity for children. Many children love to have the floor and answer questions about themselves. Playing with family and friends, they get to talk about their ideas and experiences with people who are important to them. For Spanish language learners, you can add questions at any level. They can be as simple as ¿Cuál es tu libro favorito? or as complicated and conceptual as you like. Also, the structure of board games includes everyone equally. More reserved children (and adults) have a chance to share and others have the opportunity to listen.

The game has a set of 24 question cards. If you want to make more and need ideas, there are many lists of “conversation starter” questions online. Print the game board and cards on cardstock and laminate them if you want them to be more durable.

Click here for the printable game board with instructions. Click here for the question cards.

There are two simple ways to play.

1) Players move ahead by rolling a die and following any instructions on the square. Just take turns rolling, drawing a question card, answering. The first one to the meta wins.

2) You move ahead by rolling a die. If you land on a blue square, you answer the question yourself. If you land on a green square, you ask the question to someone else. If you land on a pink square you can choose to answer the question yourself or ask someone else. The first one to the meta wins.

Special thanks to Spanish Playground for providing this activity. Visit their site for more activities to teach Spanish to kids.

So I was excited about reviewing Foreign Language Friends, a website that offers a variety of games and other educational activities in Spanish.  The program is web-based and is very easy to access—all you need is an internet connection.  Once we punched in our login information, we were up and running in no time.

There is a short explanation in English at the beginning of each activity, but everything else is in Spanish.  The main characters are a little girl, Lily, her dog, Sansón (I loved the name!) and Pedro, the grasshopper.

I liked the way the program is organized very, very much.  It currently consists of twelve themes, such as colors, shapes, transportation, emotions, and sports, and you can go in order or easily switch between themes at the bottom of the page.  Each theme includes seven activities, which are also visible at the bottom of the page.  The first activity introduces basic vocabulary.  Then there is a matching game, a cartoon, a song, a spelling game, another game (which is different for each theme), and printable coloring sheets that include the vocabulary your child has learned.  Once an activity is completed, the icon at the bottom of the page is grayed out, so it’s easy to see what your child has already done.

Initially, I was mainly curious to know if the Spanish would be too basic to hold my children’s interest, but that was not the case.  I think the developers got the balance just right.  For beginners, there is plenty of vocabulary and lots of repetition, and words are supplemented by images, say, in the middle of a song.  Also, Lily and her friends speak slowly and clearly, which will be very helpful to children just learning the language.  My children, who already speak Spanish, absolutely loved the songs, cartoons and games.

I was also curious as to how much both of my children would  enjoy it and what they would get out of it, since they seem to operate on two different planes a lot of the time.  Primo started reading Spanish two years ago, googles the games he wants to play and taught himself to use the mouse with his left hand so he can suck his right thumb while he plays on the computer.  Secondo is just starting to read simple words—English only—and loves watching his brother play but is not remotely interested in using the computer himself.  I logged them in and let them have at it.  Primo was in charge of the mouse and easily navigated his way through the themes and activities, and he, not Secondo, played the games.  However, they both loved the cartoons, which made them laugh uproariously together.  (Though they went through a total of about half of the activities, they went back to the cartoons—and some of the games—over and over again).  And though I felt lukewarm about some of the songs, they loved those as well.  The lyrics appear at the bottom of the page with a little ball bouncing over them, karaoke-style, and I must admit that I got really excited when I saw Secondo trying to read in Spanish for the very first time as they both tried to sing along.  This program could definitely help as he learns to read in Spanish, which is something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

The site sells both monthly and yearly subscriptions.  I would probably choose a monthly subscription, myself, just because my boys can be fickle and invariably move on to something else.  The site promises that new content will be added periodically, but I suppose I would want to know how often before making a lengthy commitment.  At any rate, a free seven-day trial is also offered, which seems like a good idea for any parent wondering if it’s worth it. Good news is that every SpanglishBaby reader receives a 25% discount when using the code SPANGLISHBABY!!

I read on the website that programs in other languages are being developed as well.  Since I’ve been toying with the idea of at least exposing them to some French,  I would be interested a French version as well.  The Spanish version was an unqualified success around here, and I’d love to see what the developers come up with next.

THE GIVEAWAY!

Congratulations to the winner:  Elizabeth a.k.a Liz!!!

We have a free one-year subscription to Foreign Language Friends to give away to one lucky winner. To enter please visit the Foreign Language Friends website and tell us something you learned while there.

That’s all you have to do to enter this giveaway. If you want to up your chances at winning, then this is how you can get additional entries (only after you’ve completed the step above):

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3. Blog about this giveaway making sure to include our link, and you’ll get TWO additional entries.

This giveaway ends Sunday, October 17 at midnight EST and you must have a valid US address to enter.

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Check out the Giveaway Rules.

Spanish in Japan! I never thought that I would be using Spanish while working in Japan, but Spanish was more common than I ever imagined it to be. My first job out of college was teaching at a Japanese high school. Having worked so hard to learn Spanish, I was determined to keep my language skills while teaching English and studying Japanese. I had feared that while in Japan my fluency in Spanish would diminish, but every now and then, I would hear Spanish in Tokyo. My job took me to the town of Kumagaya, about an hour from Tokyo on regular train or a half hour on the shinkansen or bullet train. Much to my surprise, I met many people whose first language was Spanish when I started to attend the small church in my town. Although these Spanish speakers looked Japanese, they were actually from Peru. These individuals were known as Japanese Peruvians, and it is estimated that they comprise the second largest ethnic Japanese population in Latin America. During the 1990s, the Japanese government modified its immigration laws, giving foreigners of Japanese descent the opportunity to return to Japan for work. My fear of losing my Spanish fluency was gone, as I quickly found that I had many Spanish-speaking friends and even students in the high school where I taught.

The transition to school in Japan for any immigrant is challenging, but it was especially so for my students from Peru because of the vastly different and complex writing system used in Japan. My own struggles to learn Japanese were tough, and I found the memorization of the thousands of different characters difficult and tedious. One day, I discovered my Peruvian students playing karuta, which is a card game popular among children in Japan. They were laughing and having fun as they played, and while observing them, I realized that they were using this game to study and learn their kanji, the complex characters that make up the Japanese written language. I loved that the students had found a way to make their own learning fun. These same students taught me how to play karuta, a game that I started to use as an activity in the classes that I taught. Upon return to the United States, I continued to use karuta with my American students learning Spanish.

The object of the karuta game is to be the first player to determine which card out of an array of cards is being called and then to grab the card before it is grabbed by an opponent. The game can be played in groups of two to three children with the cards spread out between them. I would call out a word, and the players would try to be the first to find the card among the many others. For example, I once used flashcards with pictures of different animals on them. My son and his friend would sit opposite each other with about fifteen cards between them. I would call out “vaca” and the first to get the card with the picture of the cow on it from amongst the other cards would keep it. The winner would be the child with the most cards once all of the cards had been retrieved. The kids would laugh and have so much fun while playing. The game is simple enough that it can be played by children as young as two, but it is also fun, and I have found that even my high school students enjoyed playing it. Any type of information that can be represented in card form can be used including shapes, colors, small pictures, and Spanish words.

When my son is a bit older, I plan to use this game to teach sight word. Reading is Fundamental (RIF) defines a sight word as “a word that is immediately recognized as a whole and does not require word analysis for identification.” One of the first steps in teaching a child to read is to familiarize them with sight words. Learning sight words is essential for a child to achieve fluency in their reading, and the comprehension of the written text will increase as well. The website Spanish Pronto provides a comprehensive list of 175 most commonly used Spanish words. Playing karuta is a great way to help your child or students learn these words. The tedious job of memorizing the vocabulary can be turned into a fun and educational game.

No matter what words or concepts you use while playing karuta, your child is guaranteed to have fun. Games are a great way to introduce new vocabulary or to just reinforce previously learned ideas and concepts. The lesson that my Japanese Peruvian students taught me is that learning can and should be fun.

Recently, I wrote about ways to enrich your bilingual child’s vocabulary over at our sister site, SpanglishBaby, and one of the tips was to try to make everything into a topic of conversation. Coincidentally, the same day, I got the product pictured above which is a table game about exactly that: questions – from the thought-provoking to the trivial – to get a conversation going.

I’ve always been a fan of board games. I used to spend endless hours playing Monopoly with my older sister (just don’t ask her what I did if I lost – yes, I’m a sore loser!). So, I can’t wait until both my kids are old enough to play them with me. I’ve always been a fan of asking questions, too – hence my choice in careers: I’m a journalist – so as soon as I found out about Table Topics, I wanted to get my hands on it.

You see, Table Topics is a game of 135 cards – which come in a cool acrylic cube – with all kinds of questions to get a conversation started. There are several different themes including: Teen, Couples, Girls Night Out and Right or Wrong. And the best part is that they have two bilingual editions, Family and Original. Since the questions come in both English and Spanish they are great no matter which is your native tongue. The Family edition has questions suitable for any age. The Original is geared toward children over the age of 12.

Here are some sample questions from the Family version so you can get an idea as what to expect:

• Which three objects would you save first if your house caught fire?
• What’s the funniest story you’ve heard for why someone couldn’t turn in their homework?
• Why would you rather be a girl or a boy?
• If you could speak another language which would you choose?

Imagine all the new vocabulary your kids can be exposed to just by answering some of these questions. And, remember the best thing to do is to keep the conversation going by continuing to ask questions from whatever answers they give. Definitely a great time to learn while having fun and spending some quality time together!

I think these are perfect especially this time of year when so many of us gather with family and friends to celebrate the holidays.

A Giveaway!!

This giveaway is now closed. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS #6 JULIE and #16 AMY!!!

You have a chance to win one Family and one Original cube from Table Topics. All you have to do is go to to Table Topics and tell us which theme of all their cubes is your favorite and why.

That’s all you have to do to enter this giveaway. If you want to up your chances at winning, then click here to learn how to get additional entries.

This giveaway ends Sunday, November 22nd at midnight EST.

For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.

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