This week’s round-up of Spanish activities and resources features a little bit of everything to get our bilingual kids in the school spirit. The activities feature printables and projects that are similar to projects they might do in school with the added benefit that they are in Spanish.

Back to School en Español // School Supply Flashcards in Spanish

Kali of For The Love of Spanish is ready for the new school seasons and has shared theses back-to-school  flashcards in Spanish to help us all prepare. The cards feature school materials and include the name in Spanish along with the pronunciations and English words for the materials. Click here for the post featuring the printable versions of the school supply flashcards.

Dollar Store Inspiration

Bitty Bilinguals shared their dollar store finds along with printables for their readers in Spanish. Click here for a squiggle story printable and to read about how these templates work in the classroom and at home.

Como Hacer Un Volcán

We’ve all had to do the volcano project at some point in our elementary school years. That’s why we love this DIY volcano project by Adriana of Hogar Mujer. The instructions and materials needed for this project are in Spanish which adds another educational element to this project, the opportunity to practice Español !

The Letter M Counting Book in Spanish {Printable}

Monica of Mommy Maestra shared these awesome Spanish printables featuring the letter “M” which encourages kids to count. Click here to find Mommy Maestra’s post featuring the Spanish printables.

Spanish Listening Practice – Adivina la palabra

Spanish Playground shared a fun and simple game to practice spanish vocabulary in which kids guess the word being described. Click here for a list of Spanish vocabulary and clues to play.

In our bilingual journey we know that the best way to expose our kids to Spanish is to make it immersive and fun . That’s why this week’s activity round-up is dedicated to encouraging our kids to practice speaking Spanish and, of course, have lots of fun! The activities were created by bloggers who are also on a journey to raise bilingual and bicultural kids and have found a few tips and tricks along the way.

Learning through Play: CARS // Shapes

For The Love of Spanish shared a three part series of learning Spanish through play activities all about toy cars. We love this activity because of all the Spanish vocabulary and conversation that is flawlessly woven into a simple afternoon of playing with toy cars. Click here for the vocabulary chart and directions for this activity.

5 Games to Get Your Bilingual Child Talking

This post by In Culture Parent simply shares five kids games that encourage communicating in Spanish. The only thing you need is a bilingual brain to exercise and have lots of fun talking! Click here for the list of five games and instructons.

Playing board games to increase language expression in a foreign language

Maria of the Paris Busy Bee Blog shares her tips and experiences using board games to practice a target language. Click here for her story and tips.

Parts of the Body

Cecy of Spanglish House shared this fun activity with her readers with the purpose of getting our niños talking in Spanish. The activity is very hands-on and encourages kids to sing and talk  in Spanish to learn the names of body parts. Click here for the activity instructions.

Puppets as Linguistic Catalysts

Multilingual Mama shared a story about the success of using puppets with her bilingual daughter to practice the target language, which in her case is French. Click here to read Multilingual Mama’s story.

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I don’t often get sucked into iPad games, but I must admit that I got a bit competitive with myself on this one. Learn Spanish from MindSnacks is an excellent way to challenge your language skills, no matter your level. Learn numbers, body parts, foods, vacation vocab, and more in a quick-paced game.

Create an account, tell the app your skill level, track your progress, and level up with “Quests.” This is quite different from a kids’ app that runs through the basics. It allows room for development, and the attractive user interface – including high-tech graphs – makes it great for all ages. 

As a former tutor, I was impressed with the mix of learning styles and the adaptable pace of this app. It tests your ability to quickly match photos/concepts with words, which is a difficult multi-step process in any language! It’s no wonder MindSnacks is an award-winning app developer.

Find Learn Spanish in iTunes

Available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch

Recommended for all ages

Price:  FREE (2 lessons); $4.99 for all 50 lessons

After listening to a podcast of The Parent’s Journal with Bobbie Conner and her guest Tracey Wood (July 16, 2012), a children’s reading specialist, I realized I needed to stop dragging my pies and begin to investigate how to implicitly teach Sofía to read.  Yes, she’s only three-years-old, but really the reading process begins at birth (if not before) by constantly reading, rhyming, singing, reading, reading, and reading to our bebés.

There are also many studies that indicated that children, who learn to read and have strong literacy skills in their first language, will have success as they learn to read in their second language.  So as I began fostering my toddler, oops—preschooler (as of last week), in the amazing world of reading, it would be in español of course.

Even though I’m an educator, I don’t pretend to know how to teach Sofía to read or even begin with developing pre-reading skills, but with the help of my knack for research, I was able to compile and create some activities to do my part at home.  Here are the resources I have to share!

Abecedario Flashcards

I made Abecedario Cards en español for Sofía and me to read during breakfast.  This is especially helpful to me before my morning café has kicked in! You are welcome to print, laminate and cut the flashcards for your personal use!

Interactive Abecedario Slide Show Game

Expanding on the flash card idea, I created a simple Interactive Slideshow Game of the Spanish Abecedario so that Sofía could at least actively participate while answering questions about letter sounds and the abecedario.   This allows her to press buttons on the computadora, making letters and pictures appear.  The Slideshow Game is monolingual español and does not include inglés.  Again, you are welcome to download it for your personal fun!

(Read more about how to use the Interactive Abecedario Slideshow Game.)

Bilingual Abecedario Letter and Sound Recognition Mat Game  

My Etsy store, Dos Manos Fun, sells a Bilingual Abecedario Letter and Sound Recognition Mat Game that I created.  Since the store is on vacation for a while, you can access the mat’s direcciones here.  Feel free to print out and laminate the game mats for your personal use.  Note that you will also need a complete set of abecedario letters (wooden, foam, or plastic, etc…) in order to play the game.

Español Alphabet Pocket Chart

There was one resource that I didn’t make myself because I really didn’t have the time or energy to do it!  So I invested $29.00 and purchased an Español Alphabet Pocket Chart made by Learning Resources.  We love it!  The quality is excelente and the possibilities for varied activities are superb!  If you are interested in purchasing your own Español Alphabet Pocket Chart, you can visit SpanglishBaby’s™ La Tiendita through Amazon.

(Read more on the Español Alphabet Pocket Chart.)

Resources from La Tiendita

For those of you with children just starting school, there are also three other useful tools available made by Learning Resources.  The syllable and blends pocket charts and the syllable big book seem promising for teaching beginning readers in español and are available through our SpanglishBaby™ La Tiendita!

(Read more on resources available in La Tiendita.)

YouTube Video Clips

A simple search on YouTube can also be beneficial in one’s plight to promoting reading in our niños.  One of my favoritos is El Jardín de Clarlilú: AEIOU from Disney junior.

Sight Words en Español

Tracey Wood recommended teaching our children sight words.  Although she was talking about in inglés, the same concept can of course be applied in Spanish also.  Scholastic makes a variety of resources such as a workbook to teach sight words en español and mini-books with sight words.  I downloaded them for the whopping price of 99¢ each!  Just another reason that Scholastic Rocks!

(Read more about Sight Words en Español.)

Although I’m not a Reading Specialist, I do feel comfortable engaging in research-based activities at home that will assist Sofía in developing good reading skills-and I hope my list will continue to grow as I explore más!   If you have any questions or have ideas of your own to add about how you strengthen reading with yourSpanglish Baby at home, please share them with all of us!

¡Feliz Reading!

Grocery shopping with los chiquitos is not always easy, but the store is an excellent place to speak Spanish with children. They are close to you, often right at eye-level if they are small enough to ride in the cart. Also, the language tends to be focused, la comida, and kids can see and touch the things you talk about.

This paper plate shopping list is a great way to take advantage of the setting and the time you spend with your child in the grocery store. Children associate the words they hear with the pictures and with the things you put in your basket or cart. A paper plate is light and easy to hold, even for small children. They fold down the pictures as they find each item on the list.

Making the list is facilísimo! Around the edge of a paper plate, glue pictures of things you need to buy. Click here for printable pictures of common grocery items. Cutting and gluing is a good language activity; talk about the pictures together as you do this step with your child. Cut between the pictures, so that your child can fold them down y listo!

Of course, you can put other pictures, letters or symbols around the edge of the plate for kids to look for when you are running errands.

Here are a few ideas:

- Use markers and put colors around the plate. Kids find an object for each color.
- Write the alphabet around the edge and look for words that start with each letter. With a few letters, like la ñ, it is easier to find a word that contains the letter.
- Draw shapes. Kids find an object for each shape.
- Use clip art to make a list of things you might see: un carro, una bici, un perro, una flor, una casa, un autobus, unas escaleras, un bebé, una persona con lentes.

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