Fun Learning with Clothespins

         Fun Learning with Clothespins!

Here is another way to use clothespins!

Just write the Spanish name of nouns on clothespins and attach them to the correct image on card.

This is very useful for practicing vocabulary words in Flash card sets 1 through 4.

 You can use them on pretty much anything you are teaching such as numbers, shapes, foods, etc….

This fun activity helps older children connect words and images together. It’s also useful for practicing sight words.

To get you started on this fun activity, I have available for you eight free sheets or cards you can use to start having fun with your students! 

One card has some of the foods that’s on my previous post entitled: Fun Ideas andActivities with la comida, then, there are four cards that have vocabulary words from Flash Cards sets 1through 4, then there are two cards with numbers and one card with shapes! All you need now are some wooden clothespins that are easily found at dollar stores and a fine point Sharpie marker and you will be ready for this fun activity!

Here are some quick ideas to use with the clothespins activity:

·         Have student complete one sheet at a time using the clothespins.

·         Have one student call out the Spanish name of the images on the card and another student hand over the correct clothespin with the word.

·         Create two groups and see which group completes a sheet correctly by placing all the clothespins in the right place.

·         Do the activities above using a timer.

·         Put clothespins with words written on them in a basket.  Give several students one card.  Have a student or the instructor take out a clothespin from the basket and reads it. The students with the cards should raise their hand if they have the image of that word on their card. The first student to complete the card wins. (to make it more engaging and interesting, you can give the same card to several students and the first one to raise their hand gets the clothespin. This will help keep students alert as they listen for the next word and try to beat their opponents. ) Lots of fun!

To download the eight free cards just click here.

Hope you have lots of fun with these ideas!

Please share your comments and feedback!

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Thank you and….                                                                                                      

Have Fun!

Fun Ideas and Activities with La Comida

             Fun Ideas and Activities

                 with La comida

Here is an activity that will engage your students in hours of fun while the most important thing is taking place: learning!

La comida activity is intended not only to teach students the names of different foods but also to encourage active participation and language development.  Students will learn to use the new words in context of what they like and want.  The ideas I’m about to share here will aide in helping teachers and parents encourage children to speak while at the same time having fun. When kids are actively participating and having fun, the intimidation for speaking the language diminishes.  Throughout this blog you will have access to several Free activity sheets you can immediately download for use. You can also purchase the complete activity of “Los alimentos” that has a full variety of different kinds of foods and additional work sheets. You can find the link at the end of this blog.

These are just some ideas to use as a spring board for other ideas you may come up with.  I will also recommend the appropriate age for each activity, but each group and scenario is different so feel free to make adjustment with the age group if needed.  

You can use plastic food as well!

Activities/ideas:

1.      Me gusta/no me gusta:  for ages five and up.

Have students select the foods they like and they ones they don’t like. This can be done in several ways: students can cut and paste the foods they like and don’t like. For younger children, the foods can be precut for them. Another way to do this activity: they can circle the foods they like and put an X on the ones they don’t like. Free activity sheets included for this activity.

Me gusta/ no me gusta for ages 10 and up:

With this activity, students will write the names of the foods they like and don’t like. After they do that encourage students to read out aloud what food he or she likes. This activity is a good practice for writing in Spanish and also good for the reading/pronunciation part in Spanish.  Free activity sheets included for this activity along with a variation.

2.      Yo quiero/no quiero: for ages five and up.

Give each student a small disposable plate. Each student one at a time says to instructor for example: “quiero pan, quiero pastel, quiero pollo. (At least three things)Variation: as students get more and more familiar with the names of the foods, you can select a student to be the one to give the appropriate foods to the student or students that are asking. They can also say: "no quiero jugo....and so on.

3.      The “tengo hambre/dame” game:  for ages five and up. Have students sit in a circle facing outwards. Then give each student a small disposable plate. Instructor will walk around the circle with a tray of food. (it can be cut out food or actual play food)Then all the students sitting in the circle say this chant in a rhythmic fashion: “tengo hambre” while instructor is walking around the circle. While instructor walks around the circle, students one at a time lift their plate and say: “dame….(they can say what they want) for example : “dame pan” then instructor put “pan” in the student’s plate. Right after that the group chants once again “tengo hambre” while instructor is walking around the circle. Another student will raise their plate and say: “dame pollo” and so on until everyone has something in their plate. If time permits the activity can go on for second or third round leaving students with two or three items on their plate.  All depends on time and size of the group. Variation: instead of having the instructor go around in a circle, you can select a student to do it.  Make sure everyone is familiar with each food before playing the game. If a student asks for a food that is no longer available then instructor can say: “no hay….” and keeps walking in the circle. So that student will need to think of another food to ask for when instructor gets close by again. This game can be done with the beverages. Instead of saying “tengo hambre”, students say: “tengo sed”

4.      En mi plato hay activity:  For ages 5 and up. With this activity you will need small disposable plate or toy plates. Put in each student’s  plate three or four foods. Ask each student: “¿qué hay en tu plato?” student should respond: “en mi plato hay…..” Variation: you can ask student to say what is in someone else’s  plate. Example: “¿qué hay en el plato de María?”  Decide whether or not students respond in complete sentence.  I personally prefer them to respond in complete sentence just for the sake of practicing the language. But either way they are still learning!

5.      The restaurant activity: for ages 10 and up.

Students have menus and another student take orders. The student taking the order can say: “hola, que quieres comer?” the other student can say as an example: “yo quiero pollo, papas fritas y hamburguesa.” The student taking the order marks that down on the menu card and brings it to the student. The student taking the order can also ask: “¿que quieres para beber?” Student can say: “quiero jugo de naranja” or also say: “¿que hay para beber?” the student taking the order says for example: “hay limonada, leche, batido and so on….”  This activity encourages understanding and listening skills as well as language development.  Small or medium size disposable plates will be needed for this activity. Free menu sheet and menu card included for this activity.

And here is an additional Free activity sheet for you!

You can purchase Los alimentos Activity  for a greater variety of foods and other activity sheets. To purchase click here.

Hope you have lots of fun with these activities!

Please share your comments and ideas!

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Thank you and….                                                                                                      

Have Fun!

Spanish Fun Activity Sheets

              Spanish Fun Activity Sheets

                    for Flash Cards Set 1

Have you ever experienced teaching Spanish vocabulary and realized how quickly students learn them?  Do you find yourself with limited exercises and resources to further practice and review with your students or kids what has been learned? If so, you are not alone. I have felt the same way too.  I have purchased good books for teaching Spanish but more often than not there is not enough variety of worksheet materials to cover a unit or a subject.  You can’t just keep giving students the same material over and over. 

When I created my Flash Cards Sets 1 through 4, I included ideas and activities that can be done to help students learn the words.  But having new activities and ideas are always a plus; so I decided to create these Spanish Fun Activity Sheets to fulfill the need for new and different kinds of worksheets and variations to help students along the way as they learn and incorporate new Spanish words and to provide parents, teachers and instructors with a variation of activities that can be done over a period of time to keep alive in the student’s mind what has been taught and to help them further internalize it. The more activities and varieties are done with new and old Spanish words, the more familiar and comfortable students will become with them and most likely not forget them.

So I hope you and your students have fun with these activities.  As time goes on, I will be sharing more ideas and activities to do, including using the Spanish words in sentences and so on…

When you purchase the SpanishFun Activity Sheets for Flash Cards Set 1, you will also receive instructions and ideas on how to use each activity sheet.  Here, I will provide a few advance ideas to use with this package.

·         Have students pick out and say all or as many illustrations they saw on the memory game card instead of writing it down or coloring the box with the words.  (For this you will need to have a set of the cut outcards.) A variation to this idea is to do it with two students or even three and see which person remembers the most. (If doing two or three students at a time you will need two to three sets of cut out cards)

·         Select two students. One will call out the items on the card and the other student match the items on a blank card.

·        For the “Corta y Pega” activity, select three groups. Give groups 1 and 2 a page with the empty squares and group 3 the cut out cards. The two groups with the empty square page take turns by going to the other group to ask them for what they need. For example:  group 1 and group 2 take turns going to group 3 to ask for what they need to complete their page. For example someone from either group 1 or 2 goes to group 3 and say: ”necesito la bombilla” and a student from group 3 will give “la bombilla” The first group to fill out all the squares correctly wins!

These ideas and games work best when students are very familiar with the Spanish words and pronunciation.

Included in the Spanish Fun Activity Package is a game called: “¿qué falta?” 

You can download a Free sample of it here and use with your students! I also included a blank card to use with the game idea on bullet point 2.

To purchase Spanish Fun Activity Sheets for Flash Cards Set 1 click here.

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Thank you and….                                                                                                      

Have Fun!

8 Fun ideas to use with "Spanish Fun Bunny Color Cards

                  Spanish Fun 

            Bunny Color Cards

Spanish Fun Bunny Color Cards are a great way to introduce or reinforce colors to young children.

It’s great for summer camp activities where Spanish is part of a summer program. These bunny cards are appealing and engaging. They can be used in a variety of ways to engage children in learning and speaking the target language.  

Even though I know you will find so many ideas on how to use these cards I will share a few here that works well for me. The activities I recommend here are for different levels. Select the appropriate activity according to the age group. Feel free to adjust and make changes depending on your group’s needs. These activities range from age 5 to 12! For some activities previous knowledge in actions, adjectives, etc…is necessary. Before doing some of the activities I recommend the students be familiar with certain words so that it becomes easier to apply to conversation. So to get you started, here we go!

Use them for:

·         Teaching colors:  Instructor show and say the color on card and students repeat.

·         Teaching actions: Instructor introduces each bunny or selected bunnies by its color and says what each bunny likes to do. For example:

El conejito verde salta. (The green bunny jumps)

El conejito azul corre. (The blue bunny runs)

El conejito rojo camina (The red bunny walks)

And so on…. you can create other actions for the other bunnies.

·         Use for questions and answer activity:  After saying what each bunny does you can ask the following questions to evaluate comprehension. 

For example:¿qué hace el conejito verde? (What the green bunny does?)                      ¿qué hace el conejito azul? (What the blue bunny does?)                                                   and so on….. other questions could be: ¿cuál conejito salta, corre, camina?

·         Use for concentration and memory activity:  Show students a color bunny and have students do the action that color bunny does.

·         Seek and find game:  Have students look for the bunnies by color. For example you can say: “ María, busca el conejito verde” (María, look for the green bunny)

·         Use for engaging in descriptive adjectives:  Assign a descriptive quality to each bunny. For example you can say: El conejito gris es inteligente. El conejito negro es amable. El conejito café es honesto and so on….

Students can introduce a bunny of their choice.  For example:  student can pick a bunny they choose and talk about that bunny in the target language. For example student can say: “este conejito es blanco, es inteligente y es alegre.

·         Use it as a riddle game: instructor says this riddle and students say the answer. For example:

Instructor can say: “Soy el conejito saltador. Me gusta saltar, saltar y saltar”.  ¿Quién soy?

Student’s response should be: ¡El conejito verde!

Here is another example:

“Soy el conejito corredor. Me gusta correr, correr y correr”. ¿Quién soy?

Student’s response: ¡El conejito azul!

And so on….

You can assign any action and descriptive adjective you wish to any color bunny. I just gave some examples of how you can do it to engage students.

·         Create stories:  Create short stories involving more than one bunny. I created some short stories. If you would like to use them you can access them for free here or you can create your own.

Talking and asking questions in the target language and encouraging the student to answer in the target language is one good way of helping students develope their ears for the language and further prepare them  for more advance listening and conversational  skills.

Have any ideas? Please share!
And remember to ….Have fun!

To purchase Spanish Fun Bunny Color Cards click here. As a bonus I also included an English version of the cards! See example below.

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Ideas to build children counting skills!

   Fun Counting Cards

These fun counting cards are an excellent way to help your preschool child or students build number sense and counting skills! Even though they were created for my Spanish class it can also be used for English or any target language.

Here are a few ideas you can use with these cards: (the ideas and examples will be in Spanish but can be apply to any language)

1.                              Give each student a card. Tell them to count in Spanish the objects on the card. Students should say in the target language how many objects are on their card and then find the corresponding number to place on the card. You can ask students: ¿cuántos objetos hay en tu tarjeta?( how many objects are on your card?) Student respond saying for example: “tres”

2.                              The cards are also great for learning new vocabulary words. So you can be more specific and ask the student for example: ¿cuántas mariquitas hay en tu tarjeta? students response should  be: “seis”

3.                              For older preschoolers 4 and 5 years of age you can give them each one or more cards depending on size of the group and allow them to count the objects on the card then you can say: ¿quién necesita el número cuatro? (how needs number four?) and so on. Students will say: “yo necesito cuatro”. I work with students that do not come from a Spanish speaking background so we go over this many times and they pick it up very fast. When teaching a foreign language I realized that kids learn faster when you just speak the language. Doing translation is not as effective as just speaking it and allowing the kids to understand by logical deduction. Demonstration rather than translation is very effective.  

4.                              The cards can also be use to find out who has what. For example you can ask: ¿quién tiene la tarjeta con la rana? student with that card can say “yo”. It’s good for practicing how to say “me” in Spanish  which is “yo”

Variation

You can also use blank cards for this game and use manipulative to fill the cards instead. See examples below.

Some of the manipulative you can use are: different size and color buttons, counters, foam stickers, stones, etc…. you can even use foam or plastic numbers instead of the card numbers like in the example below. You may need to help your child or students as they count.

These kinds of game help encourage and engage students in speaking the target language.

You can access the blank cards and number cards here for free. 

If you will like to purchase the Fun Counting Cards click here.

 

Have fun!

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Five fun ideas to reinforce Spanish adjectives

      Adjectives on Stones

Here is a fun way to engage your older students in practicing adjectives.

You can purchase decorative stones or find stones and write the adjectives on them using white paint pens. (I used Sharpie oil based paint) You can get them at office stores for less than $3 (you can use either white or black color paint depending on the color of the stones)

It will help for students to be already familiar with the adjectives before doing the adjectives on stone.  Spanish adjectives flash cards will come in handy for learning and reviewing adjectives. I will provide a link at the end should in case you would like to purchase these adjectives cards.

Once students are more or less familiar with the adjectives the following activities can be done:

1.      Display the adjective stones in the classroom for reference and review.

2.      Have students pick up a stone to describe something or someone.

3.      Allow students to describe their friends by selecting stones to give to them. (you will need extra stones for this)

4.      Students can write on the stone an outstanding quality they like about someone and give that person the stone. (On one side of the stone they can write the person’s name and on the other side write the qualifying adjective of the person. (They could do it as a project for friends and or for family members)

5.      Play a game by selecting more than one qualifying adjectives to describe someone in the classroom. The group tries to guess who the person is. Select a student to describe someone in the classroom and have everyone else guess including the instructor.

These are just some ideas but I’m sure you will come up with some other ideas too! Feel free to share :-)

There is also another activity a came up with to help students practice and identify adjectives. This activity is called “Árbol de Adjectivos”  It’s a freebie on my TpT store.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

To access it click here.

To purchase Spanish Adjective Flash Cards click here.

Have fun!

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