Happy Valentine's Day!

Children who know how to a foreign language will have many advantages as they grow older. To increase the new language readers and speaker’s abilities, practice and creativity will enhance learning.
St. Valentine is around the corner and I decided to make a new set of Spanish cards 

for your word wall.

What can you do with these cards? These are some ideas:

Word walls cards can be used:

• To provide reference for children during their reading and writing.
• To support the teaching of important general principals about words and how they work.
• To provide a visual map to help children remember connections between words and the characteristics that will help them form categories.
• To foster reading and writing.
• To promote independence on the part of young students as they work with words in writing and reading.
• To develop a growing core of words that become part of a reading and writing vocabulary.

You can also sort words by:

• the number of letters
• the number of syllables
• the number of consonants
• the number of sounds
• if they have a certain vowel
• if they have a certain rhyme
• if they begin with the same letter

Download word wall cards here

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Bilingual Wednesday

Hispanic Heritage Month

Let's review some South America facts to help you to get acquainted with it, or simply to refresh some basic facts and figures as a manner of introduction.

The Western Hemisphere, or the Americas as they are commonly known, is composed by North America , Central and South America.

South America is the fourth largest continent in the world with aprox. 17,849,000 square km. (6,890,000 square miles) and a population of 371,090,000, estimated by 2005.

Connected through the isthmus of Panama to its northern counterpart, it is bordered by the Pacific ocean to the West and Atlantic ocean to the North and East. 

It is politically divided into twelve sovereign states: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador,Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela, plus the overseas administration of French Guiana.

Download a free set of word wall cards in my  blog

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Letter awareness in Spanish

Literacy begins at birth. The early reading and writing experiences children have help prepare them for later success in school. That's why rich and varied language and literacy experiences at home and in the kindergarten are so important. Children's language learning is rooted in the caring environment of their homes and school. By engaging children in conversations, exposing them to new words, singing songs, discussing symbols and their meaning; and encouraging expression of thoughts, feelings, and opinions through words, you lay the foundation for later language skills success. When it comes to learning to listen, speak, read and write, children must be familiar with language and use it to communicate ideas, desires, and feelings with other people.

During the first years, children are able to recognize the shape and sound of each letter as well as words that commonly begin with that letter.

How to teach Letter awareness in a foreign language?

Introduce the letters of the alphabet by finding a word or a name that is meaningful for your children. For example B is for Bags (school bags), books, blocks, etc. It is important to learn the name, the shape, and the sound of each letter of the alphabet.

Children learn by using their senses. They need not only to hear and look at letters but also smell, touch and taste letters.

Letter shape is important. Show the correct formation of the letter while presenting it.  Children can practice tracing letters in sand, shaving cream, pudding, or fingerpaint.
If you are working with older children remember to introduce the upper and lower case too.

Here are some fun ideas to use with your children

• Paint letters with water on the sidewalk or driveway

• Draw letters with different colours

• Draw letters in whipped cream or dulce de leche

• Use body to make letters

• Make an ABC book of animals, plants, favourites, names

• Build letters with straws, toothpicks, popsicles sticks

• Make a poster for each letter

• Look for letters in magazines or newspapers

• Write letters in sand, dirt, flour, beans

• Build words with clay, playdough

• Go on a letter hunt in the classroom or home

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Oso Pardo

June 25th  was  Eric Carle  birthday and we celebrated his life and wonderful work with my kids. Either in English and Spanish I LOVE his books!

These are some ideas for the Spanish Brown Bear, Brown Bear What can you see? 

"Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo, qué puedes ver?"

Some words you can teach in Spanish

Bear: Oso

Bird:Pájaro

Cat:Gato

Duck:Pato

Frog:Rana

Horse:Caballo

Sheep:Oveja

Dog:Perro

Teacher:Maestra

Children:Niños

And you can also review colours: brown, red, white, black, blue, green, yellow, golden, orange,purple.

This is how I prepare a Take me home bag for the book

Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo, que puedes ver?

yo puedo ver una rana verde mirándome a mi!

I added the book and puppets and glove for retelling the story

We colour, cut and store characters in the book in a retelling bag.

I pasted a pocket in the books with activity cards for independent and guided reading. I made  Spanish flashcards to review the characters from the story.

Download the freebies in my blog

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Los colores

We are finishing our review for colors and I chose this song to sing with my niece

Red and yellow and pink and green,

purple and orange and blue

I can sing the rainbow, sing a rainbow, too.

After watching the video and singing it in English for a while I invited her to sing the song in Spanish.

Rojo y amarillo y rosa y verde

violeta y naranja y azul

yo puedo cantar el arco iris, cantar el arco iris, también.

Then we went on a color hunt at home singing the Spanish version of the song.

Beforehand I printed and laminated these cards for sorting the small objects she found.

Pics are from the English version of the cards, but below you will find the Spanish version of the cards.

We practice the sound of the English and Spanish word for each color. She wanted to sing the song again and to finish the activity she draw and color a wonderful rainbow.

just in case you want to download the English version

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Colors in Spring

Spring is here and we can take advantage of this teachable moment to introduce or review some color words  in Spanish. I made a domino to review colors with my niece and a set of Spanish colors posters for you!

Tell children they will learn the Spanish form of these words:

Red / rojo

Blue / azul

Yellow / amarillo

Orange / naranja

Green / verde

Purple/ violeta

Light blue/ celeste

Pink/ rosa

To prepare the posters you need to print them onto cardboard and laminate for durability. Then..

*Go for a color hunt around home or class.

*Let kids cut and paste pictures from old magazines and make a collage. Ask them about the colors they can see in their pictures. 

*Play "I spy" using the posters.

*Invite children to sort manipulatives according to color.

*Make a mural using their favorite color.

* Ask and answer "How many red/ rojas things can you see?"

* Using commands.."point to a yellow/amarillo flower" "pick up a green/verde crayon"

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Día de la tierra

Word recognition is an early skill that helps your children identify new words, associate words and pictures and consolidate word structure either in English or Spanish. I made this set of letter tiles to practice word recognition with one of my bilingual groups.



In this case you will find some cards and letter tiles to "write" words such as
Earth / Tierra
Tree / árbol
Sun / sol
Water/ agua
Leaf /hoja 
Branch/ rama
Flower /flor
Bee / abeja
Soil /suelo
Snail / caracol


Print, cut and laminate for durability. Let children form the words using the tiles.

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Cognates part I

Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling and pronounciation.

30 -40% of English words have a related word in Spanish.

For learners of Spanish as a second or foreign language, cognates are a bridge to the new language.
Cognate awareness is the ability to use cognates as a tool for understanding a new language.

Children can be taught to use cognates as early as preschool. They feel confident when they can master cognates because they are very similar to their mother tongue.

There are many cognates, but I choose the most familiar for my kids such as chocolate, pizza, pasta, television, computer, sofa,etc

In this picture children choose their favourite cognate, draw and then we sort them by objects, people or animals.

You can download the labels here, just right click on the picture, save as. It is a .jpg

Teaching cognates help children to transfer knowledge from one language to the other and to build anchor charts.
 

I made this posters with the letters of the word COGNATE . I use the posters not only to build the word but also to sort cognates according to beginning sounds.

We look for cognates in magazines, cut them and hang them from each letter using a ribbon or yarn.Whenever we learn a new cognate we add it to the list.

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Bilingual Wednesdays- flashcards

Vocabulary flash cards are the traditional method for learning vocabulary. Either in English or Spanish they are a wonderful, easy-to-do resource to learn new words.


They are cheap and easy to do.You need paper, pictures and glue. You can laminate them for durability.


If they are fun, colorful, and creative, they will help to remember vocabulary words. You can use them for a small or  a big group. 


Flashcards are a tried and tested teaching and learning device inside and outside the classroom, for kids and adults alike.


The key to using flash cards is to look at the word or definition, then you can cover the word, and test your kids  if they can remember.


These are a set of flaschards I made to review Thanksgiving words such as

• cena
• calabaza
• Peregrinos
• Aborígenes
• Maíz
• Cornucopia
• Tarta

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Bilingual Wednesdays- Word attack strategies

Either in English or Spanish when children are learning to read new words they need strategies to read them.

You can try with these:

• Look at the pictures
• Try to sound out the word
• Look at the beginning of letters
• Look at the end of letters
• Skip the letters you don't know and read the end of the word
• Try to guess
• Does this word make sense?
• Go back and read it
• Look it up in a dictionary
• Ask a friend or an adult

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