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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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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Bilingual Wednesdays- Pumpkins

October is the ideal month to learn about pumpkins, orange, scarecrows and crows either in English and Spanish.

My goals for this lesson:

To introduce and practice numbers 1 to 4 in Spanish

To relate numbers in their oral and written form

I introduced numbers 1 to 4 in Spanish while counting pumpkins and enjoy this funny poem in the flannel board.

4 calabazas divertidas

4 calabazas divertidas

crecieron en la granja

el granjero vino y tomó 1

entonces quedaron 3.

More verses:

 3 calabazas divertidas

2 calabazas divertidas

1 calabaza divertida

After counting our pumpkins using the flannel board set, we counted plastic pumpkins using counting mats.

I also made these pumpkins mats to use them as big counters. 

Then I invited children make funny pumpkins using their favourite art supplies.

Download files here

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Bilingual Wednesdays - October words

October is here and it is time to add new Spanish words to our  Bilingual Word Wall center.

I use my Word Wall Center as a systematically organized collection of words displayed in large letters on a wall in my classroom. It is a tool designed to promote group learning. 
I add the new words kids need to know monthly.

These are some of the new words for October.

October / Octubre

Cat / Gato

Moon / Luna

Grave / Tumba

Broom / Escoba

Bat / Murciélago

Witch / Bruja

Pumpkin / Calabaza

New Word Wall words are introduced by having the children:

 *see the word 

* say the word 

* chant the word 

* hunt the word

* find the word

Then, once in the center children can 

* draw the word

* write the word (with my older kids)

* check the word

* stamp the word

* cut and paste the word

* trace the word

either in English and in Spanish. 

You will find the word wall cards in the pack and some follow up worksheets here:

Download the files here

Find it. Check it

Find it. Copy it.

Read it. Trace it.

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