Las Ollitas {Traditional Game}

by | Jun 14, 2017 | Actividades de verano, cultural activities, cultural corner, cultural games, Mundo de Pepita, sancocho, Summer Camp, traditional games, Vacaciones Recreativas

This is a fun game that is played in many Latin American countries. It’s simple, fun, and doesn’t require much preparation.  There are different versions of this game. I am sharing with you the one I remember playing with my friends in a (then) small neighborhood outside of Cali, Colombia. You will need a minimum of six participants to play the game. Each team will have three participants. One person is placed in the middle in a squatting position, grasping their hands between their legs. The two other members of the team have to pretend to prepare el “sancocho,” which is a traditional soup in Latin America. They have to pretend they are adding the ingredients to the bowl while saying the lines below:


Para preparar el sancocho,
pongo el pollo,
pongo la yuca,
pongo la papa,
pongo la mazorca,
lo pongo al fuego.

¡El sancocho ya está listo!




When everyone is done making the sancocho together, the game turns into a competition. You will need to set a finish line for everyone to get to. The team who makes it to the finish line first wins the game. You can continue playing until everyone gets tired of it. I recommend playing the game on a field with grass so nobody gets hurt.
This is a video of a Scout Troop playing a version of “las ollitas” game.

Variation: You can use visuals for the students to use while playing the game.

Have fun!

Geography Center with Money

by | Jun 5, 2015 | cultural activities, cultural corner, culture


Over several years of teaching Spanish I have collected coins and bills from different Spanish speaking countries. Either someone brings them to me or I collect them during my own travel. I got to a point where I didn’t know what to do with them. It occurred to me that I could use them for a center in my class. I laminated all the bills for students to manipulate easily and placed them with the coins in a basket. I printed and laminated maps where all the Spanish speaking countries are listed. 


This is now a center for early finishers or when I do a center-based class. My students really enjoy looking at the different bills and coins, comparing them to the United States bills, and locating the countries on the map. If you don’t have real bills, you can print a few from the internet and it will serve the same purpose.

Have fun!