I don’t explicitly teach vowels in Spanish but try to find ways to incorporate them in my lessons through games or songs. The good news is that there are five vowels in Spanish and each of them has only one sound! That makes everyone’s lives easier!
An easy way to introduce the sounds is by using the song below. In the past, I have used a puppet to sing along. As you can hear in the song, the name of the vowel is introduced, and then the sound.
Having small posters with pictures that represent each vowel sound is helpful. One activity I have used is to show the vowel and then place pictures that go along with each vowel.
Another fun way is to create gestures or movements for each vowel. Write a list of words that your students already know, project them or show them to the class, and then have your students do the movement any time they hear or see a certain vowel. I like keeping it to just focusing on one vowel per word. If you don’t want to create a different gesture for each vowel, you can just use actions such as jump when you hear the vowel A.
As I mentioned above, I don’t teach vowels or even the ABC’s as a unit anymore. I just like finding ways to incorporate them and using them when needed in class.
ClickHERE to download the posters and use these activities with your students next time you see them!
These are three simple and easy to understand stories that I have written for elementary students, although I have also been delighted to hear from middle school teachers that they have used them with their beginner classes. These stories have a lot of repetition in them.
Make sure to download the free resources that go along with them. Just click on each picture below, and it will take you to a new link to download the stories and activities.
A few years ago I wrote a short story to use with my students to make a curricular connection with the butterfly life cycle in second grade science class. It is a twist on ” The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, which many of my students are already familiar with, and it’s also a popular title in kindergarten. This new version I created of my own story has more repetition and simple structures.
Before teaching the story you might want to pull out a map and point at the different countries mentioned in it: Colombia, México, La República Dominicana, Cuba, Argentina, and Perú. There are some traditional dishes mentioned in the story. You might want to talk about them. This will also be a great opportunity to talk about your students’ favorite food.
Pre-teach some of the vocabulary using TPR: va, tengo hambre, come, canta, duerme and dice.
Read the story to your class. Some questions you might want to consider while reading the story.
¿Dónde está la oruga? ¿Está en Colombia o Bolivia?
¿Qué come la oruga en Colombia? ¿Come pizza? ¿Come sancocho?
¿Qué hace la oruga? ¿La oruga duerme o corre?
¿La oruga es un perro ahora ? ¿La oruga es un perro o una mariposa?
¿La oruga dice “hola”? ¿La oruga dice “hola” o “adiós”?
After reading the story I like going back and talking about each picture. Talk about the colors in the different flags included in the story.
Act it out! You can have individual actors or have different groups going to different places. Print some masks, pictures of the different foods and flags of the countries included in the story.
Click HEREto download the story “La oruga va Latinoamérica.”
This story is a great follow up of the story I do during the fall called “Monarca va a Michoacán.” I also use this story to create a connection with their science curriculum, as well as to create a cultural connection with “El Día de los Muertos” celebration in Mexico. Read more on how I use “Monarca va a Michoacán” here!
Nothing like the sounds of traditional music, and the stories behind it! I love when I am able to find a song that belongs to and represents one of the Spanish speaking cultures – and use it in my classes. Bringing traditional songs to the classroom is a way to teach our students that the Spanish speaking world is not just one culture, but that it’s made up of many cultures. It’s a way to show that there is all kinds of cultural diversity out there. However, using traditional songs in elementary school is not an easy task. Finding traditional songs that suit the levels we teach can be challenging because sometimes they have too much vocabulary and complicated structures and sometimes not enough repetition. So I know I have to work on simplifying them for my students to comprehend. Sometimes I just choose parts of a song to focus on, which usually happens to be the chorus.
This is how I recommend teaching traditional songs at the elementary level:
Identify the vocabulary or structures you want to focus on.
Provide background about where the song is from. Use a map to locate the country where the song is from – and with today’s technology you are even able to prepare your students with virtual field trips using Google Earth. You can even make a play passport for your students to keep track of when they learn a song from certain country.
Make it comprehensible. Create a slide show with images from the song. Taking a screenshot works great! Use the Movie Talk strategy to talk about what the children see in the picture. If there is no video available you can create your own slide show with pictures that are representative of the song. (See sample below.)
This may vary a little from teacher to teacher, but I let my students listen to the whole song without stopping the first time.
Focus on creating meaning. I also like using TPR and create gestures that go along with the song. When songs are too complex for my level, I focus on the chorus which most of the time provides a lot of repetition.
This is also optional, but if you happen to have some of the instruments that are used in the songs, pass them around and have your students experience them.
If you have a library in your classroom, print the Powerpoints, laminate the pages, bind them together and add them to your library.
Sing and enjoy!
La vicuñita
This is one of my favorite songs. I used it with my kindergarten students this year, and their reaction was beautiful! The first time they heard it they were in love with it, but some of them expressed sadness. I love how they were able to feel the song without the need to understand every single word.
I created a Powerpoint to talk about the song before teaching it to the class. I took screenshots of the video and added more images to use while talking about the pictures. Believe it or not, there is a lot to talk about in these pictures. Below you may find a sample of a script that I used while talking about the pictures. Expect some of the children to come up with more details. I used this song with kindergarten close to the end of the school year. I noticed that sometimes my students participated by using English, but I let it go to avoid frustration and would do the following instead. For example, one of my students said “There is a sun!” Then I pointed to pictures saying “Hay un sol,” then pointed at the side pictures on the slide, saying “Hay una luna.” Then I went back to the slide and said “¿Hay un sol o una luna?” In this way, I was giving them some vocabulary prompts and avoided some frustration at this level, allowing it to flow naturally.
Here is an example of the conversation I had with my students using the slideshow I created to make the song comprehensible.
Slide one:
¿Qué animal es? ¿Es un perro? ¿Es un gato? ¿Es una llama? No, no es una llama. ¡Es una vicuñita! ¿Es un perro o una vicuñita? ¿Dé que color es la vicuñita? ¿Hay vicuñitas en Austin, Texas? ¿Qué animales hay en Texas? ¿Dónde hay vicuñitas? Hay vicuñitas en Perú, Bolivia, Argentina y Chile. This is a great opportunity to pull out a map!
Slide two:
¿Qué animal es? ¡Hay una persona! La persona mira la vicuñita. ¿La persona es amiga de vicuñita? ¡Hay un sol! ¿Hay un sol o una luna? Hay cerros, muchos cerros. ¿Hay playas? ¿Hay playas o cerros? ¿Hay playas en Austin?
Slide Three:
Recycle structures from the previous slides. You will see that by this time the children will start recalling vocabulary on their own. You can add “¡Hay otra persona! Hay un niño y una niña.” You can go to the class and count how many niños and niñas are in the class. Again, recycle structures from previous slides, for example, “La persona es amiga de vicuñita.”
Slide Four:
¿Qué animal es? ¿Es un elefante? ¿Es un perro? ¿Es un gato o una vicuñita? La vicuñita dice, “yo soy vicuñita.” La vicuñita dice “¿yo soy un perro?” La vicuñita dice “¿yo soy un perro o yo soy vicuñita?”
Slide Five:
Hay otra persona. ¿Es una niña o un niño? La persona no es amiga de vicuñita. Es un cazador (hunter). ¿Es un doctor o es un cazador?
Slide Six:
Vicuñita está triste. ¿Vicuñita está triste o feliz? Vicuñita no está feliz. ¿Vicuñita está en la playa o en los cerros?
Slide Seven:
Hay lana, mucha lana. ¿Hay lana o plástico? El pelo de vicuñita es bueno para lana. El cazador quiere la lana de vicuñita para hacer un suéter.
Slide Eight:
Hay un círculo. ¿Hay un círculo o un triángulo? Vicuñita está con sus amigos.
Here are the lyrics of the song. I also created a Powerpoint with the lyrics, that I also use when not using the video to sing along. I chose just a few structures that I really wanted my students to get from this song. I might focus on more “chunks of language” with grades that have had more exposure to Spanish. These are highlighted in the lyrics below:
Del cerro yo vengo con mi vicuñita,
Del cerro yo vengo con mi vicuñita.
Cantando y bailando para mi cholita,
Cantando y bailando para mi cholita.
Yo soy vicuñita y vengo de la Puna,
Yo soy vicuñita y vengo de la Puna.
Vengo escapando de los cazadores,
Vengo escapando de los cazadores.
Mala ya la hora de ser vicuñita,
mala ya la hora de ser vicuñita.
Todos me persiguen por mi lana fina,
todos me persiguen por mi lana fina.
Last, but not least, we create gestures together to go along with our singing of the song.
This version is also great to show your students the instruments that are used to play this song:
It definitely takes time to make sure the song is understandable for the children and even more at the beginning levels, but the reward is worth it. My students kept asking for this song, and a few of them shared with me at the end of their year evaluation/reflections that La vicuñita was their favorite song. I shared a post on Instagram where you can hear just how much they were feeling the song.
Have fun singing!
You might also like these resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers
Yes! The title sounds a little bit redundant, but we all have our own “ritualitos” (little rituals) that we do in every class.
I have been teaching for over 17 years now, and my experience is mostly in the United States as a Spanish teacher in a FLES (Foreign Language in Elementary School) program. Back when I was a PreK/First grade teacher in Colombia, I rarely felt that I was getting into a routine, which I equated with a rut or “getting bored” of doing the same things in class over and over. And while teaching in a world language program means you need to have a lot of repetition to help your students retain the language, this doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing every class!
When teaching in a world language program at the elementary level, we have to make sure we provide a sense of routine in the class to create a safe space for the children. I strongly believe in teaching in the target language as much as you can, which means having to use the language a lot and at the proficiency level of your students. This can sometimes limit the amount of activities you can do to vary your routine.
Here is a list of routines I do in my class. Please feel free to add more in the comments below! I would love to hear yours!
I always start my class with the “Plan de la clase” which tells my students what will be happening in class. I go over it with them and keep it very simple. This also can eliminate the stress in some of the anxious students who need to know what will be happening in class.
This is an example of how it might look depending on the grade level. The message below is for a second grade class, and I see them only twice a week for a 40-minute period each time. You can decide how to have the class read it. You can have one volunteer read the message or the whole class may read it together.
Plan de la clase
1. Saludos: ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?
2. El calendario
3. Canción: La familia sapo
4. ¡Vamos a jugar!: Pasa la bola
5. Describe a tu familia: ¿Cómo es tu familia?
6. Tiquete de salida
Since greetings are a key aspect of world language classes, here are some ideas to greet your students:
1. Try to change the greetings. One day you can use ¿Como estás? and then the other day “¿Qué tal?”.
2. You can pass a ball to students in class and ask the question yourself.
You can give turns to the children to respond and then pass the ball to the next person, and the child who responded will take a turn asking.
3. You can divide the class in pairs where one student asks then the other responds and vice versa.
4. You can divide the class into teams, one side answers and the other responds.
5. You can use puppets and let your students improvise their greetings for the class.
6. Play music in the classroom, have your students dance to the music, stop the music and choose a volunteer to greet the class. For example, “clase, ¿cómo estás?”
7. Place a picture of a famous person or movie character with information about themselves (see picture below). You can read this information to your students, then give turns for them to introduce themselves to the character or famous person by sharing the same information. See more here!
8. Place a simple picture that your students will have to use to complete their face. They can take turns doing this. Download the picture here!
9. Start with a Zumba or dancing routine to get everyone into the Spanish mood.
10. Use “brain breaks” during the routine or any time you see your students need help focusing and tuning again into class.
11. Read the days of the week with a feeling for each day. Find the picture here!
12. Make your calendar interactive. If you have an interactive board or a projector, a computer connected to the internet, take advantage of it and add a cultural/geographic aspect comparing seasons, temperatures and weather to your calendar. My students always love guessing what the temperature could be like in Colombia or any other Spanish-speaking country.
To add a more adventurous part, take a trip to any of the Spanish-speaking countries using Google Earth! Also check out my “Facebook Corner” for more ideas on routines for Spanish class!
¡Hola! I am Carolina, a Colombian elementary Spanish teacher based in Boston, MA. Fun for Spanish Teachers is the result of my passion for teaching Spanish to children and my desire to inspire collaboration and creativity in a vibrant teaching and learning community. It’s the perfect stop if you are looking for songs, games, teaching tips, stories, and fun for your classes.
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