January

January's theme at Mom's Day Out has been Winter, so we have also been talking about cold weather (hace frío) and cold weather clothes. Try saying "hace frío" (AH-say FREE-oh) to your child and see if he/she pretends to feel cold.

We have sung "Mami, ¿dónde está mi abrigo?" a lot, which is a song about losing a coat and asking our mommy where it is. I hide a picture of a coat under a picture of a chair (la silla), a lamp (la lámpara), a bed (la cama), or a table (la mesa). As we sing the song, we look under each piece of furniture. If the coat is not there, the children answer "no, no, no"; if it is there, they say, "¡sí, sí, sí!"

We read the book Froggy se viste to talk about clothing:



We have focused a lot on el abrigo (coat), los guantes (gloves), las botas (boots) and (cap) because these are articles of clothing many children are wearing right now to play in the snow. We are doing a chant that goes: "guantes, botas, gorra, guantes, botas."

I like to link to Bible stories in our Spanish lessons as well, so we are talking a bit about Joseph and his colorful coat. This gives us a chance to also review and reinforce colors. One song that we sing to practice colors is a list of colors set to a fun tune. This is a song that comes from a CD called Sing, Laugh, Dance and Eat Tacos.

azul
blanco
rojo
violeta
amarillo
anaranjado
verde y
rosa
(una vez más)

The colors listed are blue, white, red, purple, yellow, orange, green and pink. Sometimes different countries use slightly different words for the colors (you might hear morado for purple, rosado for pink and naranja for orange)... so if you have learned a different word for a certain color than what's listed in this song, that's probably why! We will be singing other songs about colors that use variations.

December

We did lots of Christmas vocabulary and traditional Latin American Christmas songs this month. Unfortunately, our last week before Winter break was cancelled for snow so we didn't act out the Christmas story as we usually would. We did sing some fun songs, though.

The first song is called "Los peces en el río" (The fish in the river). That doesn't sound Christmassy, does it? It is a very popular Christmas song and actually has a wonderful message. The lyrics are:

La Virgen se está peinando (here we pretended to brush our hair)
Entre cortina y cortina
Sus cabellos son de oro
Y el peine de plata fina

Pero mira como beben (here we did the fish mouth and swam like fish)
los peces en el río
Pero mira cómo beben
por ver a Dios nacido.
Beben y beben
y vuelven a beber.
Los peces en el río
por ver a Dios nacer.

La Virgen lava pañales (here, we pretended to put away diapers)
y los tiende en el romero,
los pajarillos cantando,
y el romero floreciendo.

You can download the version of the song that we sang at MDO here:


Another very popular Latin American Christmas song we sang was "Campana sobre campana". Campanas are bells, and in this song, as the angels ring bells, we ask what "nuevas" (news) they are bringing. We held bells and rang them during the chorus.

The lyrics are:

Campana sobre campana
y sobre campana una
asomate a la ventana (we pretended to look in a window for the baby Jesus)
verás al niño en la cuna

Chorus
Belen campanas de Belen (we rang bells just like the angels)
que los angeles tocan que nuevas me traes

Caminando a media noche
donde va mira el pastor
que llevarte y a cuidarte
como Dios mi corazon

Some of the children requested that we sing a song that they recognize in English, so we sang the Spanish version of Silent Night (Noche de Paz). Here is the version I used:

We read a wonderful book called El arbol de navidad. This book appears to be out of print, but there are some used copies for a few cents on Amazon if you want to order one! It uses very basic (but useful) vocabulary, and it is in Spanish and English for those of you who like to see the meaning of the phrases on each page.



I had planned to sing one more song with the children that we used last year, but the snow stopped us. This is a song about a child riding a little donkey (burrito) into Bethlehem (Belén) to see the baby Jesus. It has a fun beat. If you have children who are small enough, it is a good one to sing (or listen to) as you bounce the child on your knee, as if he/she is riding a donkey.

November

A family from our Mom's Day Out program moved to Ecuador in November, so we did lots of songs and games to celebrate Ecuador. We looked at a globe to find Ecuador and listened to music from this country. One song/game we played a lot this month was "El patio de mi casa" (107 on the Children's Song CD). As we sang this song, we held hands and walked in a circle. At each "agáchate", we crouch down. After the second one we stayed down and danced. This song is good because it teaches you how to say a few letters in Spanish (h, i, j, k, l, m, n, a). There are multiple versions of this song. This is a good one:



El patio de mi casa es particular
cuando llueve se moja como los demás
agáchate, y vuelve a agachar
que las agachaditas no saben bailar
h, i, j, k, l, m, n, a
que si tu no me quieres otra niña me querrá.

We also did a fun song called "El conejo saltarín." This is about a jumping rabbit. We do it often when the children get wiggly. It is an easy song to learn (although it is fast) and it includes words like las orejas (ears), la nariz (nose), la colita (tail), reír (to laugh). At the "brinca, brinca, conejo saltarín" part, we jump like rabbits. I have linked to the version we use, and you can hear the bulk of the song in the sample. Try playing it to see if your child makes rabbit ears at "orejas", points to his/her nose at "nariz", wiggles his/her tail at "colita" and jumps at "brinca".

Conejo saltarín

The Smithsonian Institute has archived lots of world music; the CD "Children's Songs from Ecuador, Mexico and Puerto Rico" includes traditional songs from various Latin American countries. Incidentally, this site is a great resource for lots of music genres.