el arca y el barco

The children love the song "Noé hizo el arca." Even the youngest will sing "arca" with me. Today we sang about a small boat.

This gave us a chance to return to words like grande and pequeño (big and small) and to review numbers up to seven. In the song about the small boat, we learn a synonym for pequeño: chiquito. Your child probably brought home a little boat on a popsicle stick. We used that little boat to sing this traditional song called El barquito. You can hear a sample of it here:


If you purchased the José-Luis Orozco CD earlier in the year (see below), El barquito is the third song.


The song is about a little boat (barco chiquito) that can't sail because it is so small. Seven weeks pass and it still can't sail. The lyrics are:

Había una vez un barco chiquitito (repeat 3 times)
tan chiquito, tan chiquito, que no podía navegar.
Pasaron una, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete semanas (repeat 3 times)
y el barco tan chiquitito no podía navegar.

There is another verse that we did not sing this week. We may add it later, but it is linguistically more complex and doesn't include very much practical vocabulary.

In some classes we reviewed a few pages of Corre, Perro, Corre (Go Dog Go) both because there is a scene where the dogs are on a boat (barco) and because we went to see the English version of that play at the Lexington Children's Theater last week.

I have begun to do signs for the children outside of the context of our songs to see if they know the Spanish words just by seeing the sign. Try this sign and see if your child says mis amigos or this one to see if he/she says, ¿Cómo estás? If not, it is fine because we have stressed receptive skills this year. Try again in a few weeks and see if he/she can do it. It will come!

Animales y partes del cuerpo

Repaso

Noé y el arca: el arco iris

Today we sang our song, "Noé hizo el arca" and reviewed the short picture book about Noah's ark that we read last week. As we read, I asked the children questions about the weather (¿qué tiempo hace?, pronounced, "keh tee-IM-poeh AH-seh?") and asked what animals they could identify in the book. At the end of the book, of course, a rainbow appears over Noah's ark, so this week we worked with the colors of the rainbow. We have done colors intermittently throughout this year, especially with books like Go Dog Go. Whenever the children color a picture they will take home, I talk to them in Spanish about they colors they are using. Many of the children can tell me that red is rojo (ROW-hoe) and that blue is azul (ah-SOOL). Today we practiced:

azul (ah-SOOL): blue
blanco (BLAHN-koe): white
rojo (ROW-hoe): red
violeta (vee-oh-LEH-tuh): violet/purple
amarillo (ah-mah-DEE-yoe): yellow
anaranjado (ah nah dahn HA dough): orange
verde (VEDH-deh): green
rosa (DDROE-sah): pink

We sang a song that goes through the colors in that order. We played simple games as we sang the song, such as moving from one color square to another according to the color we identify in the song.

The children also colored a page with a rainbow on it. We will continue to practice those colors as throughout the rest of this year.

el arca de Noé

Many of our songs and activities have revolved around weather and animals, so this week we did a preview to a few weeks of activities related to Noah and the ark.

This week I used a picture book to tell the story to the children in Spanish. Because many are familiar with the story and most are familiar with the vocabulary (and because they have pictures to go along with the story in Spanish), the children can understand easily.

Before introducing the book, we talked about the weather for the day. We always do this by looking at pictures of weather and doing a chant (¿qué tiempo hace afuera afuera? ¿qué tiempo hace afuera afuera hoy?) The children say "sí" or "no" to identify the weather. Our options are:

hace sol (ah-say SOLE): it's sunny
nieva (nee-EH-bah): it's snowing
llueve (yoo-WAY-vay): it's raining

This is a good segue into a story about sunny days that turn to lots of rain! As I read the story, I asked about the weather throughout. I also asked the students what animals they see, and asked them to identify ones that they cannot yet recall in Spanish.

We sang a song about Noah's ark and the animals:

Noé hizo el arca, arca, arca
Noé hizo el arca y su familia se salvó.
Noé hizo el arca, arca, arca
Noé hizo el arca y el agua se subió.
Entraron los elefantes
Entraron los leones
Entraron los patitos...

At the end of the song, when we sing, "entraron los...", we are singing about how each animal entered the ark. The children make the noise and/or movement of the animal as we sing about it.

Next week we will stress the rainbow, talking about the colors and singing songs about it. We may even do a simple scripture verse in the preschool class!

Yo me llamo...

A few weeks ago my family met a native Spanish speaker. I chatted with the man for a bit and mentioned that my kids are learning Spanish. The man turned to my daughter, Lauren Clay, and asked her what her name was (in Spanish.) Eventually she sang him the Buenos Días song or something, but we went home and talked about how to ask and answer about names so that she can engage in a little bit more conversation next time we meet a Spanish speaker.

This year I have really worked on receptive language, focusing productive language to the children singing along with the songs we do each week. Most of your children can respond to the language they have learned this year. They can show me big and small when they hear "grande" and "pequeño." They can point to most animals and the older children can point to colors when they hear them. Lately I have made some of our songs more conversational so the children recognize them as dialogue if they have an opportunity to talk with someone in Spanish (especially the "Buenos dias, ¿Cómo estás?" song.) I have also been encouraging the children to find opportunities in their day to use certain phrases that they have learned (like saying, "¡me gusta!" when they like something.)

I do hope your children finish this year with a few useful phrases ready so they can have a very basic exchange with a Spanish speaker. So over the next few months, we will be working on some simple one-liners such as:

yo me llamo (yoe meh YAH-moe)= my name is...
por favor (pour fah-VOUR)= please
gracias (GDAH-see-us)= thank you

We have done some "please" and "thank you" already, but this week the kids heard "me llamo" for the first time. We did a little chant:

"Yo me llamo Shannon. ¿Cómo te llamas tú?"

I chanted along with each child (in most cases, I chanted for the children) and we went around the room to ask each child his/her name. We did the same with the animals we have been using in class. (You may have seen the paper that the children colored with each of the animal names on it.) We will continue to play with this chant so that the phrase is easy to remember.

You might use the animal paper to see which ones your child can point to when hearing the name:

el avestruz (ehl ah-veh-STROOS): ostrich
el elefante (ehl eh-lay-FAHN-tay): elefant
la jirafa (lah hee-DAH-fah): giraffe
el loro (ehl LOE-doe): parrot
el mono (ehl MOE-noe): monkey
la zebra (lah SAY-brah): zebra

We sang the elefante song, a favorite among most of the children. Click here for a sample of that song.

La sorpresa de Nandí

This week we built on the words we learned on Valentine's week.

We read a wonderful book, La sorpresa de Nandí, about a girl who is carrying a basket of fruit to a friend, but on her way to her friend's village, various animals steal pieces of fruit. This book is a perfect culmination and extension of many concepts we have been using in Spanish this year: lots of animals, fruits and "me gusta". This book is hard to find, but it's a great one to add to a collection if you can get it:



the animals we reviewed/learned this week were:
el elefante (ehl ehl-eh-FAHN-teh)
la girafa (lah hee-DAH-fah)
el avestruz (ehl ah-veh-STROOS)
el chivo (ehl CHEE-vo)
el mono (ehl MO-no)
el loro (ehl LO-do)

We also chanted a little Latinamerican poem:
Naranja dulce (na-DAHN-hah DOOL-say)
Limón partido (lee-MONE pahd-TEE-doe)
Dáme un abrazo (DAH-meh oon ah-BRAH-so)
que yo te pido. (keh YOE teh PEE-doe)

It basically says, "sweet orange, half a lemon, give me a hug when I ask for it." Since we practiced hug (abrazo) last week, and we read about fruits in our book this week, this rhyme reinforced lots of concepts. Plus, it is a tender rhyme to say with a child.