Duolingo Tips

• The website and app are different. The app has matching questions that are not available on the website. The website has a speed feature, discussion, and other fun stuff.  I use them both regularly.
• The website has a timed practice feature that also you to get XP for every correct answer. You only have to get on correct answer to get credit for your day.

Colores, Colores by Bacilos

I've posted about this song before, but it's so wonderful it deserves multiple posts. (It is not the traditional De Colores folk song, by the way.) You can watch a great Spanish class project of it, complete with lyrics on You Tube complete. I hope the kid got an A.

Or buy it from Amazon.

Playing Games

I brought Phineas and Ferb fruit snacks home as a special treat today. J was excited to find a game on the back of the box. M, J, and I played the simple (roll the die, move your piece) game while L was in Spanish camp this morning. We counted in Spanish, but otherwise spoke English.

The directions suggest using a fruit snack as a game piece. Since my kids kept popping the pieces in their mouths, I question the hygiene of this advice. I suppose a "no eating the game playing piece" rule would eliminate the problem.

My dear friend, Sarah, blogs about playing games with your kids here.

SpanglishBaby has some excellent suggestions about using games to learn Spanish.

2 for 1 Redbox

Last night we watched Green Lantern in English for family movie night. Today we're watching in Spanish.

English-Spanish Printable Matching Games

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activity/new-spanish-english-word-match

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activity/spanish-english-days-week-game

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activity/spanish-english-word-match-ii

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activity/worksheet-spanish-english-word-match2-games

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activity/worksheet-spanish-english-word-match-game

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activity/worksheet-spanish-vocabulary-match-game

Girl Scouts

L is a Girl Scout Daisy. Girl Scouts has lots of resources in Spanish.

Today's Movie in Spanish

Fun articles in the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/nyregion/a-teenage-master-of-languages-finds-online-fellowship.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?scp=4&sq=bilingual&st=cse

Learning to Read with a Beach Ball & Legos

I'm stealing these awesome ideas:



From Filth Wizardry:

Amazon sells beach balls and legos.

Morning Ritual

The best language learning tools actually get used. We watch Salsa from Georgia Public Broadcasting every morning during breakfast. The episodes are 14 to 30 minutes long, entirely in Spanish, and based on familiar fairy tales.

You can find teacher support materials here.

We love Salsa!

No English Days

During Christmas vacation, we're going to try No English Days suggested by the authors of neverendingvoyage.com via FluentIn3Months.com.

Bad Mamí

The word ñandu has been on my kids' phonics chart for three years. I just learned today that it's a South American ostrich. Who knew? Not even M's Mexican Spanish teacher so maybe I shouldn't feel bad.

La araña Pirulina

J recited this poem in front of the school board last year. Solo!

La araña Pirulina
por la pared se subió,
y mi Tia Catalina
con la escoba la barrió.

Girl Scout Patches

L is a Girl Scout Daisy. Some of the fun patches are available in Spanish. Yea! Unfortunately, a couple of them are not translated well. (ie: partido instead of fiesta)

http://www.basicsclothing.com/history/heritage/culture

More Bilingual Flip Books

Tia Carrie gave us a set of beautifully illustrated flip books and the Farmer's Market game from Fitness4Kidz.com. The books are written in verse-one side in English and the other side in Spanish.

The website contains free lesson plans in English.

Websites Recommended To Me

I haven't tried these yet. (Or linked them.)

rif.org

literacycenter.net

bbc.co.uk/schoos/primaryspanish/start_here/

primeraescuela.com/themesp/alfabeto.htm

pacomova.eresmas.net/paginas/canciones_infantiles.htm

www.elhuevodechochocolate.com/cancion/cancion3.htm

doslourdes.net/Canciones_inf_prim.htm

youtube.com/watch?v=1WhjQGpSd0

youtube.com/watch?v=Z7R-QkOXgcUXgcU&feature=related

Halloween Movie

In honor of October, we watched Hocus Pocus for family movie night. We're limiting our English television/movie watching to Sunday evenings.

The children were terrified. J claims he will have nightmares for a month. It doesn't have a Spanish language track, although J and L said they would not watch it again anyway.

Guess I should have checked the review that said it was good for ages 8 and over, before we rented it.

Summer's Over!

Although it's 100 degrees today, summer's over. School's started, Labor Day has come and gone, as has the autumnal equinox. I guess it's time to get back to blogging. I now have 3 children in 2 different Spanish programs so I should have plenty to write about, right? It's just making the time...

Taking a break for the summer

to focus on Spanish.

Free Stuff

Muchas gracias to Freely Educate for the heads-up about a free lap book plan on CurrClick. (Unfamilar with lap books? Start here. Of course, Amazon has a book.)

I'd never visited CurrClick. It's an on-line store for curricula and classes. I enjoyed poking around. Searching for "Spanish" resulted in over 400 hits. Searching for "free" resulted in over 4000 hits. When I searched for "free Spanish," I found 92 hits. I down-loaded all the ones that might be relevant and were free. Most of the hits weren't actually free, but many were less than $5.

Visit CurrClick to get the freebies but here are the originating websites of some of the docs I plan to use with J, L, and M:

Flip Flop Learning - Señora Gosé's on-line store includes fun-looking products like flip-books (I loved those as a kid), inexpensive bingo games, and iPhone aps. She also has tips and games.

















Some great flashcards come from the Easter Wind Academy blog.