15th April, 2010 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
Gracias to Lenora who dug up this nice online resource–a collection of short animated stories and games in Spanish. The “pre-escolar” level is about on-par with SFCB. One nice aspect is that the text of the stories is written out in a caption as well as spoken. A nice way to spend some computer-lab time » Read More
3rd March, 2010 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
I heard this joke years ago and my students loved hearing it when we were learning about clothing. It’s great for working on demonstrative pronouns, too. I start by writing up on the board: ¡Eso, sí que es! and explaining to mis estudiantes that it means, more or less, “That’s it!” Then I tell them: » Read More
27th January, 2010 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
I have a list of fun things I want to post about, but right now I’m up to my ears in glossaries for SFC B. That’s good for publication, since glossaries are one of the last steps (at least for this project), but a lot of cutting and pasting, and less time for blogging. On » Read More
3rd December, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
Have you chosen Spanish as the language for any of your computer programs or electronic devices? Right now my cell phone is in Spanish and my laptop was all in French (I bought it here) until about three weeks ago. I got fed up with forcing myself to “learn vocabulary words” while trying to get » Read More
3rd November, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
This was part of a comment on a comment on another post, but I wanted to post it on its own. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about this, and more is always welcome! Check out the link provided, see what an “e” phoneme looks like in Spanish and in English, and then weigh in. » Read More
3rd November, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
Most of us would agree that skits and short play scripts can be a great way for elementary school students to learn languages. It can be difficult, though, to pull off a “performance” and keep the kids learning instead of sinking into awkward self-consciousness or out-of-hand silliness. I worked with a teacher last year who » Read More
11th October, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - 2 Comments
One of the most frustrating things for me as a language teacher is synonyms. Do I teach my students to say “little” or “small”? “bus station” or “bus stop”? This has been a frustrating part of working on the SFC series, since there are a surprisingly large number of “everyday” words that are different across » Read More
17th September, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
I kept finding interesting links I wanted to post, but before I launch into that, I should start with an update on where the books are, now. Read More
2nd August, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - No Comments
I just stumbled across a literacy website with a section of activities in Spanish. It’s simple enough for earlier learners (K-2) but fun enough for older ones who need to go over these vocab areas. Check it out, it speaks for itself: http://www.literacycenter.net/lessonview_es.htm# Read More
21st July, 2009 - Posted by Julia Kraut - 1 Comment
We’re visiting my parents in PA for the summer and that means going through boxes of stuff we’ve been conveniently forgetting to deal with since college. After unpacking several thousand pounds of books (most of them my husband’s), I find myself in a curious situation: sitting in front of me as I type are two » Read More
Welcome to the “Spanish for Children” blog! The texbook has all you’ll need to start learning Spanish, but if you’re like us, you’ll want more! This site is a place where we’ll be sharing some of our thoughts about the Spanish language and about learning a new language in general. We hope you’ll share your thoughts here as well!