So, how are you today? ¿Cómo estás? It’s one of the first things we teach our learners to understand and answer, and for good reason. Particularly young children will hear “How old are you?” quite a bit, and of course “What’s your name?” but right up there in the most common questions anyone hears in any […]
5 tips for successful world language in kindergarten
How can we help our kindergarten learners be successful in their Spanish language journey? In this post, we offer some tips from the trenches of that sunny-yet-conflicted zone called kindergarten. 1. Establish successful routines. All elementary children thrive on routine, but we’ve especially seen this in kindergarten. These learners have moved from a primarily play-to-learn environment in […]
“What can I share with parents?”
Are you a teacher who has recently subscribed to Stories Online and wants to know what content you can share with parents at home? We often receive this question – time for a blog post to answer it! Rewind… Stories OnWhat? Calico Spanish Stories Online is our all-online program developed to fill a need for […]
Real Spanish in the preschool jungle? Yes.
Once upon a time, I thought I’d figured out how to teach elementary Spanish. Then, they asked me to teach preschool. Preschool is a different sort of animal. Standing in a line is a fluid concept. Rules my son’s 3-year-old class worked on last year: – We do not lick the wall. – We do not […]
Free video lesson + activities for kindergarten Spanish
The first time I taught a kindergarten Spanish lesson, I thought if I read the story La oruga muy hambrienta (The very hungry caterpillar) enough times, kids would learn something. Right? So, I faithfully came into my kindergarten classes, once a week for a 15-minute lesson, and read the book to them. I was animated and […]
Send home a summer activity record! Free “En casa TicTacTó” download
Summer break = break from kids’ learning? Is summer break really a good idea relative to children’s learning journey? That’s certainly a hot topic for teachers and parents, and we won’t debate here. Surely, though, over two months of little to no contact with Spanish can only hurt language development. Here’s an idea: Let’s encourage kids to keep […]
Mother’s Day Spanish printable activity celebrates Mamá y Abuela (free)
Happy Mom’s Day! We recently saw an adorable Mother’s Day “My mom and I” printable activity in English. We love these activities and thought it was such a great idea we’d do something similar in Spanish. In ours, we’ve featured some of our Stories Online characters with their moms and grandmothers. Here at Calico Spanish, we are […]
Prepositions of location + Twinkle, twinkle à la Brooks & Dunn = new music magic!
Is there anywhere a fun song for early Spanish learners that targets prepositions of location? We couldn’t find any. So we did it ourselves. What phrases, exactly? We call this song “Pañuelito” (little handkerchief). It accompanies Level C of Calico Spanish Stories, themed “I Live Here.” In this level, several of the Video Stories feature our characters […]
Parts of the body: “Todo mi cuerpo” NEW Calico Spanish song video!
Ready for our next new song? It’s all about parts of the body! In this all-new video for our song “Todo mi cuerpo,” a boy decides to dance and swim with his whole body. Like the English song “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” this new Calico Spanish song helps children can learn how to talk about the parts […]
7 ways to repeat without being repetitive
It feels like a catch-22, doesn’t it? Research shows that language learners need to hear or see a word in context many, many times in order to be able to use that word or phrase or language feature whenever they want. But wait- those learners also have to be engaged in order to acquire language. Bored […]
