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The Calico Spanish Curriculum is a robust elementary Spanish program containing over 365 lesson plans ranging from the pre-novice low proficiency level up through the novice high proficiency level. With so many lessons to teach and choose from, we find that the most common question we’re asked is, “How will I make it through a […]

Recently a teacher wrote to ask if Calico Spanish would be a good fit in a program that only sees students once a week for Spanish classes. Ideally, students would have language classes three times a week, but it’s common for elementary schools to schedule once or twice a week Spanish classes with students. How […]

Take Spanish on Summer Vacation + FREEBIES Y’all, it is finally summer vacation. Our kids deserve a summer filled with fun activities like going to the pool, selling lemonade on the front lawn, visiting cool museums, and maybe taking a trip somewhere fun (and so do we!). What else do they deserve? A chance to […]

Hey Spanish learners and teachers, it’s almost Mother’s Day in the U.S.! Mother’s Day PDF! In previous years, we have offered a free Mother’s Day Spanish printable to help your learners celebrate their moms and abuelas and what makes them special. We know that family dynamics change from child to child, so we also wanted […]

Thinking Google Translate means you (or your child) won’t need a language learning experience? To be sure, Google Translate has helped us in a lot of ways like enabling language access to local government info, radically improving world travel, and even disseminating COVID-19 information. And every year, the beginning of the school year triggers a […]

Long ago in a home far from your own, there was a vague concept called “teaching from home.” It was something that a friend of a friend did as a moonlighting job. Perhaps they were helping kids with English at 5 A.M or becoming an adjunct in an online class at a university that needed […]

Digital elementary spanish The global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is changing faster than news stories can be written and published. The virus has brought almost every major system to challenges perhaps never faced before. Healthcare. Finance. Food service. Transportation. Education. In the span of a few days, the coronavirus crisis took us from […]

You want the best Spanish curriculum. How do you choose? As a teacher or parent who wants the young children in your life to speak real Spanish to real people, you have a lot of choices to make. You’ll find an array of programs that claim to help you teach Spanish to children. How do […]

2021 update: It’s been four years since Level D launched, and four years since this blog post originally went live. Since then, thousands of people have viewed this post, making it one of our most popular resources to date! In Level D, children meet Ofelia la oveja blanca (the white sheep) and her friends. Some […]

Kids learn Spanish every day.  They learn it in elementary classrooms, in play groups, and in day cares.  They learn it with Pepe the brown dog in Stories.  But kids learn Spanish in specific ways, under specific conditions, and if those conditions aren’t met, language acquisition simply won’t happen.  That’s the science. Still, myths swirling around […]