With easy reading activities for practicing feelings in Spanish! This is good to do after the other activities in my previous post so kids have heard and seen both the verbs and the feelings in Spanish.
You can get all of the activities mentioned in this and the previous post here.
How I Used Reading Activities to Practice Feelings in Spanish with My Kids
We did the activities from the last lesson (conversation, games, the movie talk, and the readings), and I noticed that Alex wasn’t completely understanding the vocabulary. So I told him the story about Felicia and the dragons and had him do Total Physical Response while I told the story.
He pointed to the flashcards when I said the emotion and did our ASL actions for the verbs. He rolled his eyes the whole time, but he definitely understood the vocabulary better after we finished the activity.
After doing all of the activities, I decided I wanted them to have some reading and writing practice with the yo and tú forms. The presenter at one of the TPRS™ trainings I went to said reading helps cement the language. I don’t know if this is the best way to explain it, but I know reading is super powerful in language acquisition according to Stephen Krashen, a guru of language acquisition.
If you’re nerdy like me and want more info just click on his name above to go to his site. He has published most of his papers for free knowing teachers are poor. ja ja ja The information is fascinating! And this works in all languages, so if you want your kids to speak English better, make sure they are reading a lot.
Anyhoo, I made the activity with an example about myself so they can read the yo form, questions for kids to ask themselves so they can read the tú form, and then a place for them to turn their answers into a paragraph about themselves.
My example was totally fake (I always make stuff up about myself in my classes), and the boys asked me, “You like playing disc golf?” 🤨 Um, have you ever seen me play? No. It’s a story. 😂
The writing section is language output which doesn’t help language acquisition. Not logical, I know. So if you want to skip the writing part, go for it!
If you do have your kids write, don’t expect greatness and don’t be bummed about it (like I was at first). According to Bill Van Patten (another language acquisition guru who is super funny), there aren’t mistakes in language. Having the kids write just shows how much language kids have acquired so far.
I’m glad that I had the boys write because it gave me an idea of where I need to give them more input. Aidan kept writing estoy everywhere. Like “estoy jugar Minecraft.” My hope is they are understandable as opposed to perfect. I don’t think “estoy jugar Minecraft” would even be understandable to a Spanish-speaker, but it’s a start! 😆
With the stories, there will be dialogue added in the next lesson, so I know that will help with the boys seeing more yo and tú forms. I know this has helped my students in high school classes, so I’m excited that dialogue will be added. And I’m going to start including the Todo sobre mí (All about Me) activity in each lesson as another way to give more examples of the yo and tú forms.
And I’m going to keep using the words they are learning throughout the day for more listening. For example, the other day I thought about getting pizza for dinner and asked Alex, “¿Quieres comer pizza hoy?” The kids understand me when I use these words which I’m really happy about. I just read this blog post about different ways to help your kids be bilingual, and I feel like I’m closest to #4: Time and Space.
They still answer in English, and I’m not going to push them to speak Spanish because they are already not thrilled about the lessons, and I don’t want to make it a negative experience. I’ve also heard at workshops I’ve attended that the language will “fall out of their mouths” when they’re ready to speak. So I just need to have a little more patience.
Do you know anyone who wants to teach their kids the feelings in Spanish? Feel free to share with the buttons on the left!
Did you read the post about bilingual kids? Which method do you think you are closest to? Tell me about it in the comments below!
P.S. Are you looking for a quick and fun way to help your kids start learning Spanish? If so, check out my free Spanish for Kids Starter Guide! You can immediately use any of the 9 simple tips to introduce your kids to Spanish. Know what the best part is? You don’t have to know Spanish to use it!
Thank you so much for linking to my blog post! You are doing an awesome job! ~Christa
My pleasure and thank you! I loved reading about other methods besides OPOL. That was the only one I had ever heard of. Your post is so encouraging; I love knowing that I can still help my kids be bilingual!