$13,000 to become fluent in Spanish?!? 😲 That’s a lot of money for Spanish lessons! Thankfully, you don’t need $13,000 if you use my free Spanish lessons.
When I saw that number, my mouth literally dropped open. That info is four years old too and is for 600 hours of Spanish which is fluent but not native fluent. If I’m paying 13 grand I want to be native fluent. I looked around for numbers for 2020 and the average per lesson is $30. So now $18,000 might be more accurate. 💰
If you don’t have or don’t want to spend that much to have your kids learn Spanish, I have 22 free Spanish lessons (so far) to help you. I’m continuing to create lessons too, so by the time you’re done with these lessons, your kids could have the 600 hours of Spanish to be fluent and could learn the most commonly used Spanish words. I will have some paid products to provide more Spanish practice and make your life easier, but my plan is to make enough products free so that you can teach your kids without breaking the bank.
The lessons build on each other, so if you haven’t started teaching your kids Spanish yet, check out my Start Here page for the best way to begin! All of my lessons so far focus on present tense Spanish verbs. Once you start following the instructions and complete the activities, you and your kids should be able to understand and speak Spanish!
Download the FREE printables and instructions here:
5. Video: Descriptions of Pictures in Spanish
7. Video: Spanish Conversation
8. Video: Make a Spanish Mini-Story
9. Video: Spanish Mini-Story Example
12. Video: El ruido Spanish Story
14. Video: Passport Activity Example
How I Taught My Kids with Free Spanish Lessons
Total Physical Response (TPR)
I start lessons both with my students and with my kids using TPR. It’s a great activity for including movement in the lesson AND helping kids learn the vocabulary. It’s also a good way to prompt kids with the meanings of words. If they forget what something means, you can show them the action. That usually helps them remember.
Aidan is not a huge fan of TPR, so we don’t spend as much time on it as my instructions and schedule suggest. This is where it’s totally okay to adjust the instructions and schedule to fit the needs of your kids. No sense making them bored out of their minds!
I still like to start with it so he can understand it better from seeing pictures of the words while listening to the Spanish word or acting out the Spanish word. As soon as he saw the flashcards on the table, he asked if we were going to play Memoria. 😄 I do some TPR with him just on the first day of the schedule, and then we play games with the flashcards the other days to help him learn the vocabulary on the flashcards.
I used ASL signs again for the verbs “oye” and “va a inf.” from my favorite ASL site. We adjusted the first variation for “oye” and just tapped once. For “va a inf.” we just moved our hand out a little to show that it’s happening soon like the description says.
Conversation and a Mini-Story
Some of the conversation questions ask about where you are going to go, and Aidan answered, “nowhere.” 🙄 I reminded Aidan to just make up answers. The answers don’t have to be real. We talked about going to our friends’ houses in helicopters and going to Disneyland. I love hearing creative answers in Spanish from kids!
I frequently ask him to translate into English what I just said in Spanish to make sure he understands what I’m saying. I do this more when we first start the activities. He’ll answer, “Nice!” to questions, and I discovered that actually means he has no idea what I just said.
For the mini-story, Aidan wanted to use the characters Dino and Saur from the last story we created. We were going to make a story about Saur (last time he was kidnapped by aliens), but Aidan wanted both of them in the story. After we made it, he said, “Sorry I’m not more creative with this one. I’m tired.” 😂 I told him he doesn’t have to come up with crazy answers every time. I always have fun making stories with him.
Even if you’re learning Spanish with your kids, you can still make your own stories with them. There is an outline with questions to ask and then sentence starters so you can just complete the sentences with the answers your kids give you.
I also have a video with the questions from the mini-story outline, so you can listen to the pronunciation. Or watch the video with your kids, have them give you answers, and write the answers on the outline. This outline can be used again and again with different details for a new story each time. We might use it again to continue what is happening with Saur and the aliens. I’m very curious what Aidan’s ideas are. 🤔
This is a really fun activity to do with kids, doesn’t take a lot of time (maybe 10 minutes), and I’m convinced they don’t know they’re learning. Kind of like sneaking extra veggies into a casserole. If you need help with the story, make sure to write your questions in the comments so I can help you!
Reading
I typed Aidan’s story and wrote a few questions to read together the next day. I wrote questions, but don’t feel like you need to. Just talking with your kids about the story and having them read it is perfect! If you didn’t make a story, feel free to use ours! There is also a video that goes with it for more listening practice.
I had Aidan watch the video for the first version of the story El ruido and answer the questions on the video. Then we read the next two versions of the story and did the reading activities together. The story is an embedded reading, so each version builds on the previous version.
I like to use embedded readings because they give kids more confidence when reading. When kids start with something shorter, it’s not as overwhelming. Plus, reading Spanish feels easy by the time they get to the last version. My students (and Aidan) keep telling me reading is so easy; they don’t need all three version and to just give them the final version. Umm, it’s easy because you’ve read the first two shorter versions. Lol
I took a writing workshop, and I’ve been practicing some of the things I learned from it like having twists or cliffhangers, so kids will be interested and want to keep reading too.
Passport Activity
This activity is to practice some traveling vocabulary and to be able to describe the near future. It’s a listening, reading, speaking, and writing activity. And I tried to incorporate creative play while practicing Spanish.
As kids, my brother and I constantly played make-believe. I liked it best when we had real props. Like we played office and had some of my dad’s old office equipment. Aidan also likes imaginative play. We have played restaurant together, and he has played store with his friends including price tags and my old fisher priced cash register. (Who else has their fisher price toys from when they were kids? Those things are the best!!) I liked it the most when we played with real things (like real office phones), so I tried to make this passport as realistic as possible (except for the size – it had to be big for the writing).
I decided to make the passport from Mexico, so it would be from a Spanish speaking country. The personal info page is a fillable form. I have parent instructions with questions to review personal information for this page. You can then type in your kids’ information and print the passport for them.
Then you can ask them questions about where they are going to go to practice this lesson’s vocabulary. If you and your kids don’t know much about the country they choose, you can have them look online for a little bit of info about the country to help them answer the questions. Depending on how interested your kids are in this activity, you could do multiple countries.
Once you ask these questions, put a passport stamp for that country in your kids’ passports and then have them complete the last page for reading and writing practice. I’ve used the questions several times to talk about different countries Aidan is going to go to. His passport is filled with stamps! Feel free to spread this activity out over time.
Games
I made a boardgame La carrera por el aeropuerto to practice the airport vocabulary and commonly used Spanish verbs. It’s free, so you can print it and start playing it right away. There are English translations for all of the phrases, and everything to play the game is included in the printable. The flashcard games are a good way to practice the nouns for this lesson too!
If you don’t have an extra $13,000 around the house (and who does?!?), then these free Spanish lessons can help you teach your kids Spanish. If you’re not sure where to start, you can watch the video with pictures that I describe in Spanish or play the game La carrera por el aeropuerto. Start today so you don’t miss out on helping your kids become fluent in Spanish!
Did you do these activities or know anyone who wants to start teaching their kids with free Spanish lessons? Please share with the buttons on the left!
Do your kids like imaginative play? Or did you when you were a kid? 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!
