"Z" is for zoo and for zoológico! This post is about learning Spanish at the zoo, and Spanish zoo books for kids.
Learning your animals in Spanish is fun especially when you learn them at the zoo! Little one, his best bud, and I met with a new found friend and; her mom from little one's Spanish immersion language class at the zoo.
What is funny about this play date is that one of my son's friends knows Spanish, and the other one doesn't. So it was interesting to see how my son was teaching his best bud how to say the animals in Spanish. What was even funnier was that shortly after practicing she comes out "talking" in Spanish!
Truth be told, I had no idea what she was saying because it didn't even sound like Spanish or English! I was laughing so hard that I couldn't help myself, and my son tells her, "That's not Spanish!" So on they went to practice some more the animals in Spanish.
Once at the zoo we all greeted each other. Little one's best bud greeted little one's new friend with, "¡Hola!" This was out of the blue, and unexpected. When I asked her where she learned that word from she says, "¡Dora!" Sweet! We let the kids play a little so they can warm up to each other before beginning our Spanish lesson.
For the Spanish lesson I used a mini-book from Scholastic's Vocabulary-Building Bilingual Mini-Books. I really enjoy this book because it uses cognate words. Cognates are words descended from a common ancestor; that is, words having: the same linguistic family or derivation (English). This is really helpful for English speakers learning Spanish. (You can see a list of the animals below).
To begin our Spanish lesson each child wrote their names on the mini-books, and I read to them the names in both English and Spanish. They repeated after me. They also circled on the map where the animals were located, and we reviewed what route we were going to take. Afterwards, we walked through the zoo looking for the animals but we also made some frequent stops to look at other animals that weren't in the mini-book.
Once they found the animal we would stop so they can color it in their min-books (this also gave us an opportunity to review the names again in Spanish, and to take a break!) They were pretty excited, and enjoyed their outing at the zoo.
Once they found the animal we would stop so they can color it in their min-books (this also gave us an opportunity to review the names again in Spanish, and to take a break!) They were pretty excited, and enjoyed their outing at the zoo.
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| The little ones pointing at the jirafa in their mini-book. |
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| Elephant/Elefante |
Of course, after a morning of fun learning at the zoo we had some lunch, and we let the children play for a bit longer at the playground area located inside the zoo before we called it a day. :)
Looking for the animals that were in the mini-book was exciting and fun!
Spanish Zoo Animal Books (affiliate links)
Would love to hear how you make learning fun for your children! Please comment, like, share or pin!
After taking a break last year due to the arrival of Baby #3, we are back with one of my favorite series, the 31 Days of ABC! You can look forward to 31 more days of activities, crafts, books, apps, and more, all dedicated to teaching young children the alphabet. I am so happy to be working with an amazing group of kid bloggers, who will be sharing their amazing ideas with us in the coming days. And this year for the first year we are also adding a giveaway, so be sure to scroll to the end and enter for a chance to win! So join us as we jump, skip, hop, and read our way through the alphabet this October! Don't forget to follow our 31 Days of ABCs Pinterest board for even more great ABC ideas!
31 Days of ABCTeaching the ABCs - October 1
A - October 2
B - October 3
C - October 4
D - October 5
E - October 6
F - October 7
G - October 8
H - October 9
I - October 10
J - October 11
K - October 12
L - October 13
M - October 14
N - October 15
O - October 16
P - October 17
Q - October 18
R - October 19
S - October 20
T - October 21
U - October 22
V - October 23
W - October 24
X - October 25
Y - October 26
Z - October 27
123's - October 28
Prewriting - October 29
Books, Songs, & Apps - October 30
Alphabet Clip Cards - October 31
Giveaway
Don't forget to enter for a chance to win this great prize package, open internationally!
3 month subscription to the Kidloland app, which includes 575+ interactive nursery rhymes, songs, stories, and educational activities to help children learn ABCs, animals, fruits, vegetables, shapes and more!
The Alphabet Experts Mega Bundle from Kindergarten Connections contains 500+ of alphabet printables, including tons of activities for each letter of the alphabet! ($58.50 value)
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