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Learning Spanish at the Zoo: Animals (Animales)

"Z" is for zoo and for zoológico!  This post is about learning Spanish at the zoo, and Spanish zoo books for kids. 


Note: I’m re-publishing this old post for All Done Monkey's 2016 edition of 31 Days of ABC's Series. I’ve revamped the content, added a list of Spanish zoo books, and included details of the series.

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). 

For the play date, I made copies of the "animales/animals" bilingual mini-book, and brought with me a box of crayons. At the zoo each child picked up their own map of the zoo

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. 
The little ones pointing at the jirafa in their mini-book. 
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!


31 Days of ABC - October 2016 | Alldonemonkey.com 

 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
All Done Monkey: Creating a Preschool Letter of the Week Curriculum
A - October 2
Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: Apple Scented Glitter Glue and Apple Craft
B - October 3
Witty Hoots: How to Make Fabulous Button Bookmarks
C - October 4
Preschool Powol Packets: Construction Truck Preschool Action Rhyme
D - October 5
ArtsyCraftsyMom: Printable Dinosaur Alphabet Sequencing Puzzle
E - October 6
Preschool Powol Packets: Elephant Art Project and Thailand Lesson
F - October 7
Spanglish Monkey: Spanish-English ABC Flashcards
G - October 8
Royal Baloo: Simple Ghost Painting Project
H - October 9
Peakle Pie
I - October 10
Look! We're Learning!: Insect Activities for Kids
J - October 11
All Done Monkey: Olmec Jaguar Craft
K - October 12
Preschool Powol Packets: I Am a Kite Action Rhyme for Preschool
L - October 13
Raising a Trilingual Child
M - October 14
Creative World of Varya
N - October 15
Peakle Pie
O - October 16
For the Love of Spanish
P - October 17
Little Hiccups
Q - October 18
All Done Monkey
R - October 19
Sugar, Spice & Glitter
S - October 20
Crafty Mama in ME
T - October 21
Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes
U - October 22
Witty Hoots
V - October 23
Creative World of Varya
W - October 24
Creative World of Varya
X - October 25
All Done Monkey
Y - October 26
Our Daily Craft
Z - October 27
Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes
123's - October 28
Hispanic Mama
Prewriting - October 29
Sugar Aunts
Books, Songs, & Apps - October 30
The Jenny Evolution
Alphabet Clip Cards - October 31
The Kindergarten Connection

Find more great resources in 31 Days of ABCs 2013 and 2014!

Giveaway

Don't forget to enter for a chance to win this great prize package, open internationally! Kidloland
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!
Alphabet Experts Mega Bundle: 31 Days of ABC Giveaway
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) a Rafflecopter giveaway