Español con los Cardenales: Las formas

¡Bienvenidos familia, amigas, y amigos! This week it was Katy’s turn to choose our destination to a Spanish speaking country. After singing our morning greeting song, ¡Buenos día amigos!, Katy suggested we head to Cuba!  Upon our arrival to this Spanish speaking country, we gathered in a círculo and began our Spanish language experience.

To connect with our recent study on shapes, “Ms. Hola” introduced the Cardinals to the Spanish vocabulary words for basic geometrical shapes. We first read Ellen Senisi’s simple book, Las Formas donde jugamos. In this book, two children find all the basic shapes in the equipment on their playground. For every shape we read, we used our “magic pencil” and drew the shape in the air. As we drew each shape, we counted its sides in Spanish.

Afterwards, we practiced the words by using a wooden puzzle with “chunky” pieces and matched the vocabulary word to the shape that was being held up. To further reinforce our learning and boost our visual memory skill, we played the “¿Que falta?” (What’s missing) game. Three of the puzzle pieces where displayed then covered. Then, one of the pieces would be removed and the Cardinals had to guess which piece it was that was removed. Once they figured it out, they had to identify which piece it was by using its Spanish word. What a fantastic time we had ! Go ahead and challenge your Cardinal by asking him/her to name the basic geometrical shape s/he finds in their playground.

Vocabulary introduced:

circle - círculo

oval - óvalo

triangle - triángulo

rectangle - rectángulo

square - cuadrado

rhombus (or diamond) - rombo (o diamante)

star - estrella

heart – corazón

magic pencil – lápiz magico

side – lado

What’s missing? - ¿Qué falta?

We finished our class with our traditional song, Adios, hasta luego, and Katy squeezing la vaca. ¡Gracias, Katy!

¡Hasta nuestro proximo viaje! (Until our next voyage!)

Paz,

Alicia