I have always loved Highlights magazine. Now I love it even more after discovering that each issue has a story introducing Spanish words and vocabulary. If you do not subscribe to Highlights, check out their website because they also have a bilingual magazine they off for 2 through 6-year-olds. But until you get your own copy, you can probably find some to borrow at your local library. Our library keeps all the old issues tucked under the shelf of the current month, and they allow library patrons to take the old ones home just like a library book. Each month a new magazine is published, so the themes are seasonal and apply no matter what year it is. Below is a fun activity we did after reading a pumpkin story from last year’s October issue.
Marcos goes to the pumpkin patch with his mom and finds three pumpkins: a big one, a bigger one and the biggest one. Although the story is written in English, Marcos uses some Spanish phrases when speaking with his mom. This type of format works well with my boys (or any children learning Spanish) because they can follow the story line, and figure out what the Spanish means through context and by the wonderful illustrations.
Even parents who do not speak Spanish can read these stories with their kiddos. You can see in the photo above they highlight the Spanish text in red, and then follow it up with a pronunciation and translation box. You can learn the phrases with your child, and then find opportunities to use that phrase in your day-to-day. Or you can practice by doing this extension activity that we did!
We did a size ordering activity. I cut out three pumpkins to match the ones in the story. I let my boys tear some brown paper (fine motor practice!) for the stems. First I modeled putting the pumpkins in order. You can use Spanish phrases like I did, or say as much as you feel comfortable.
For example:
Then hand them the pumpkins and glue and let them at it! I wrote the size words on the pumpkins after we finished so we could point to them and say each size order name for practice. Feliz pumpkin-ing!
