Today I started my mission to post some of my mom’s favorite recipes and some Spanish and Italian recipes. I promise I will not post things that were incorporated to the American Cuisine! Please try my recipes and tell me what you and your family said about it!
Bolinhos de Carne a Baiana – Brazilian Meatballs
Ingredients:
1 pound of ground beef
1 small onion
black pepper and cumin (depends on how much you like, I put a little bit of each)
salt
3 eggs
bread crumbs
1 cup of flour
Mix ground beef, chopped onion, cumin, pepper, salt and 1 egg and place in the fridge for 2 hours. Make small balls and pass in the flour, egg, then bread crumbs and place in a skillet with hot oil, enough to cover the meatballs. Cook until brown. Serve on top of spaghetti or rice. Please no tomato sauce. Brazilians usually eat that on top of white rice, but my family likes it with pasta cooked sauteed on butter.
This is a topic which I love, but I never find good ideas or nice materials to teach a great Valentine’s class or Spanish Classes in February! So this year, I decided to
innovate and I created Spanish and Portuguese classes with the Valentine Day topic which not only teach the vocabulary of a day which is celebrated in some Spanish speaking countries but also teach children to share and show friendship! Enjoy!
Today I will share my ideas for Spanish:
1) Children ages 3-5 will hold on a portion of a large tablecloth, making a sort of parachute and place a light pink ball in the middle, la pelota de la amistad! When the ball pops up, they will shout amigo, when stays on/around the tablecloth, they will shout pasa…pasa! children love to move the ball around!
2) Children will pass a soft ball, and say Pasa, pasa, pasa mi amigo! The teacher will stop and say Amigo randomly and the child who has the ball will share it with a friend in the circle….teaches them how to share and how to be nice to friends. Songs are originals composed and written by me. Email me for words and tune.
3) I also show the snoopy San Valentin cartoon which is cute:
4) We made a San Valentin card which they colored and cut. I don’t have a template to upload to the blog but you can easily make a card and have them color it.
5) Lucky charms craft- I used the marshmallow hearts on lucky charms box and they glued to a heart shape. They loved doing it! You can use paper heart or stickers as well.
I hope you enjoy my activities! Try some of them with your little ones!
This past week we worked on several themes and home and furniture was one of them!
Children would look at pictures of rooms in the house and learn their names, then we would work on a game and they would place items in each room, making vocab work easy and fun! For example, we place a sink,lavabo in the bathroom, baño.
We sang en la casa, en la casa hay….using room names
baño – bathroom
sala de estar – living room
cuarto – bedroom
cocina- kitchen
We also watched the video from Boca Beth which tours a house, the video is called La Casa, where a chicken shows children things in the rooms.
Children had to cut and glue parts of the house and make their own house., older ones had to tell me their favorite rooms, why, describe their rooms as well.
This week was my birthday! I share this joyful time with some of my students who had the class on Friday. I promised I would share the vocabulary here! If your child had another class, please look on archive for other topics.
I hope you enjoy as much as I did!
We looked at birthday vocabulary using a bingo sheet:
Los globos – balloons
Lasvelas – candles
El regalo – gift
El juguete – the toy/game
We did Ispy looking for those objects in the room. We also colored a cake ( Torta) and placed candles for each child’s next birthday. Older children received some candles and had to add the amount to make the total for the amount of candles on his next birthday. We broke a piñata, ate cupcakes ( pastelitos) and reviewed tableware.
We also sang Happy Birthday in Spanish:
FelizCumpleaños a ti, FelizCumpleaños a ti,FelizCumpleaños a ti,FelizCumpleaños a ti!
We showed a Sesame Place video about Fiesta in Spanish and read a book on the same topic which taught children how they celebrate birthdays in Mexico.
While cooking up new ideas to offer our students this winter, our team came up with a snow man themed class, where children will learn/review body parts using frosty!
Activities involved are Frosty coloring page, place body parts on frosty on the wall, throw snow balls(white balls) at frosty and tell the body parts where it was hit, read a winter book and watch frosty the snowman video:
Body Parts in Spanish:
arm — el brazo
back — la espalda
backbone — la columna vertebral
breast, chest — el pecho
calf — la pantorrilla
ear — el oído, la oreja
elbow — el codo
eye — el ojo
finger — el dedo
foot — el pie
hair — el pelo
hand — la mano
head — la cabeza
heart — el corazón
hip — la cadera
intestine — el intestino
knee — la rodilla
leg — la pierna
mouth — la boca
muscle — el músculo
neck — el cuello
nose — la nariz
shoulder — el hombro
skin — la piel
stomach (abdomen) — el vientre
stomach (internal organ) — el estómago
thigh — el muslo
throat — la garganta
toe — el dedo (See Note 1)
tongue — la lengua
tooth — el diente
We also cooked up some other new ideas which I will be sharing week by week. The materials listed on this post are available on our membership portion of this site. Those activities hopefully motivate you to bring Spanish to your home/class using innovative techniques chasing away cabin fever mood!
I was thinking about good ideas for games to play with my son while we were home during the holidays and new year’s and I came up with some ideas to bring foreign language into our play time, I hope you get a chance to try some of them!!!
1. Año Nuevo – Buena Suerte- make a popcorn string and add a marshmallow after each 10 pieces, they will have to count pieces while placing them on a piece of thin wool or rope, ribbon….
2. Baking together- A very famous holiday baking recipe is for pan dulce, try this recipe and ask children to place dried fruits inside of it, they will have to tell you the colors while placing them. For recipe:
La receta del pan dulce casero es una buena y energética receta que permite elaborar unos sabroso panecillos muy apropiados para almorzar o merendar gracias a su gran aporte energético y nutricional.
Ingredientes para 4 personas:
Pasas de corinto: 50 gramos
Azúcar: 6 cucharadas
Huevos: 2 unidades
Levadura en polvo: 1 sobre (15 gramos)
Harina: 280 gramos
Mantequilla: 100 gramos
Leche: 100 cl
Anís: 1 copa
Fruta confitada: 50 gramos
Piñones: 30 gramos
Preparación:
Tiempo estimado:
Se ponen las pasas en remojo para que estén blandas cuando las tengamos de utilizar
Por otro lado, se separan las claras de las yemas de los huevos. Las claras se reservan y las yemas se ponen en un bol junto con el azúcar y se baten enérgicamente hasta obtener una consistencia espumosa
A continuación se añade la mantequilla previamente derretida y, sin dejar de remover, se van agregando alternativamente la harina, la levadura el polvo y la leche vertida lentamente
Cuando está todo bien mezclado se agrega el anís, las pasas previamente pasadas por harina, los piñones, las frutas confitadas cortadas a trocitos
Por otro lado se baten bien las claras de los huevos a punto de nieve y se añaden a al mezcla anterior
Se remueve todo bien hasta que quede una mezcla homogénea y esponjosa
A parte, se unta un molde con mantequilla y se enharina para que no se pegue el pan a las paredes del molde
Se vierte la mezcla en el bol y se introduce en el horno a 180? durante una hora. Cuando el pan esta cocido se saca del horno y se deja enfriar a temperatura ambiente
3. Counting Beans- In Brazil, people place lentils or beans on the table during new year’s eve to bring prosperity, place a bowl with beans or lentils on your table, explain the tradition and count the beans together!
4. Print some foreign language words and hide them in cookie dough, bake them, after cooling it off, have children break cookie before eating and they will read the words….make sure you know the meaning and that words are previously explained to children before baking or in another activity! Suggestion on words: Spanish: coche, pelota, libro, agua, jugo, galleta, Portuguese: Carro, bola, livro, água, suco, biscoito.
I’m so excited to start sharing some activities our instructors will be using at our Spanish classes in South Jersey!
First I would like to share a list of words, must have when you are teaching Christmas in Spanish:
Feliz Navidad! -Merry Christmas
Christmas tree – árbol de Navidad
presents – regalos
sleigh – trineo
chimney – chimenea
the shepherds – los pastores
bells – campanas
peace – paz
ornaments – adornos
wreath – corona
For children who read, they will “decorate” the tree below with the words above ( cut them and have them glue them on the tree, saying the names in Spanish)
I also have a line of bells, children will ring (repicar) and each time I stop in a different number of bells, they need to count them.
I read Santa Claus is coming to town in Spanish, I use the book in English and make 2 line sentences for each page. They know the story, so it becomes easier. I also use the video and turn in the Spanish mode for the dvd, I do that with frost the snowman and Rudolf too. We have a whole class, just with Frosty! I may share that later!
I also print colored balls and color cotton balls with paint and have them do a “snowball fight” and each ball touches another student, they need to tell me the color. Younger and older ones love it!
Google ” cascabel” and you will find the words for jingle bells in Spanish, there are three or four versions.
The one listed here on youtube is a little hard for little ones, so when we sing only, I use
Cascabel, Cascabel musica de amor
Dulces horas, gratas horas
Juventud in flor
Cascabel, Cascabel
Tan sentimental
No ceces o cascabel,
de repiquetear
I hope you enjoyed my ideas! Please share your experiences in using them here!
This past two weeks, I searched for a different way to bring the Thansgiving theme a different flavor! I decided to use prepositions and shapes for the first two weeks and food as well.
Children learned or revisited food vocabulary while setting up a table with thanksgiving favorites, such as :
Pastel de Calabaza- Pumpkin Pie
Pavo- turkey
Patata- Potato
Pan- Bread
We also learned:
Feliz Dia de Acción de Gracias – Happy Thanksgiving
and shapes which were compared to food and feathers of Pablo the turkey!
Some teachers have asked me in the past years for ideas on Halloween themed classes. We have used many different topics but this year, I believe we really capture the children’s interest with the classes. We divided the Halloween topic in two classes, using the verb poner (Yo pongo), the children were asked:
1. To place Halloween objects in the cauldron – Yo pongo el fantasma en el calderon ( I put the ghost in the caldron)
2. To place eyes, mouth, ears, nose on the ghost’s face- Yo pongo la nariz en la cara….(Used a paper bag, markers for eyes, ribbon to tie the ghost), nice activity and cute craft
3. Book Activity- We read the book 5 little ghosts in Spanish and they had to place each ghost in each part of the book- Yo pongo un fantasma……
4. Song- Original Yo pongo sung by me to be released on my upcoming cd- for sound file email me directly
Vocabulary needed:
Ghost- Fantasma
Witch- Bruja
Monster- monstro
Mummy- mumia
Halloween – Dia de las Brujas or Dia de los muertos
Candy – dulce
trick or treat – dulce o travesura
Halloween, Dia de Las Brujas, is all about making children have fun!!!! Dressing up, having candy…..I hope my ideas will inspire teachers and parents celebrate Halloween at home using a foreign language!
Many parents asked if there is Halloween in Spanish speaking countries and I used to say no, there is a Dia de Los Muertos celebration which is more religious and not child oriented. Well, a parent of one of my students recently shared that in Colombia they do Dulces o Travesuras (trick or treat) and children dress up like in the US. That surprised me!
In Brazil, my native country, Halloween is only celebrated in English Schools, not as a real holiday…..They have dia das crianças, October 12th when little children receive toys.
I will share later this week some linkswith information on dia de los muertos and Spanish Halloween worksheets and songs. Stay tuned!
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