Monday, March 15, 2010

Put on a Play!

Giveaways are coming back! I have a lot of fun, exciting giveaways coming this week and the weeks to come! I also want to start posting more regularly :)

My children love to pretend and act out stories, the more dramatic the better. My second daughter (age 3 1/2) sometimes will not speak completely in Spanish. If I am using a silly voice in a play, she will repeat it all in Spanish! Lately we have been enjoying reading out of Horas Encantadas by Dorothy Sword Bishop, a book full of simple plays. Some stories include Cinderella, Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, Don Quijote, etc. They have a lot of repetition and simple vocabulary so they are perfect for beginners/intermediate level.

We choose characters (I usually give my second daughter the smallest part). Since my children cannot read, I usually whisper in their ear what they have to say. I encourage them to really act the part (have a deep voice, a mean voice, a sweet princess voice, etc.) We will practice the same play multiple times and soon I don't have to repeat some of the words. Last week, the girls acted out Don Quijote and my second daughter was the horse. You can find options for buying it here. I bought mine used and it looks like new.

Dialogues are a perfect way to get children speaking in another language. The more they practice the dialogue, the better it is. When I was younger about 8 years old, I remember waking up before breakfast and my Dad teaching me a simple dialogue he had learned while studying Spanish. We memorized it and had a lot of fun with it. I could say my part quickly and it gave me confidence that I could speak Spanish.

Sarita at her Musicuentos blog posted a perfect dialogue the kids would love to act out- DORA! Here is a link to her simple, fun play acting out a Dora episode. This is a perfect, FREE play to try out.

Do you know of any books that have simple Spanish plays to use with children?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Right! I think acting a short play is a good way to teach the kids more vocabulary. They enjoy it and later, they feel they are able to use the new words in a real conversation.Thank you for the DORA link!

Adriana said...

Thanks for the links! The play book looks great!

Anonymous said...

Great idead! I never thought about putting on a play before, but I will try it for sure.
Thanks!

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