Using Winter Break to Practice Dual Language Skills

It seems so surreal that winter break is here! Are you ready for winter break with your kids? With school out for the next 2 weeks, we want to make sure our children keep their second language up too! It’s great to practice at school, but we love using Spanish and English in our home too! Anything extra you do to allow your children to practice their second language will go a long way to helping your children improve their dual language skills.

What will we be doing? Keep reading to see our favorite activities to incorporate over winter break.

Favorite Dual Language Activities

We have so many favorite activities to practice language. Some of these are independent and if you teach your children, they can do them without much support. Other activities are designed for parents to do with their children. We love these ones to encourage us all to practice Spanish together. You will also find some outdoor activities to compliment your winter break. We have included some extra activities to growing your child’s vocabulary since learning new words is so important for using their new language.

Independent Dual Language Activities

1. Switching the TV into Spanish for the break. Most TV programming that our kids watch over the winter break is in Spanish. We do watch a little in English if it’s something new or different. However, when they are watching a show they love or watching movie they have seen before, we love asking them to turn the language to Spanish.
2. Music in Spanish throughout the day. While we are cleaning, baking, and cooking, we love to play some Spanish music. We listen to both holiday, kid songs, and everyday music in Spanish. You can even throw in a Podcast in Spanish too!
3. Read in the second language. We spend the break exploring books, especially songs/poems in the second language. Not only does this build vocabulary, which they desperately need, but it also is great for reading development too. There are also many readers on YouTube who read Spanish books to kids.
4. Plan a few virtual play dates to practice their Spanish skills with some of their classmates. Zoom works so well and you can even find people who live in Spanish speaking countries to practice speaking. Many children from other countries want to learn English, so this is a great experience for both children.

Parent and Child Winter Break Activities

1. Spanish recipes. We find recipes to cook that are found in many Hispanic countries. We love exploring enchiladas, empanadas, flan, rice, etc. Try to print the recipe in English and Spanish if you can find it. = This just helps us double check things and make sure we are doing things the right way, but feel free to challenge them with just the second language recipe too! See this cookbook for a recipe written in both Spanish and English.
2. Set aside a time to use the second language. We like to try to speak only in the second language during a meal or while playing a board game together. Family time becomes language learning and practice time too. We find that just this little bit of time is not too overwhelming and something the whole family can do together.
3. Plan a few virtual field trips in the second language. We are lucky with Spanish because so many resources are available in Spanish and many virtual field trips are offered in both languages. These can be trips to a zoo, nature center, business, or museum. There are so many different places to explore.
4. Create and play some bingo and matching games. These are great because you can change out the items so they work for your children. You can use just words or words and pictures or even just pictures. Plus you can make the bingo cards or memory cards on any theme or topic you wish, thus practicing language skills even more! Some topics we love are Items at Home, Animals, Weather, and Favorite Activities. For more ideas, check out our post on Exploring Categories to Improve a Second Language.

Outdoor Vocabulary Building Activities for Winter Break

1. Outdoor walk. We love to take short walks around our neighborhood throughout the year, but especially when the kids are home for a break or long weekend. Encourage your children to name everything they see and do while on their walk in their second language. This is great for building vocabulary and practicing verb conjugations too.
2. Scavenger Hunts. Send your little ones on a second language scavenger hunt. Give them a list of 10 or so items in their second language to find. If your children need support, feel free to include a picture. However, expect them to tell you what they found in their second language.
3. New Activities. Try a new outdoor activity. For example, go sledding, snowshoeing, skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, ice fishing, etc. Before you go, learn all about the new outdoor activity in your children’s second language. Grow their new vocabulary and concept map in their second language. This type of language building can be very motivating for children since they want to try the new activity.

Dual Language Vocabulary Building Activities

Research suggests that dual language learners have smaller vocabularies in each of their languages than children who are only learning one language. However, dual language learners have vocabulary in two languages, which means they actually have rather large vocabularies.

Focusing on cognates to grow your child’s vocabulary is important. Even though cognates seem obvious, research supports that children need explicit instruction in noticing cognates. This is especially important when research has found that anywhere from 2/3 – 3/4 of science specific vocabulary are in fact cognates for English and Spanish.

Growing Vocabulary Words

1. Make labels. Pick a category for each week that the children are off school. During the week, create labels for items around the house and post them. Throughout the week, practice using the words in the second language together. Some categories we love: dishes, clothes, furniture, foods, cooking utensils, school supplies, genres of books, toys and family members. But here the list is endless. You could even name and label things outdoors.
2. Make Vocabulary Building Books. We love giving our kids a topic and having them make their own books. First, they will need to brainstorm the different items that fit in the topic. These become the different pages of their books. Second, they need to create or take photos for each page. This is so much fun because they can draw the pictures, make the pictures on the computer, or even take the photos using their camera. Lastly, they need to assemble their books. Now you have a special homemade book and can use this for practice too. Be sure to highlight the cognates with your children too!
3. Play Find a Cognate. Encourage your child to pursue a visual dictionary or nonfiction books. As they read, they should search for cognates. These are words that sound or look similar in the two languages. Record these words on a poster, paper, or in kid made books. Cognates make up much of the science and history specific words your children will encounter in their learning.

Growing Verb Conjugation Skills

1. Play with verb conjugations in Spanish. We love to play a memory, repeating game and it works great with conjugations too! We’re going on a _____ trip, and I’m going to bring _____. Vamos a un(a) _____, y voy a traer _____. Each time a new person goes, they need to repeat what the person said before them. For example, my kids would say: We’re going to a beach and I’m going to bring a blanket. You are going to bring a towel. He is going to bring a swimming suit. She is going to bring a bucket. Not only do you work on conjugations, but you also work on new vocabulary too! Some variations can be: we are eating/drinking, we bring (instead of going to), we see, we have, we do, and we want. So many different options!
2. Verb Conjugation challenge. Have your children name a specific verb. Then challenge everyone to try to provide as many conjugations for the verb as possible. This can include all the different tenses the children know too. Write down the conjugations when you can or just say them orally when that’s not possible. This method can help your children learn the different tenses and forms of verb conjugations. This challenge is especially helpful for irregular verbs.
3. The Person Verb challenge. This time name a person. Then tell all the different things the person or people can do. This lets your child focus on verb conjugations for one specific pronoun. You can work with different tenses too once your child masters one tense. This helps your children learn the pattern for regular verb conjugations.

Growing Sentences to Expand on Vocabulary

1. Growing Sentence game. For this game, start with a basic sentence stem. For example, I see or She goes. Then encourage your children to add words to describe and expand the sentence. We add one word or a short phrase at a time. Each person takes turns adding a word or short phrase as we slowly grow our sentence. You can aim for a specific word count or until the sentence becomes too long to remember.
2. Expanding Sentences challenge. Use subordinating conjunctions to expand sentences. We love to start with a short sentence and add a subordinating conjunction to encourage our children to add more information. These include while, although, because, but, so, even though, unless, after, since, if. Adding one of these little words to the sentence pushes children to think of more information to bring to their sentence.
3. Rapid Topic brainstorm. For children where a sentence is too much, work at the word level. Have your child name a noun (person, place, animal, thing). Then describe the word using as many adjectives and adverbs that your child can think of in the second language. When needed, use Google Translate to help add new words to your child’s vocabulary.
4. Tongue Twisters and Jokes. Let your child explore different tongue twisters of jokes in their new language. Many of these use a play on words or idioms. So not only will your child enjoy playing with language, but they will learn a deeper meaning of the phrases too.

Online Apps and Websites too!

Don’t forget that you have countless options of online apps and websites that your children can use to build their second language too! We have a few that we love and return to time and time again.

1. Duolingo – this is a free language learning platform with many different games and outputs for children and adults too. If you don’t have an account yet, you are missing out.
2. Imagine Español – This is one of the apps our school district pays for and we have access to at home. This app is really designed for younger learners but is wonderful with helping your child build language and literacy skills.
3. Drops – this is another free language learning platform with a heavy focus on learning vocabulary words. It only takes 5 minutes a day and helps to group vocabulary into categories for you and your child.
4. Mango Languages – while not free, many libraries offer this subscription service for free with your library card. This is a self-paced, interactive language learning platform that goes beyond just language. In addition, this app pushes for critical thinking and memory building too.
5. KidsTube – there is so much free Spanish content for kids on YouTube. You will find songs, poems, stories, games, vocabulary, and videos to share with your children. We love that we can even play these on our TV and all practice Spanish together.

Connect

Looking for even more vocabulary building activities? Get more ideas with our Grouping Vocabulary for Language Learning post. Wondering about what research says about language development. Need strategies for helping your child master reading in Spanish. Want other Winter Break activities for your kids or a few winter sensory bins to grow your child’s vocabulary?

We’d really appreciate if you would take a moment and drop us a comment below. Let us know if you found any of these activities helpful. Have other tips, let us know that too! Want more inspiration and some down for you ideas, subscribe to our newsletter below. We love to send our CreatingButterflies subscribers practical solutions you can use right now and some downloadable freebies from time to time.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.