January Spanish Language Kid Activities for a Dual Language Family

For the month of January, we are bringing you Spanish language activities for kids that are designed for dual language families. These Spanish January Activities focus on holidays celebrated by Hispanic families from around the world as well as winter fun for the month. We try to provide a variety of activities that can easily be used with children of all ages as well as ways to support and challenge your younger and older children.

Learning a language is a fluid experience where children need continual exposure to the new language to develop the vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure. The more we play with the second language, the quicker our children will learn the language as well as begin to use their second language. Having a list of special activities to introduce in the month of January will keep language learning thriving in your home during the winter months.

Language Development for Dual Language Learners in January

January usually marks the halfway point through the school year in America. Most children have been in school for four or five months. Your child should have been introduced to many new language skills and once again be used to hearing and speaking in their second language.

By January, children are expected to read at a higher level than when they began school. They should be writing longer pieces or pieces that are more elaborate than in the past. This is a time when children begin to put all the language skills learned so far into practice and really fine tune their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.

What Should Children Who Just Started Learning Spanish Know by January?

Children who are just starting to learn a language, often begin their language learning with a silent phase. This usually lasts about two to three months, so by January your child should be comfortable using a few words, phrases, and sentences in their second language. The vocabulary used will most likely be common vocabulary like school supplies, family names, places in school, body parts, weather words, and colors and numbers. These are basic vocabulary that most children learn prior to attending school in their native language but will need to learn in a second language.

The sentences that your child might use may sound very basic. That’s okay! We don’t expect complete stories or paragraphs yet. Most children will be able to tell what they can do, something they see, and what something is in both languages. For Spanish, these would include sentences similar to Yo puedo ____, Yo veo ____, or Esto es un ____. With time and practice, your child should be able to write two or three sentences in their new language.

Code switching is completely normal for dual language learners. Sometimes your child may use a combination of English and Spanish when speaking and writing, this is code switching. You may also hear your child use the wrong vowel sound when reading or use the wrong vowel when writing, this is another example of code switching. Sometimes your child may even forget a word in English and only remember the Spanish word. Again, this is normal and with time your child will better be able to separate the two languages.

How Can We Challenge our Older Learners in Spanish?

Children who have been enrolled in a dual language program for years are often ready for even more challenge at home. Often times the child’s Spanish language is better than the parent’s Spanish language skills. This is perfectly normal and to be expected as your child spends hours each day learning in Spanish. But what can parents do to prompt language usage at home when they themselves cannot use the language?

As your child is able to read and write in both languages, you can encourage your child to use these skills around the home. As your child learns a new concept in science or social studies, encourage them to write down all the vocabulary words that they learned in Spanish. They may need to write English translations, especially if this concept is new for your child. Then encourage them to add as many more words as they can in English, or their native language. Next, your child will need to translate these words into Spanish.

Using the vocabulary words your child wrote, encourage your child to write stories, articles, jokes, and puns using the vocabulary words. The more that your child uses these words, the quicker the words will be added to their vocabulary. You child could even make a drawing and label the drawing in their second language on days where they aren’t interested in writing.

You can also encourage your child to read articles and nonfictions books in Spanish to help build their vocabulary even further on these topics. A quick trip to the library or a google search can help you to find reading materials for your child.

January Hispanic Holidays Celebrated Around the World

January is a month filled with holidays and family time. While many of the American holidays are celebrated by Spanish speaking families, there are also some special Hispanic holidays that your family can learn about and explore together.

January 1st: New Year’s Day : El Año Nuevo begins the night before on New Year’s Eve or La Nochevieja.

January 5th: The Night of the Wisemen or La Noche de Reyes. Some call this night La Vispera de Reyes as well. The night before January 6th, some Hispanic families will leave grass and water outside their door for the three wisemen’s camels who traveled to give gifts to Jesus Christ. Oftentimes the grass is placed inside a decorated basket or shoebox. Then in the morning, the children may find gifts or candy in their basket. Prior to tonight, children write letters to the three wisemen about the gifts they would like to receive. This is very similar to Santa Claus in America.

January 6th: Epiphany or Día de los Reyes is the final day of the Christmas festivities and is also the day that many Hispanic families exchange gifts. The Three Wisemen bring the gifts instead of Santa Claus for many Hispanic children. These gifts are often placed inside the children’s old shoes. Some families will exchange gifts on Christmas Eve (La Nochebuena) or Christmas Day (La Navidad) as well. On this day you will often find families enjoying the King’s Cakes or Rosca de Reyes, which is an oval shaped cake with a small doll inside. The person who receives the slice with the doll hosts the Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas) on February second.

January 20th: Día de San Sebastían or St. Sebastian Day is a holiday celebrated in Spain with the Tamborrada drum parade to celebrate the life of St. Sebastian. The day begins at midnight, when the flag is raised. The day continues with multiple Tamborrada drum parades through the city. Throughout Spain, you may also see many different costumes and representations from history. The day concludes at midnight with the lowering of the flag.

January Dual Language Writing Prompts for Kids

With the New Year beginning, we love to begin our year with writing resolutions for the New Year or resoluciones de Año Nuevo. Encourage your children to write their resolutions in both English and Spanish. We have found a few creative ways to write our resolutions over the year. Our writing prompt is often “What Are Your New Year’s Resolutions?” or “¿Cuáles son tus resoluciones de Año Nuevo?”

1. Write resolutions on cut out snowflakes and hang on your Christmas tree.
2. Write resolutions on New Year bells, balls, or fireworks to hang around your home. We create fireworks from colored cupcake lines cut towards the center.
3. Create the new year in paper and write your resolutions on the numbers.

With the three wisemen’s visit approaching, your children could write a wishlist of toys they would like to receive for Día de los Reyes. Our children love to write this as a Christmas list. We usually print or purchase some winter or Christmas themed stationery to use for wishlist writing. Our writing prompt is “I wish the wisemen would bring me…” or “Deseo los reyes me trajeran…”

With Martin Luther King Jr Day celebrated later in the month, we love to also reflect on our dreams for the future. For this, we usually make a simple podium from brown paper and fill it with our dreams. We use the writing prompt, “In the future, I dream….” or “En el futuro, sueño…” Then fill the podium with your children’s dreams for the future with colorful markers or pieces of paper.

Another January writing prompt that we love is describing how we can stay warm in the winter. January usually brings lots of snow, high winds, and low temperatures in our area, so we use this to expand our writing. My kids of made a variety of posters for this writing prompt from a snowflake, snowman, cup of hot cocoa, marshmallow, and jacket. There are so many options for your writing prompt base. We use the prompt “We stay warm in January by….” or “Nos mantenemos calientes en enero …”

How Can You Adjust for Younger Learners?

For our younger learners, we may ask them to write only one or two words to finish the writing prompt. Try to keep the writing as simple as possible when they are just beginning. For children who are struggling with writing in Spanish, you may ask them to write the words in English or even draw a picture. Then you can write the words for them or ask them to copy the words after you help them to translate their response.

The focus here is on growing vocabulary, so asking your child to write is not necessary. If you write for your child, be sure to have them repeat the words in Spanish and discuss the new vocabulary together. Right now you are helping your child to hear more Spanish words and learn some new vocabulary.

How Can You Modify for Older Learners?

For your older children, we suggest asking them to write the entire sentence not just the ending. If your children are willing, ask them to explain their reasoning through writing. Why is this their resolution or dream? Why should they receive a specific gift? Asking for two or three sentences will challenge them to write about the prompt while encouraging deeper thinking in their second language.

In their writing, encourage them to underline or circle any new words they needed to translate into Spanish. This helps to draw attention to these words over the time you leave the writing prompt up. Another place to challenge your child is with conjugations of verbs. Encourage them to draw a box around verbs or highlight the verb endings to double check for correct conjugations. Verb conjugations are a skill that takes time to master and even when fully understood, can cause difficulty.

Spanish Kid Songs for January

We absolutely love Spanish music with our children. We include both Spanish translations of English songs and songs written in Spanish. Most of these songs are available through YouTube or Pandora for easy listening and playlist creating.

1. Copo de Nieve is a song about snowflakes falling from the sky and is great for teaching different body parts as the snow lands on different body parts.
2. Libre Soy is the Spanish translation of Let It Go from the Frozen movie.
3. Invierno by Grupo Encanto describes winter and winter activities that children enjoy doing during the winter.
4. Frosty el muñeco de nieve is the Spanish translation of Frosty the Snowman. There are many different translations available, but any of them are great to add to your playlist.
5. Ya Vienen Los Reyes is a song about the Three Wisemen bringing gifts to Bethlehem.
6. Báte, Báte Chocoláte is a Spanish song about Hot Chocolate while breaking down the word into syllables
7. El Invierno by RockAlingua describes what you wear in winter and how you may need to play inside more often. It also references the Hispanic game parchis.
8. Jugando en la Nieve is all about different ways to play in the snow.
9. La Cenicienta: Un sueño es un deseo is the Spanish translation for Cinderellas: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes
10. Quieres hacer un muñeco? is the Spanish translation of Do You Wanna Build a Snowman? from the Disney movie Frozen.

January Books to Read in Spanish

We love to include some books to read in Spanish as well. Our children read every day and whenever we can we try to include books to read in Spanish. For our January Spanish books, we are including many books about winter as well as the New Year.

• Three Kings Day by Marisa Boan introduces children to the customs and traditions of this special day for Hispanic children. This is the perfect compliment to learning more about Christmas in Hispanic countries as well as the birth of Jesus and the trip of the three wisemen to deliver gifts to the new baby.

• Invierno by Allie Busby describes all the different ways that children can play outside and inside in the winter. This short book teaches the special vocabulary that your child will need to describe many of their favorite winter activities, while allowing your child to step into reading in Spanish.

• Los Animales en el Invierno by Jenny VanVoorst is one of our favorite books to learn about the animals who thrive in the winter and how they adapt to their environment. This book is designed for beginning readers and will assist your child in practicing reading in Spanish while learning about animals during the winter.

• Un Día de Nieve by Ezra Jack Keats is a beautiful translation of Snowy Day, a classic winter story. This is the story of a little boy exploring in the snow in a variety of ways while learning that snow melts when it is warm. Not only will your child practice winter vocabulary, but they will also learn some positional words along the way.

• Tren de Invierno by Susanna Isern tells the stories of the winter animals catching the Winter Train to warmer lands, opening up a dialogue about migration in a humorous manner. Your child will delight with the animals packing for their winter trips to warmer places.

• El mitón by Jan Brett is the Spanish Translation of the book The Mitten a cumulative story about animals using a little boy’s white mitten to find warmth during the winter. Will the little boy find his mitten? And if he does, what will his mitten look like now?

• El Día en Que Descubres Quién Eres by Jacqueline Woodson is a beautiful book describing the challenge of walking into a new place where no one is quite like you. It is the perfect compliment to Martin Luther King Jr Day. This story will help your child to recognize that while we are all difference, we are also all the same.

• El Color de tu Piel by Desirée Acevedo brings to life diversity among children in an entertaining and creative way to discover that skin color is so much more than a single color. Which crayon in your box is skin color for you? What about your friend? Should we have a greater variety in skin colored crayons available?

• Osos Polares y Pingüinos by Katharine Hall compares and contrasts animals that live in the North and South Poles. Take a deep dive into the world of polar bears and penguins to learn many interesting facts. This is a wonderful nonfiction book for children.

• National Geographic Readers Los Pingüinos by Anne Schreiber introduces children to the wonderful world of penguins. This is the perfect introduction to nonfiction books for children learning to read in Spanish and accompanies the documentary March of the Penguins, while providing more facts about Emperor penguins. This book is designed for younger readers, who are ready for more of a challenge.

Spanish Nursery Rhymes for January

Learning a few Spanish Nursery Rhymes can help your child develop the new language. These are usually fairly easy to learn and are often set to song. The nursery rhymes come from a variety of Spanish speaking countries. Some are country specific while others are more widely known. Just as with any nursery rhymes, the words may differ a little from country to country while the meaning stays the same.

With the New Year just beginning, many children will be staying awake on La Nochevieja or New Year’s Eve. With the approaching of midnight, Las once y media serían or ‘Twas Half an Hour to Midnight, is the perfect nursery rhyme to ring in the New Year.

Las once y media serían

cuando sentí ruido en casa.

Bajo corriendo y qué veo

que se paseaba una araña.

Lleno de furia y valor

saco mi luciente espada.

¡Y al primer tajo que doy

cae al suelo desmayada!

¡Qué cosa tan prodigiosa!

¿Vuelvo otra vez a contarla?

In honor of Día de San Sebastían, Al Tambor, or the Drum Song, is the perfect nursery rhyme to include in January. Tambor is a Spanish word for drum, so we pretend to play the drum each time we say tambor. Adding in a motion with the nursery rhyme will not only help your child to learn the words but also the meaning.

Al tambor, al tambor,

al tambor de la alegría,

yo quiero que tú me lleves

al tambor de la alegría

María, ¡oh! María

María, amiga mía,

yo quiero que tú me lleves

al tambor de la alegría

Another Hispanic nursery rhyme for early January is Nanita, nana. This is a Christmastime nursery rhyme as well as a lullaby in many Spanish speaking countries. While for most Americans Christmastime ends in December, for most Hispanic families, Christmastime continues until January 6th. The nursery rhyme is about a babysitter or nanita who is taking care of baby Jesus, trying to keep the little bird from waking him.

A la nanita, nana,

nanita, nana, nanita, ea,

mi Jesús tiene sueño,

bendito sea, bendito sea

Pajarillo que cantas

sobre el almendro,

no despiertes al niño

que está durmiendo.

Duerme mientras la cuna

lo balancea

a la nanita, nana,

nanita, ea.

With January comes the colder weather, so just as we added the song Báte, Báte, Chocolate, we will add the nursery rhyme El Chocolate. We sure do love a cup of hot chocolate on these cold winter days.

Uno, dos, tres, CHO,

uno, dos, tres, CO,

uno, dos, tres, LA,

uno, dos, tres, TE…

chocolate, chocolate,

bate, bate, el chocolate.

With Martin Luther King Jr Day in January, one must include Paz y Libertad, Peace and Liberty. This is a Spanish nursery rhyme wishing peace and liberty for all the children of the world, including ending hunger and war.

Para los niños de todo el mundo

queremos paz y libertad.

Paz, queremos paz

y libertad en este mundo.

Ya no más hambre, ya no más guerra,

queremos paz en esta tierra.

Paz, queremos paz

y libertad en este mundo.

Para los pobres y los viejitos

queremos paz y libertad.

Paz, queremos paz

y libertad en este mundo.

Ya no más bombas ni radiación,

no más ideas de exterminación.

Paz, queremos paz

y libertad en este mundo.

January Crafts with a Language Focus

Our family loves to create decorations for our home. There is nothing better than a fridge full of artwork and artwork hanging all around us. These crafts focus on the Hispanic January holidays as well as winter in general.

Begin by making a mug of hot chocolate to accompany the Bate, Bate, Chocolate song. You can make this as simple or complex as you wish. For younger children they can simply color the mug, while older children may create a paper or clay mug. To add a language piece, ask the children to write the directions for making hot chocolate, including any foods they would mix in for added taste.

To go along with Día de San Sebastían, your children could create the flag of Spain using red and yellow paper. You will also need the Spanish coat of arms depicting two crown-topped pillars of Hercules. Again, for younger children you may wish to precut two thin red strips and one thicker yellow strip. For older children, you may provide them little pieces of red and yellow paper, while directing them to create the flag of Spain. While working, ask your child to describe how they are creating the flag. Where did the put the red? Where is the yellow going? Which color is thicker/thinner? What do they see in the Spanish coat of arms?

Another option is to create a penguin or other winter animal. This pairs nicely with the two nonfiction penguin Spanish books included in the list above. To make the penguin, simply cut out a large black oval, two smaller long black ovals and a black circle. Then you will need a white oval that fits inside the large black oval and a white circle to fit inside the black circle. Finally you will want to cut out three orange triangles: one for the beak and two for feet. To tie in language, the children can describe how they are assembling their penguin and then write facts that they learned about penguins from the nonfiction books.

We’d Love to Connect with You!

As your family works together to build your children’s second language, you are giving your child a wonderful gift. Need even more dual language building activities for winter break? Find more vocabulary ideas in our post on Vocabulary for Dual Language Learners. Want to help your child master reading in Spanish, visit our parent’s guide for beginning reading in Spanish. Searching for other Winter Break activities for your kids while they learn a second language, we’ve got your covered. Worried about your child’s slow progress in their second language? Read what the research says about language development.

We’d really appreciate if you would take a moment and drop us a comment below. Let us know your favorite ways to practice Spanish vocabulary and your favorite Spanish Christmas songs, books, and poems. Have other tips, let us know that too! Want more inspiration and some done 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.