Winter Break Spanish Activities for Kids

As winter break approaches, your children will have at least a 14 day break from school. Winter break is the perfect time to add in a little language practice each day. We are putting together our 14 day Winter Break Challenge with a variety of activities for your family to try out throughout the break. We are including a variety of independent and family Spanish language winter break activities for kids to use throughout the break.

We know that many families are busy. This is especially true during the holidays. Included are activities that your children can do at home without a lot of assistance, activities that your family can use while driving in the car, and family Spanish activities for the whole family. This variety is perfect to plan at least one Spanish language activity each day over the winter break.

Spanish Vocabulary Games for Winter Break and Printables

We are going to begin with our favorite Spanish vocabulary games to practice over winter break. We have found that winter break is the perfect time to practice vocabulary, especially for parents who are not fluent in the language your child is learning. Looking up a few words in a Spanish dictionary or Google Translate is something all parents can do.

While we will use the same few games over multiple days, we recommend different words and categories for each day of winter break. These games pair extremely well with our Early Kindergarten Vocabulary Words Bundle for younger learners. For each game below, instead of notecards, simply print the vocabulary word cards from the Early Kindergarten Vocabulary Words Bundle for a more done for your resource. If your children are older, we love to use science and social studies words from their curriculum. If you are looking for even more vocabulary categories, don’t miss our Grouping Vocabulary Words post.

Memory Vocabulary Games for Spanish

Memory or concentration is an amazing way to practice and reinforce vocabulary words. Depending on the age of your child, pick between 10 – 30 words to use for the game. Then write the English word on one card, the Spanish word on another card, and whenever possible, glue a picture on a third card. You can play with all three or use just the English and Spanish words or the Spanish words and pictures.

Once you have your cards made, simply flip them all upside down. Then take turns flipping over two cards and trying to find matches. If your child is playing alone, they can count how many turns it takes to match all the cards. Not only does this activity increase your child’s vocabulary, but it also helps to grow their problem solving skills and strategies.

Looking for a done for you memory game? Just head on over to our Early Kindergarten Vocabulary Words Bundle and print out the individual cards. Print out just one set or all 9. Each set comes with between 20 and 32 vocabulary words grouped around a common topic. Each set has words in both English and Spanish and pairs the words with a picture.

Label the House in Spanish

We love to work through our home over winter break to improve our Spanish vocabulary. Just pick a room in your home and work with your child to label all the furniture, utensils, and items in the room. A Spanish dictionary or Google Translate work well for determining the Spanish translations for all the different items in the room.

To make this activity a little more independent, we send our child around with an iPad. Our child takes pictures of 10 – 30 different items in a specific room of our house. Then we work together to write the Spanish word for each picture. We like to type them right on the photos. Then hand your child some post-it notes to write the words and label the different items in your home.

This is such a great way to practice and build your child’s Spanish vocabulary over the winter break. Having the label printed and stuck on the item makes it easy to read over and over again. Plus the post-its remind us to practice often during the break.

Spanish & English Scavenger Hunt for Winter Break

We love scavenger hunts with our children. These are such amazing simple activities to practice vocabulary. Additionally, there are multiple ways to use scavenger hunts to practice vocabulary words during winter break. Varying the scavenger hunts can make these activities a lot of fun.

Start by hiding the vocabulary words around your home. You can add an additional challenge by hiding the words in both languages or also hiding the pictures so that you child needs to match them up after finding. This will help ensure that all the words are found as well.

A second variation is to hide just the pictures or English words. Then have the child keep the Spanish words. The child should pick just one Spanish word and search for the English word or picture that matches. This way takes a little longer but checks for understanding of the vocabulary words at the same time.

Another scavenger hunt is to give your child the list of Spanish words and a camera. We like to use our iPad. Then ask your child to search the house to find each of the vocabulary words or to create each of the words using items in your home. This one takes the least amount of preparation but the most amount of time for your child. Plus this activity helps to grow your child’s critical thinking skills.

Winter Break Bingo or Loteria

We love Bingo or the Mexican version called Loteria. You can make up a quick bingo card and play together. Simply ask your child to write Spanish words on their square of their card. For younger children, you can use a smaller card (3×3 or 4×4) instead of the standard 5×5 card. Then write the English words on notecards to use for drawing out the words.

To make bingo cards super easily, be sure to grab our Early Kindergarten Vocabulary Words Bundle where you can simply write the Spanish words and cut up the English sheet to make the calling cards.

Charades or Pictionary to Build Spanish Vocabulary

Both Charades and Pictionary are great ways to work on vocabulary building with your children. Simply write down words in Spanish on notecards and place them face down or in a bucket. Then let your children pick one word. They can either act out the word as in Charades or draw a picture of the word as in Pictionary. The other people should try to guess which word they are drawing, preferably in Spanish but either language could work.

Write a Vocabulary Story

This winter break activity is best for older children. Ask your child to write a story using all the different vocabulary words. These stories can be as silly and creative as your child wishes. Encourage your child to use as much Spanish as possible, but don’t fret over a few English words in the story when needed. As an added challenge, provide only one word at a time to limit linking words using series.

For younger children, encourage oral story telling. Instead of writing the story, grow the story orally by choosing one vocabulary word at a time. As each vocabulary word is added to the story, choose another word to include slowly building your story. This is quite fun for road trips and depending on the order of the words drawn, this activity can be different each time you play.

Name the Word Guessing Game

Name the word is a fun winter break activity that can be played in the car. Write out the vocabulary words you wish to practice in Spanish on notecards. Simply pick a vocabulary word, but don’t tell anyone. Keep the word a secret. Give clues to help the other members of your family guess your word. For this activity you can use English or Spanish to give the clues depending on your understanding of Spanish.

You can also play this game more like 20 Questions where the members of your family ask questions to try to figure out the word. Playing this way also works well in the car but encourages question asking and critical thinking skills as well as vocabulary.

A final way to play this game is similar to the game Headbandz. Each person picks a word but doesn’t look at it, instead putting it on their forehead for all the other players to see the word. Then each person takes turns asking questions to figure out the word on their forehead. With this adaptation, you can play all at the same time or one at a time depending on your family. We find that this type of vocabulary building works great at meal times.

Odd One Out Vocabulary Activity to Build Spanish Language

This is one of our family’s favorite vocabulary activities to play over winter break. For this activity, you will need vocabulary words that fit into a specific category and some words that don’t. Write these words on notecards. For a done for you option, use one set of our Early Kindergarten Vocabulary Words Bundle for words that fit together and words from a second set for words that would be the odd one out.

Show your child 3 vocabulary words. Two of the words should fit together while the third word is the Odd One Out. Your child should state which vocabulary word is the odd one out and why they believe that. This activity helps to build vocabulary knowledge, relationships of words through analogies, and critical thinking skills.

Spanish Winter Reading Challenge Activities

During winter break, we plan extra time for reading. Our children read in both English and Spanish each day over winter break and we have seen so much language growth from the reading alone. Try to vary the reading experience each day. Below is our calendar for winter break reading activities that we use with our children. Feel free to print and use as is or change any activity to best fit your child.

Favorite Christmas Stories in Spanish

We have a few Christmas stories that we absolutely love written in Spanish. As often as possible, we try to share Spanish stories originally written in Spanish with our children or at least written by Spanish speaking authors. However, there are so many English stories that are translated into Spanish as well that are absolutely fabulous. Try to have a mix of both within your home for your kids to enjoy again and again.

1. “Twas Nochebuena by Roseanne Greenfield Thong invites the reader to a Hispanic Nochebuena celebration.
2. Era La Víspera de Navidad by Clement C. Moore is a Spanish translation of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.’
3. Feliz Nochebuena, Feliz Navidad by Maricel Presilla tells the story of Christmas in the Caribbean.
4. ¡Qué Montón de Tamales! by Gary Soto shows the story of Maria helping her mother make tamales for nochebuena.
5. La Noche Buena: A Christmas Story by Antonio Sacre is the story of a young girl traveling from her snowy home to spend Christmas in Miami.
6. El Àrbol de Navidad by Alma Flor Ada tells a rhyming story of a family decorating their Christmas Tree.
7. Arturo and the Navidad Birds by Anne Broyles shares another story of decorating the Christmas Tree with a very sweet twist.
8. A Piñata in a Pine Tree by Pat Mora describes Latino customs in a Spanish version of the “12 Days of Christmas.”
9. Celebrate Las Posadas by Marisa Boan explores the celebration of Las Posadas in a Hispanic community.
10. Mi Burrito by Susie Jaramillo is based on the Spanish Christmas carol “Mi Burrito Sabanero.”
11. La N es de Navidad by Susan Middleton Elya and Merry Banks is a bilingual ABC Christmas book.
12. Miracle of the Poinsettia by Brian Cavanaugh is a mexican legend of the origin of the poinsettia flower.
13. Carlos, Light the Farolito by Jean Ciavonne describes the Spanish tradition of Las Posadas written in English.
14. Federico and the Magi’s Gift: A Latin American Christmas Story by Beatriz Vidal tells the story of the Hispanic Three Kings or Magi, which are similar to Santa Claus written in English.

Spanish Winter and Holiday Songs for Kids

Songs are an amazing way to learning and enjoy a new language. We love to play at least one Spanish song each day of winter break with our children. Often times we listen to Spanish holiday music throughout the day such as when we are cooking, cleaning and driving. Many of these songs have English translations or are translated into Spanish from English songs. It can be a lot of fun to listen to both the Spanish and English versions of the songs together.

Each of these songs have versions available in Pandora and YouTube to add to any playlist.

1. Navidad, Navidad – a Spanish version of Jingle Bells
2. Rudolfo el Reno – Translation of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
3. Blanca Navidad – Spanish version of White Christmas
4. Feliz Navidad – bilingual Christmas classic
5. Cascabel – a Spanish version of Jingle Bells
6. Mi Burrito Sabanero – a Venezuelan Christmas carol about a donkey’s journey to Bethlehem to see baby Jesus.
7. Noche de Paz – Translation of Silent Night
8. El Niño de Tambur – Translation of Little Drummer Boy
9. Los Peces en el Rio – a popular Spanish Christmas carol focused on Mary, the mother of Jesus.
10. Campana Sobre Campana – a Christmas carol from Spain about the birth of Jesus.
11. Ya Viene el Niñito – an Ecuador Christmas carol about the birth of baby Jesus
12. Ya Vienen Los Reyes – Translation of The Three Kings
13. El Año Viejo – a Mexican New Year’s song and remembering all the good from the past year
14. Ven a Cantar – a Spanish Christmas song written to remind us to pursue our dreams and remember all we have accomplished.

Spanish Writing Winter Challenge

We love to encourage writing over winter break just as much as reading. For our children, we create a 14-day writing challenge to encourage our children to write every a little every day over the break. To try the challenge, all you will need is at least 4 pages of paper, but you may want more depending on how much your child writes.

Spanish Family Writing Decorations

We also include 2 week long writing experiences in Spanish for our children that we post in our kitchen and add to throughout the week. For week one, we cut out a large Christmas Tree from green paper and hang it on our refrigerator. Using scraps of colorful paper, our children add ornaments to the Christmas Tree through week one of break. Before adding the ornament to the Christmas Tree, our children write one kindness they can give to someone else. We encourage all writing to be in Spanish. Our writing prompt is “How Can I Show Kindness to Others?” or “¿Cómo Puedo Mostrar Bondad a las Demás?”

During the second week, we focus on the New Year with our children. We create a paper chain of all the wonderful memories we are grateful to have experienced during the last year using one color. Then we add all the experiences we are hopeful to try this new year in another color. We again encourage our children to use Spanish to write their favorite memories and experiences they are most looking forward to this year.

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.