If you are a preschool teacher or a parent with a preschooler, Nacho Aprestamiento is a must-have book! As a children's Spanish teacher, this book has become one of my personal favorites that I use often within my classes. It focuses mainly on fine motor skills which are so vital in the preschool age. The way I have used this book is by having a lesson of the day, a game that involves that lesson, and then a craft that the book provides. I will share one of my lesson plans that you can adapt for your classroom or homeschooling with your children!
Using the tracing pages.
In my Spanish class. I have a variety of ages from 3 to 7 years. This means that I have to adapt the class based on the different ages. How I utilize the tracing pages within the book is to do an activity with the younger children and another with the older ones. For example, using page 58, for the older children, we looked for leaves outside the classroom. I talked with them about the colors of the leaves, their size, and how we should take care of our planet. I did everything in Spanish so that they could practice the language but also picking the leaves was a fun activity related to what they were practicing. After we entered the class, using the book, I asked them to cut the leaf outline found on page 58 and paste it on green paper. Then, with the leaves that we collected outside, I asked them to glue them inside the leaf of paper that they cut out. For the youngest children, I prepared another activity, before starting my class, with a black marker I wrote the word leaf on the same green paper that will be used for the craft. The word was written only with dots so that the little ones could trace the word. Both groups will do the same craft, the only difference is that each step in the activity process focuses on the cognitive level of each student. For a 7-year-old it is very easy to trace the word leaf, but for a 3 or 4-year-old it is quite difficult. Once the older children glued their leaf and filled it with the natural leaves, I helped the younger children do the same as it is a much harder process for them. I then checked that all the children finished with these two activities, and distributed pom poms. Finally, with both the little and the big ones, I asked them to fill the word leaf using the pom-poms. You can adapt this activity to your liking to make it more difficult, it can be by adding the writing of sentences. Or make the activity easier if you only have small children and remove the activity of cutting and pasting the natural leaves inside the sheet of paper since the activity requires more developed motor skills.
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Written by: Valeria Flores. University of California Los Angeles. Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Linguistics. Bilingual teacher.
