Who is Pepe Pato?

Maybe you are wondering who Pepe Pato is? Well, here is his story. 

Pepe Pato is the mascot of our little company. He is a cute little baby duck that loves to make sounds. So we decided to make a book about all those sounds. It took us almost a year to get a book made with this adorable little duck.

We named the book Los sonidos de Pepe Pato in his honor. We even included a special poem made just for him. Each letter has its own page with the capital and lower case letter. A very cute picture of Pepe doing something to help students remember the sound and a short sentence about the sound make it easy to learn beginning sounds. 

Our students fell in love with Pepe and went home telling their parents about him. 

So we made the students their very own Mini Book to take home. 

To introduce Pepe Pato to the students we made a really cute paper bag puppet. 

You can get your free copy of the puppet here.  


More activities to go along with Pepe Pato coming soon. 

Beginning Sounds Letter Booklets

I was playing around with our black and white Spanish Alphabet Guided Reading Books (or our English Alphabet Guided Reading Books) and I came up with this really cute idea. I thought that it would be a great center activity for the students to reinforce letter recognition.

Here is how I made it:

1. I made a copy of the Bb book and cut it apart.I cut out the letter and the pictures on the title page because it was too big.

2. I then took a piece of 9x12 construction paper and cut an inch off to make it 9x11. I then cut in half long ways. 

3. Mark one of the pieces at 4 inches from the top and fold. Mark the other piece at 5 inches from the top and fold. 

4. Open the pieces and place the piece with the 4 inch fold on the bottom and the 5 inch fold on top. Line up the folds and fold the pages together. Staple the pages on the fold. 

 5.  Add pictures. Glue the front page pictures on the top layer. Glue page 2 on the second layer making sure that the word shows at the bottom when the book is closed. I had to trim the top of page 2 just a little bit to make it fit. Glue page 3 on the third layer and page 4 on the bottom layer making sure that the words show when the booklet is closed. 

6. Students can try to read the words and lift the flaps to see the picture.  

7. These little booklets would be great to put into a reading center or just to send home for extra reading practice.  

Spanish Alphabet Letter Writing Box Freebie

I was shopping with my kids at the Dollar Tree (or Target) the other day when I found some pencil boxes in their "Back to School" area. I bought a couple and brought them home and made these really cute boxes to hold our Spanish Alphabet Writing Cards. You can download the labels here for free to make your own boxes. Just add a washable or dry erase marker and you have a cute little writing center for those early learners. We just added an English version here.

Alligator Letter Eater Idea!!

 I was playing around on Pinterest the other day when I found the cutest alligator made from a Cascade dishwasher soap container. You could cut up the Spanish Alphabet Chart or use our Spanish Alphabet Matching Cards and feed it to the alligator. The students will just love this game.

 Alligator Letter Eater

Follow us on Pinterest for more ideas. 

Center Activities

After the first few days of school and after we have established some sort of a routine, we decided that it was time to introduce some more small group and center activities to the students. These center activities are available for purchase on our website. Just click on the picture and it will take you to our site. 

Tip: Instead of giving the students all the cards, we gave them five at a time. We started out using just the vowels.  

Spanish Alphabet Flash Cards

1. Flash cards- We made a matching set of flash cards to help the students become familiar with the letters. We made two sets. 

One set we put on the bulletin board so that they could be seen easily. We could not figure out a way to have a download of a poster sized chart so we used the flash cards to make our own. We gave the students pointers to touch and say the letters.  We used the second set to place in a center for the students to practice. 

 Spanish Alphabet Puzzles 

2. Puzzles- All students love puzzles and it was easy to make a set with the alphabet letters. When designing the puzzles, we made them where they could be used in several different ways. At the beginning of the year, we had the students match the pictures as a way to practice their visual discrimination skills. Later, we had them match the picture to the small letter and the picture to the capital letter. Lastly, we had them match capital letter to small letter. 

 Spanish Alphabet Letter Match

3. Letter Match Cards- These are so cute and the students like using clothespins to match the letter to the picture. There are two sets. One set matches the capital letters and the other set matches small letters.

Spanish Alphabet Mini Guided Reading Books

4. Guided Reading Mini Books- In our small group time, we used these little mini books to help students learn tracking and that the letters together make words. These are very simple and only have one word per page. After a few times reading the book together, it was placed in the reading center for the students to practice. We put in tongue depressors to use as pointers.

 Spanish Alphabet Matching Cards

5. Spanish Alphabet Matching Cards-We used these cards like the game Concentration. There are 3 sets of cards. One has pictures, one has capital letters and the other one has lower case letters. There are three sets of backs also. 


Coming soon!
Spanish Alphabet Flip book

Spanish Alphabet Letter Tracing Cards

Check back soon!! 

Ideas for Using the Freebie Alphabet Chart

Get your free Spanish Alphabet Chart.

After we made the alphabet chart, we tried to think of some ways to have the students interact with  it and become familiar with the letters and the pictures. 

1. One idea that we came up with was to make a cookie sheet game. We have found that the students really like sticking things on cookie sheets. We  made two copies of the chart. One we made on regular paper and the other copy on cardstock. We laminated both copies. The reason that we made the one on regular paper is so that it would be less thick and the magnets would stick to the cookie sheet through the paper. We put the regular copy onto the cookie sheet and covered it with clear Contac paper. We laminated it first just in case we made a mistake or got a wrinkle when covering it with the Contac paper.  Laminated paper will not tear if you have to remove the Contac paper. We then cut apart the second copy and attached magnets on the backs of the pieces. This makes a really good center activity at the beginning of the year when many of the young ones need visual discrimination practice. Matching the pictures is fun for them as well as practice for visual discrimination. 

2.  As a small group activity, give each student a copy of the alphabet chart. Cut a square the size of the letter boxes in the middle of a piece of sentence strip. I used one of the pieces from the cookie sheet game to measure. 
     a.  Call out letters and have the students find the    correct letter on the chart. 
     b.Call out a sound and have the students find the correct picture.  
     c. Using the stick pictures made in the activity below,  show them a letter and have them find it on the chart.

3. Another activity that we did using the alphabet chart was to cut up another chart and glue the pictures on craft sticks or tongue depressors. We have the students choose a stick and see if they can match it to the pictures on the bulletin board.

4. We also sent home two copies of the black and white chart so the students could practice doing the alphabet activities at home with the parents.

**Please post your ideas and comments letting us know how you would use the alphabet chart. 

First Day of School

Imagine that it is the first day of Pre-kindergarten. Your Spanish speaking students walk in. What do you need to have on display in your classroom? 
The first thing that I put up when decorating my classroom is an alphabet chart. We couldn't find one that we really liked so we came up with our own. You can download a free copy from our Teachers Pay Teachers store.

 Here is the link to our alphabet chart:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spanish-Alphabet-Charts