Lesson 4: Teaching Food in Preschool Spanish

Inside: A preschool lesson on teaching food in Spanish, through comprehensible stories, songs, and input for kids.

Lesson 4 Goals: I can recognize the names of several familiar foods.

Target Structures: tiene hambre, come, toma, la manzana, la leche, el maíz, el pan, el agua

Click to see my outline of Preschool Spanish Lessons for Los pollitos dicen. (Each lesson provides enough material for multiple classes.)

Review: Sings the songs learned so far, ¿Cómo te llamas? ball chant, Los animales Bingo.

Movement/brain breaks: Stretch with our movement words: levántate, siéntate, manos arriba, and manos abajo, corre and salta, Duck, Duck, Goose in Spanish, or ¡Salta, salta!

TEACHING FOOD IN SPANISH FOR KIDS

ACTIVITY 1

Introduce la manzana, la leche, el pan, and el agua. It’s best to use real objects or toys if possible, when introducing new words. Practice saying each a few times, and circle them a bit (¿Es una manzana? ¡No! ¿Es agua? ¡Sí!)

Have cutouts of la manzana, la leche, el pan, and el agua ready for everyone (included in a Unit 2 purchase). Pass them out, and practice following directions using the props. Say, come el pan; they search for the the right picture, and pretend to eat it.

ACTIVITY 2

Tell the story El caballo que tiene hambre, available below. The term uvas is included, and will show up later throughout the unit. You shouldn’t need to define, however, as the students will understand the word from the pictures.

ACTIVITY 3

Vote on favorite foods and make a graph. I prepared little cards with names ahead of time, since we’ll repeat this activity, but post-its would work as well. This is a fun way to get in lots of repetition of the food names as you ask and point to the pictures.

ACTIVITY 4

Play ¿Qué hay en la bolsa? again, from Lesson 3. Have bags ready with toy foods inside, or sneak foods into one bag for each turn. Sit in a circle, and the kids take turns getting a bag. They have to put their hand in the bag and guess what food is inside just by feeling it. Once they guess the food, we talk about it. ¿Te gusta el maíz? ¿El perro come el maíz? etc.

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LA COMIDA SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES 

A song to learn basic terms for food in Spanish:

More terms for la comida, going through the meals of the day:

WANT MORE?

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