Starting a new school year, whether at home or in a traditional classroom, is the perfect opportunity to gauge students’ preexisting fine-motor and vocabulary skills. In this free Back-to-School Tracing and Spanish Vocabulary pack, students learn or review Spanish vocabulary, finish / trace pictures of familiar school items, and (optionally) navigate how to select the correct Spanish article to match vocabulary terms.
Spanish Vocabulary
Sometimes Spanish vocabulary can be tricky because there are so many variant words across the Spanish-speaking world. School vocabulary is no exception. This pack includes the “textbook” terms (words in bold in the below list), meaning the words students are most likely to encounter in textbooks, shows, etc. designed for English-speakers. However, the download also includes popular variants. Below you’ll find the terms covered:
- Articles: el, la, las, los, un, una, unas, unos
- Bus/School bus: autobús, bus, camión, colectivo, guagua, ómnibus, autobús escolar, bus escolar, camión escolar, colectivo escolar, furgón escolar, guagua escolar, transporte escolar
- Chalkboard: encerado, pizarra, pizarrón
- School: colegio, escuela, instituto
- Crayons: ceras, ceras de colores, crayones, lápices de colores
- Backpack: bulto, mochila
What’s Included
The download includes 32 pages. But, you’ll probably only need or want to print five to seven of them. The five “textbook” vocabulary terms are presented as a group for fast printing, but variants are also included in groups.
Ideas for Use
Below we’ve outlined a few ideas of how to use these printable pages. If you have other ideas, we’d love it if you shared them with the learning community in the comments below.
Gauging Fine Motor Skills
Often, students come into the classroom with varying levels of letter and sound recognition, as well as varying fine-motors skills. These pages will help you quickly see and gauge where your students are and where they have areas for improvement.
Following Instructions
Many kids love to race through a sheet and do what they want when they receive one. Help them learn to listen to directions and slow themselves down. This is also an excellent opportunity to introduce additional classroom vocabulary orally, such as silencio, eschucha/eschuchen, línea, escribe/an, etc.
Word of the Day or Week
Completing several of these pages at one time might be overwhelming or tiring. Consider introducing one per day or week and really emphasizing the words throughout the day/week or other lessons. For example: Maestra: “Clase, ¿qué es eso?” Clase: “¡Pizarrón!”
Articles
This pack was designed to avoid “tricky to match” to articles. Each complete-the-picture/tracing page includes two boxes for students to match the object to definite and indefinite Spanish articles. Learners can use the included tactile blocks or simply attempt to write the articles on their own.
Tips and Tricks
Want to reuse the sheets? While lamination is an obvious option, you can also use clear sheet protectors (the kind that go in binders) or even quart or gallon-sized kitchen/food bags. Any of these three options will allow you to also use dry-erase markers instead of the included paper manipulation blocks.
Other Resources You Might Like
For more vocabulary, fine-motor, and tracing practice, try our free alphabet worksheets.
Use a different term? Another fun word to share? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
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