Using Clifford to Teach Spanish Names for Animals

This lesson plan introduces your students to basic Spanish vocabulary. Use this lesson plan as part of a unit on Clifford. It can also be used on its own.

• Clifford’s Animal Sounds/Clifford y los sondidos de los animales by Norman Bridwell
• List of animal names in English and Spanish
• Pictures of animals (one set for each student plus a set for you)
• Chart paper
• Construction paper (9 x 12)
• Crayons
• Markers (for you)
• Scissors
• Glue or glue sticks

Before you teach this lesson, type up a list of animals that are in the book. Choose five or six animals, and type the English name first. Then type the Spanish name beside it. You will also need to print out pictures of the animals that you included from the book.

Sing Old MacDonald as a class. Then, talk about farms. Ask your class if anyone has ever visited a farm. Talk about what animals they would see on the farm.

Show students the cover of the book. Point out the words that are in Spanish. Explain to them that Spanish is another language that people speak. Ask them to make predictions about what will happen in the book. Ask them to think of some animals Clifford might see on the farm.

Show students pictures of the animals that will be in the book. Ask them to name the animals. Write the name of the animal on chart paper. Then, introduce the Spanish names of the animals and write them on the chart paper beside the English name for the animal.

Read Clifford’s Animal Sounds to your students. Read the Spanish side too. If you cannot speak Spanish and don’t want to read it, see if another teacher can read the Spanish part. You can also see if a parent in your class would volunteer to read it as well. Stop to talk about the animals that Clifford sees on the farm.

Explain that today students will be learning Spanish words for some animals. Pass out the list of animals that you typed up and the glue. Have students cut out the English/Spanish names for the animals and glue the names onto the construction paper. Make sure they keep the English and Spanish name for the animal together. It is up to you if you want to do one name at a time and have the class stay together. Make sure they leave enough space to glue the pictures of the animals.

Pass out the pictures of the animals and the crayons. Have students color the pictures and then cut them out. Call out an animal and help students identify the name on their construction paper. Have them glue the animal by the name. Repeat this for the other animals.

Place "play" farm animals from the book in a paper bag. Have students come up one at a time during free play time and draw three out of the bag. See if they can identify the English and Spanish names of the animals. You can also use extra pictures of animals from the book and do the same thing.

Use the pictures that students created in this Clifford lesson plan, to make a bulletin board display.

Introduce other basic Spanish vocabulary to your class. Some great choices include food, articles of clothing, or different modes of transportation.