When I wrote the Lemonhass homeschool curriculum for Spanish speakers, it was very difficult to find history materials for elementary students in Spanish. In the end, we created a few of our own resources to accompany the few that we found, but YWAM Publishers and Torchlighters have become great favorites.
YWAM Publishers, and authors Geoff and Janet Benge, have produced countless historical biographies of missionaries, heroes of the faith, and giants of the past. The vast majority of those have been translated into Spanish.
Each book tells the story of one main character and lists their birth and death dates on the back cover, so it is very easy to place them into your history studies.
Reading the Spanish book aloud along with the English is a great way for your student to practice reading fluency, pronunciation, and ear training, if being read to.
Aside from the language benefits, both children and adults will be moved and educated by their real life stories of courage, obedience and loyalty to God's work.
Each DVD is approximately 30 minutes in length followed by a few minutes of actual documentary information or footage at the end. You can also get a free account on the Torchlighter's website to get access to their free downloadable study guides and activity sheets to go along with each DVD.
Apart from that, here are a few more suggestions for incorporating Spanish into your history lessons:
- Label your maps in Spanish
- Trace your character's journey with a note in Spanish about each stop
- Look up and learn the translation of your history vocabulary words
- Older students can translate notebook pages or short reports on the events or people they study
- Use the country's flag to review color vocabulary
- If there are famous quotes or poetry, memorize them in Spanish
- Make story cards in Spanish or timeline illustrations for the events you study
How else to you include language learning in your History studies? I'd love to hear your ideas as well! Please leave me a comment below.
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