The Place Where You Live / El lugar donde vives is a beautiful bilingual book about places and how we experience them. The book is full of Spanish places vocabulary in a structure that is ideal for language learners.
The Place Where You Live / El lugar donde vives is published by Piñata Books, an imprint of Arte Público Press. Written by James Luna and illustrated by Thelma Muraida, this marvelous book connects the places, objects and interactions that make up el lugar donde vives. It is available from Arte Público Press and Amazon.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day brings attention to the need for diversity in children’s literature. It also highlights the wonderful multicultural books that are being published and offers activity suggestions for sharing them with children. Below, you can download a printable graphic organizer for a speaking and writing activity with Spanish places vocabulary based on The Place Where You Live / El lugar donde vives.
Check out the fabulous link-up of multicultural book reviews and activities for Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2016!
The Place Where You Live / El lugar donde vives is an excellent choice for children learning Spanish. Familiar vocabulary, rhythm and structure make the story a wonderful read-aloud. Warm, detailed illustrations pull children into the story and are rich material for speaking Spanish together.
The beautiful rhythm of this story comes from a repeated sentence structure. Each page introduces a new place and then adds information about that place, always with the same structure. For example:
Este es el huerto, vivo y verde, con los chiles y las calabazas que sembraste en primavera, aquí en el lugar donde vives.
Also:
Esta es la escuela donde van todos tus amigos a jugar en el recreo y aprender y crecer, aquí en el lugar donde vives.
The pattern and rhythm take children from spaces at home, out into the community and then back to the arms of family. It is a lovely reading experience that breathes calm, security and joy.
Spanish Places Vocabulary: Writing and Speaking Activity
The Place Where You Live / El lugar donde vives is wonderful children’s literature. It is also exceptionally well-suited for children learning Spanish. In particular, the book is perfect for exploring what makes spaces special to us and learning Spanish places vocabulary.
The Spanish places vocabulary in the book includes el lugar, la cocina, el huerto, la tienda, la calle, la escuela, la biblioteca, la cancha, el parque, el césped, el porche, el hogar.
After reading the story, try this activity to help children talk and write about places that are important to them and practice using Spanish places vocabulary.
Download the graphic organizer for a writing activity using Spanish places vocabulary.
The graphic organizer will help children think about the place and the language they can use. It is more logical for children to do the activity in the first person, so I used that form on the graphic organizer.
To do the activity, help children
- choose a place they regularly spend time.
- use the graphic organizer to gather information: what the place is like, what they see there, what they do there.
- use the information to write a sentence based on the structure of the story.
- draw a picture of the place using the sentence as a caption.
- talk about the picture using the sentence and pointing out details in the drawing.
Kids can write about several places and make their own book. Another option is to put children’s pictures together to make a class or family book: El lugar donde vivimos!
Rereading the collection is an excellent way to review Spanish places vocabulary.
The Place Where You Live / El lugar donde vives is a beautiful bilingual picture book that introduces Spanish places vocabulary in a relevant context. It is also an excellent starting point for children to explore the places that are important to them as they learn Spanish.
Disclosure: The company sent me a copy of the book to be able to write the article. All of the ideas and opinions are my own.
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