Fellow Moms and Teachers Share Ways to Teach Children Opposites
We increased our number of prize winners to four! The following women shared their preschool/early elementary school teaching ideas on how to introduce opposites and then how to bring Spanish and English into the picture at times too!
They all won our More Boca Beth / Más Boca Beth bilingual music CD from our award-winning bilingual product line!
You know what comes to my mind from learning opposites as a kid? Grover from Sesame Street showing “near” & “far” LOL. He would get right up in the camera & really enunciate the word “near” & then run far away & enunciate the word “far”. He did that a whole bunch of times. It’s been a “million” years since I’ve seen an episode of Sesame Street & I STILL remember that, so it must have made an impact. 
So, my answer: over-the-top visuals & repetition! from Dawn
With any concept, including opposites, I love hands-on and so do my kids. We would pick out some toys/objects that demonstrate opposites such as, big and small balls, tall and short dolls, boy and girl toys, etc. I think that the concept could be understood with a realatively small number of opposite sets (like 5) so that the kids don’t become overwhelmed. We would talk about what makes something opposites and then go on to each set of objects. It would be fun at this point to introduce the sets using both the English and Spanish words (alto(a)/bajo(a) and tall/short). After going through each set a couple of times, it is always fun to try and put what you are learning to music, it is also easier to recall later. from Katrina
I have used several ways this year. Pictures have worked very well. Seeing the differences over and over. My son does well if he can see thngs. We walk arond our house and try to find things that are opposites. We also do lots of worksheets about opposites. It would be good to put the Spanish words on post it’s and place them on items arond the house. from Carol
I find that a great way to introduce children to any concept in a foreign language is through books and props. I would first read a bilingual book about opposites, such as “mis opuestos” to introduce the topic. Then I would have a set of large and small objects, wide and narrow, tall and short, a door that opens closes, etc… and then incorporate it into a game where each child would pick out a pair and identify the opposites in Spanish. from Vivian
Thank you ladies and thanks to all of you for reading, sharing and using the tips from this blog that I maintain a passion to continue as long as the interest is there!
Happy Educating! ¡Sea feliz educando!
Boca Beth
Really easy to use and affordable opposite language cards on a ring stand to buy from Ingenio 
