Los Meses Del Año

Counting, telling time, colors, days, seasons, months... these are some of the basic requirements to learning a new language. "Los Meses Del Año" translates to "the months of the year." And that is exactly what this song teaches. In fact, other than one lyrical reference to the title in the song, the names of the months are the only Spanish you will see.

You'll notice, as you look through the lyrics, the names of the months are not capitalized. That's because, unlike English, the months of the year in Spanish do not begin with a capital letter. There are exceptions, however. If a sentence begins with the name of a month, or if the name of the month is used as a person's name, then you will use a capital.

We have included a pronunciation guide on our web site. (See details in the box on page 79.) It might be helpful to go to that first, learning the correct diction, and maybe even memorizing the names of the months, before jumping into the music. Of course, if you have students who speak Spanish, by all means use them to teach the class.

Musically, this song takes an upbeat, Miami Latin approach to keep the kids (and audience) awake. Lots of percussion, rhythm section, and brass make up the instrumentation. It's rhythmically syncopated but the triplet feel is easy to latch onto, and the scale-oriented melody makes it pretty easy to learn, especially if you've already learned the Spanish.

You'll sing through the verse once, then comes the percussion break. (How many percussion instruments can you identify?) During the break, the month names are spoken. Make sure to increase the excitement level as you speak through them, but make sure the pronunciation is correct. Don't let anyone get lazy! Then you repeat the verse, go to the coda, and end. And that's it!